Category: Humanitarian Crisis

No equal refuge: Inequality, Inter-generational gaps and mindset in migration

December 1st, 2025

“Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours”

– W.H. Auden, Refugee Blues

I remember driving down the highway once, listening to a talk-back radio show. The topic was migration, and the presenter’s question went something like this: “So, is it time to turn off the tap? What do you think? Let us know!” This metaphor of ‘the tap’ really got to me — and not in a good way. It was an open invitation – maybe even an attempt — to be divisive and polarising. The idea of the ‘tap’ suggested a flowing influx; something that might need to be ‘turned off’ if it were perceived to be flowing too freely. This does not come close to capturing the nuance of migration. There are those migrants who have lost everything and faced unimaginable hardship. Then there are those who are looking for a better life, those who are coming to fill labour shortages, and even those who might just be looking to pursue a dream or a specific opportunity. In debates about migration, some things frequently get lost. What we end up hearing can be something of a polarised debate between two extreme positions – a ‘turn it on, turn it off’ kind of debate. I will suggest that the state of the recipient country, inter-generational differences, and the mindset of those migrating, are further factors that are important when considering migration.

There are typically what are called ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors in any decision to migrate. ‘Push’ factors are essentially the things that might drive someone away from a place (things like conflict, lack of employment, a shortage of housing) and the ‘pull’ factors are those things that attract people to the new location (a secure lifestyle, being close to family, or better opportunities, for example). The ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors will likely be very clear to those who are making a choice to migrate to a new place. They will have a good understanding of what it is they are leaving, why they are leaving it, and of what is attracting them elsewhere. Second or third generations may lack this first-hand understanding, which is something I’ll come back to.

When discussing migration, one of the first things we need to do is to distinguish between refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. In short, refugees are fleeing a direct threat to life – that is to say armed conflict or persecution, whereas migrants are seeking to improve their lives or prospects. An asylum seeker is effectively someone whose claim for refugee status has yet to be established. We can further differentiate between forced and voluntary migration. Forced migration has an element of coercion, compulsion or of displacement due to disaster. I would argue there is a third category that sits somewhere between forced and voluntary migration. That is to say, there are situations where migration is both a choice, but not an entirely happy or freely chosen ‘choice’. ‘Forced’ would be too strong a word. There are situations where the push factors are such that to stay would potentially risk putting one’s health and wellbeing at risk.

In a 2019 article titled The End of Asylum, Nanjala Nyabola sets out the “growing global backlash” against those seeking asylum. As this ‘inviolable right’ is becoming subject to growing restrictions, people are effectively left in situations where they are living in limbo. Nyabola cites one example of such a hardening approach in the border-crossing policies between the U.S. and Mexico. The idea of international protection being afforded to those fleeing war or persecution was established in the UN Declaration of Human Rights adopted in the 1948 UN General Assembly. It said that “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” The idea is also one of inviolable protection – a right to be free from arrest or persecution. What is happening now, as it was in 2019, is that this right is being rolled-back and eroded, in light of what are seen as unsustainable levels of migration, or anti-migrant sentiment.

Nyabola describes a situation where increasing numbers of those seeking asylum become stuck in camps – effectively living in long-term limbo as asylum seekers, without the full protection that refugee status affords. There is a further category of people that are not mentioned here, but that are worth considering: those who stay behind. Arguably, even the ability to leave as an asylum seeker is something of a privilege. Many people, for reasons of health, age, disability or lack of means, will not have this option. So, in that sense, those who are able to leave are in fact a subset of the greater population. They might be the more well-connected and better resourced. Protecting the rights of those fleeing is all very well, but at what point does it become as important, if not more so, to look at the wider situations that are causing people to move? Is offering asylum enough, or does there need to be more concerted effort towards supporting solutions in the places that people are leaving?

When there were fewer and more discrete events that people fled, it was perhaps easier to accommodate those who were fleeing them. When conflict and crises exist on multiple fronts simultaneously, how long can this relocation keep up? Some, like Nyabola, argue that the solution is for more countries to step up – particularly the richer countries, and that it is unfair to expect poorer countries to shoulder the burden of taking in more refugees. The following is a second example of such an opinion:

“The world would be a considerably fairer place if every country took their share of refugees fleeing war, persecution, violence or environmental destruction. Many nations have a political incentive – due to anti-migrant sentiment—to act selfishly and close their borders.”

– David Lammy

In general terms, I would agree with this. Yet migration can bring its own problems. One issue is the in-country situations of the nations that migrants enter. Looking at the opening lines of Auden’s poem ‘Refugee Blues’, we get an immediate sense of inequality:

“Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.”

Setting aside the specific historical context in which the poem was written, the issue of inequality is a common one. It is still with us today, and is very much evident in some of the richer, so-called ‘developed’ countries that some would argue are ideally placed to take in more refugees. So, how does that work? If the in-country inequalities are such that ‘some are living in mansions’ while others are ‘living in holes’, how does this idea of refugee resettlement really work out in practice? Suppose members of the indigenous population of a place live in poverty, or those who’ve lived a lifetime in a country are struggling? Any kind of refugee resettlement necessarily involves investing in those newcomers so that they have a standard of living that is comparable and reasonable in relation to others. But what is that standard?

No doubt many in such host countries would say they would be happy to keep living in their cars, or their holes, if it means others can escape a war zone and be given half a chance. Yet at the very same time there are those who are living in mansions. While such countries may take in refugees, and seek to afford them a decent standard of living, it is possible to see how this could simply be a form of window-dressing while in-country inequality continues to grow. In the long-term, this might not make for the most harmonious cultural integration. It could well lead to resentment, frustration and the adoption of populist anti-migrant rhetoric. I would suggest that those rich countries that are well-positioned to take in refugees, need to work just as hard to ensure that their levels of domestic inequality are drastically reduced. It would seem that welcoming new people with one hand, handing out a loaf of bread to the folk that are struggling with the other, while accepting that rich-listers will continue to build 5-star luxury resorts and a runway for their private jet, is not a healthy concoction.

The mindset of migrating adults vs. their children

When talking about push and pull factors, I mentioned that for adult migrants, they are generally quite clear about what these factors are. Young children of migrants generally don’t have any sense, at least not in a first-hand kind of way, of either the ‘push factors’ in the old place, or what is perceived to be better about the new one. They will be unaware of the kind of balancing act that the parents or older generation have made on their behalf. While they might have some memories of the old place, and may be told about it by their parents, this won’t be the kind of experiential knowledge and clarity that the parents possess. They will find themselves in the new place essentially as if they belong there, and don’t know any different – but with a recent history of migration on the part of their parents.

While we might hear about culture shock, integration and multiple identities, or even of people being between cultures or operating across cultures, the psychological realities of migration for adults versus their children, or the first generation born in a new country, are fundamentally different experiences. I think it is worth differentiating between the experiences of adult migrants and their offspring.

Holding on and Letting Go

Holding on and letting go is something that lies at the heart of the migrant’s experience. It is essentially the question of how much to ‘hold on’ to the old place, and the identity that was formed there, and how much to ‘let go’. Any adult migrant necessarily has an identity that was shaped by the place where they grew up and spent their formative years. This may mean they are attached to the ‘old country’ in a way that is hard for their children, if they have any, to feel or experience. The children will grow up in the new place, with varying levels of understanding of the old place and its culture. Adult migrants might find themselves frequently looking back at the old country — reading the news from there, for example, maintaining old friendships and connections; staying connected with their culture of origin. Children may not experience this urge at all, being located firmly in the new place – physically and psychologically.

Adult migrants might seek out the local members of their culture of origin in a new place, and wish to socialise and interact with them. Their children may likewise become socialised into this community of origin, particularly if their parents aim for them to remain connected to their culture. Such diaspora communities can enrich new cultures where they become well integrated into the social fabric of the new place. However, for the children of migrants, the main aim might be to blend in with the new place, and not to be regarded as different, foreign or in any way discernible from other children. Children may just want to blend in more than anything.

Crossing cultural divides

Some cultures are clearly more similar to each other than others. If we look at Europe, for example, there are many cultural differences across countries within Europe, but there is also a common essence, or what might be called a European identity. We could say the same for other continents. I think it is fair to say that migration between places that are relatively similar, will generally be easier than between those that are radically different. This means that those crossing bigger cultural divides will potentially need to be prepared to experience greater challenges of integration. This idea of preparedness is key. Being aware of what kinds of challenges might lie ahead, could make it much easier in a psychological sense.

References:

Auden, W.H. (1939) ‘Refugee Blues’.

Lammy, D. (2020). How our need to belong can make tribes or break society. Constable, London, G.B.

Nyabola, N. (2019) ‘The End of Asylum: a pillar of the liberal order is collapsing – but does anyone care?’, Foreign Affairs.
Sudan: victim of too many crises?

August 31st, 2025

“There should not be a competition between crises. But unfortunately we’re seeing with everything going on in the world, other conflicts, other humanitarian crises and other things making headlines, that unfortunately Sudan is – I wouldn’t even call it forgotten – it’s ignored.” — Leni Kinzli

Kinzli is right. Sudan is ignored. If we go by the numbers, 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance — that’s roughly two thirds of the population (ACAPS, 2025), 9 million displaced and 3.7 million acutely malnourished children (Goldhagen et al, 2024), then Sudan should be a lot more prominent in the media than it is. According to Oxfam, it is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. It should be making the headlines in ways that it isn’t. It should be up there alongside Ukraine and Gaza, yet it isn’t. When I read about Zamzam, I wondered why news of what happened there didn’t register back in April. Other things did. Somehow Zamzam escaped notice. Sudan wasn’t on the radar – or at least, not as prominently as it might have been.

Two things seem clear at this point: one is that media attention and press coverage do not necessarily converge according to numbers of people affected, or areas of greatest need. This reminds me of a lecturer I had at university, asking why most of us in a graduate zoology class were fixated on studying large, visually dominant vertebrates, when the most numerous species in the world were insects. Why, indeed? He called it species bias. The same could be said for geographical bias in terms of global attention and response to crises.

Maybe it’s human psychology to pay attention to things that are flashy and attention grabbing, or to focus our efforts on places that are felt to be like us, close to us, or somehow connected. How a crisis develops can have an impact too: the perceived level of injustice, or the suddenness of onset. Conflicts that are slow to develop, or long-standing, might garner less coverage than flashpoint disasters. A political element, such as the UK’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates outlined here in the case of Sudan, may be at play. Whatever the reasons, it would seem that the collective psyche should be on guard against this tendency to pay selective attention – and that moving towards analysis and investment based on numbers and need is a necessary correction.

Second is the fact that breaking news columns tend to feature an assortment of useless fluff amongst the range of grim realities. Competing with news of genocides and global conflicts, are stories about Taylor Swift’s new love interest, or some development in the personal life of Meghan Markle. For one thing, we only have so much time and attention. Weeding the news is time-consuming. It’s distracting. And it seems to suggest that the love interests of a musician are somehow equally deserving of our collective attention as life-and-death humanitarian emergencies.

Reflecting on those last two words humanitarian emergencies, it is possible to take a more philosophical approach. Calhoun (2010) does just that in an article titled ‘The idea of Emergency: Humanitarian Action and Global (Dis) Order.’ He describes what he calls ‘the emergency imaginary’ – a way of thinking that construes these as large, unpredictable events emerging out of nowhere, rather than the result of long-term political, economic, environmental and social factors coming to a head – a therefore predictable phenomenon. Coupled with that is the immediacy of news of such events, and how they are portrayed:

“This sense of suddenness and unpredictability is reinforced by the media, especially by television. The continuous stream of reporting on gradually worsening conditions is minimal and usually consigned to the back pages of newspapers and specialist magazines. It doesn’t make the cut for headlines—let alone half-hour broadcast news programs. So when violence or vast numbers of people lining up at feeding stations do break through to garner airtime, they seem to have come almost from nowhere.”

Again, I am reminded of a university lecturer, a different one this time, who predicted with an uncanny degree of accuracy the potential impacts of an earthquake occurring in a particular place. Five years later, the predictions came true – not through the major geological fault line he’d been referring to, but an altogether smaller and lesser known one. The combination of building in a particular area, a range of older, unreinforced buildings, and the human tendency to ignore low-likelihood, high-impact scenarios and fail to plan for them, combined with a natural event outside of anyone’s control. It had all the hallmarks of an emergency: unpredictable, devastating — yet very predictable in what the consequences might be if one had cared to look ahead and listen.

In light of this tendency to focus on emergencies, Calhoun describes who, or what, he believes ‘humanitarian’ has come to signify:

“The term “humanitarian” now is reserved for actions free from longer-term political or economic entanglements, actions deemed right in themselves, the necessary moral response to emergencies. It is something good to do without waiting for progress, even if you have doubts that progress will ever come. The emergency has become definitive because it is understood to pose immediate moral demands that override other considerations”

“It is the focus on immediate response suggested by the emergency imaginary, with its emphasis on apparently sudden, unpredictable, and short-term explosions of suffering. And it is sustained by the experience—or at least the hope—of altruistic work, of work embedded in direct moral purpose.”

Something good to do; the hope of altruistic work…with direct moral purpose. And, crucially, something good to do and by implication to feel good about, while wider circumstances, root causes and contributing factors are not addressed. It is not hard to see parallels, or similar ways of thinking, that take place in other settings. Take criminal offending and the justice system, for example. An offender is brought to trial. The offender is duly convicted and sent to jail. This too, is a reaction to an emergency of sorts: a moral and legal reaction to a criminal act. And while a judge might mention mitigating factors like the offender’s personal circumstances, the wider societal systems, and what might be a wide range of factors that lead to criminal offending, are left unaddressed. The emergency – or the offender – having been dealt with, life goes on until the next case comes along: another urgent response, another prison sentence or intervention, and maybe a sense that justice and morality has been served once again. Yet the long-term problems, the structural inequalities and issues that plague a society may persist, resulting in the same preventable things happening again.

Calhoun summarises this way of thinking as follows: “Emergency” thus is a way of grasping problematic events, a way of imagining them that emphasizes their apparent unpredictability, abnormality, and brevity and that carries the corollary that response—intervention—is necessary.’

We could look at Calhoun’s article about emergencies and point to the fact that these thoughts were written 15 years ago. Has the world moved on? From looking at the media today, it would seem that it hasn’t. We are still in a state of panning attention from one breaking emergency to the next, with what seems to be an ever-growing demand on our collective attention, and our potential for action. Attention is not necessarily given according to need, meaning that certain countries or regions, such as Sudan, are ignored and effectively left behind. The tendency to think in terms of emergency and urgent response, largely ignores root causes and the predictable, cumulative effects that build-up to create the next breaking ‘emergency’. The last word, too, shall go to Calhoun:

But transforming the global order—say, by making it more egalitarian as a way of limiting future suffering—is not on the manager’s agenda.

Reference: Calhoun, C. (2010). The idea of emergency: Humanitarian action and global (dis) order. Contemporary states of emergency: The politics of military and humanitarian interventions, 29-58.

Image Credit: AI
Gaza, war and the cost of inaction

July 23rd, 2025

1 Shahed drone: between 20 – 50,000 USD

1 Patriot air defence missile system: 4 million USD

Estimated cost of reconstruction in Gaza: 50 billion+

Estimated reconstruction costs in Ukraine: 524 billion

Climate change adaptation costs : USD 140 billion to 300 billion per annum by 2030

What do these figures illustrate? That war itself is very costly, cleaning up the aftermath may well be even costlier, and to put it all in perspective: there are ample costs as it is. The cost of climate change adaptation, for example. They are costs that require cooperation, not conflict. And this is only in terms of money and financial cost. Add to that the costs of displacement: again, financial, but also the psychological burden. Factor in the disruption to lives and livelihoods, intergenerational trauma, human rights violations, grief and loss: the costs are phenomenal. Meanwhile, valuable time and resources for combating climate change are being diverted towards conflicts. Even thoughts and intellectual effort are directed towards military ends, rather than towards solving shared problems.

Many of the places currently facing conflict or war, were already in a precarious situation, with poverty, environmental constraints and climate change. Take Sudan, for example:

BBC: Sudan War – https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjel2nn22z9o

“Its 46 million people were living on an average annual income of $750 (£600) a head in 2022. The conflict has made things much worse. Last year, Sudan’s finance minister said state revenues had shrunk by 80%.”

Or Gaza:

BBC: Gaza War – https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckglpk9xjewo

“The UN says water shortages in Gaza are worsening due to the lack of fuel and spare parts for desalination, pumping and sanitation facilities, as well as insecurity and inaccessibility due to Israeli military operations against Hamas and evacuation orders. As a result, many people are receiving less than the emergency standard of 15 litres per day, amounting to what the UN calls ‘a human-made drought crisis’. ”

The current situation in Gaza is abundantly clear: starvation and famine. Food is not getting through. When it does, desperate civilians are being killed trying to get to it. In the face of all this, what do we do? Trying to ensure food trucks get into Gaza is proving difficult enough. Is it still worth donating money in the hope this somehow translates into aid on the ground reaching those that need it? Does pressuring governments make any difference, when the views and statements of those governments seem like little more than dust in the wind?

The Gaza conflict is approaching the two-year mark. What started with horror at the actions of Hamas, turned to horror at the actions of the Israeli Defence Force. To provide context, the figures are around 1200 people killed by Hamas in the October 7^th attack, with 251 taken hostage, and 58,895 people killed by Israel at the time this article was published. Israel’s right to defend, fails to hold up when compared to the numbers of civilians killed in Gaza.

There has been a certain level of intellectual ambivalence with regards to this particular conflict. We can look at how the war started, and see that this was a clear attack on Israel. Even today, Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, at least twenty of whom are believed to be alive. Israel has vowed they won’t stop until they have rid Gaza of Hamas. As an individual it feels hard to hold a complete view on the situation. The political realities are complex, and they span long lengths of time well before the events of 7^th October 2023. There are alliances of traditional allies that have influenced the timing and nature of political responses, and indeed the reluctance of some states to condemn Israel’s actions. Not only is it hard to grasp the politics just by reading about it, but there are also questions over motivations and views, and whether the views presented by politicians, academics or professionals in Western media are representative of significant parts of their respective populations, or not.

Finally, there is the familiar back and forth that has come to characterise other situations of conflict around the world. One state, being accused of something, quickly denies or disputes it, saying it’s not the truth. With restrictions on media reporting, such as is currently the case in Gaza, this becomes impossible to verify or fact check for the average person. Further complicating matters is the fact that most reported figures from Gaza are courtesy of ‘The Hamas-run Health Ministry’. How much trust one can place in those figures, and any concerns about bias, have to be balanced by the fact that when it is the only form of reporting of civilian casualties, it would be unwise to dismiss them out of hand. How much trust can be placed in any of Gaza’s institutions feels like a similar balancing act. But while Hamas might run Gaza, how much support do they really command?

Potential resolutions or ways forward that have been discussed include the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza as a starting point, an arms embargo on Israel, the use of sanctions, and recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution. These are mostly high-level responses involving long-term efforts and negotiations. The immediate issue that won’t wait for any of that to happen, or not happen, is the starving civilians in Gaza. Standing in a crushing crowd with a tin basin in hand to collect food, keeping the sun away with it as one continues to wait, is not something anyone should have to endure. Children carrying jerry cans of water, if they’re able to find any, or doubled up under crippling loads, are not something the world should tolerate as images of childhood. People starving to death in the 21^st Century is not something the world must accept. The solutions to immediate humanitarian necessities such as these must be considered an immediate priority, separate to discussions around what the long-term future might look like. It is an indictment on our joint humanity if there isn’t an end to this – and soon.

Image Credit: AI

Category: Humanitarian Crisis

No equal refuge: Inequality, Inter-generational gaps and mindset in migration

Sudan: victim of too many crises?

Gaza, war and the cost of inaction