{"id":670,"date":"2009-12-02T16:33:23","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T00:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/?p=670"},"modified":"2010-11-16T12:48:40","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T20:48:40","slug":"refugee-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/2009\/12\/02\/refugee-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Refugee Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

by W.H. Auden (1907-1973)<\/h4>\n

Say this city has ten million souls,
\nSome are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
\nYet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.<\/p>\n

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
\nLook in the atlas and you’ll find it there:
\nWe cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.<\/p>\n

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
\nEvery spring it blossoms anew:
\nOld passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.<\/p>\n

The consul banged the table and said,
\n“If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”:
\nBut we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.<\/p>\n

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
\nAsked me politely to return next year:
\nBut where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?<\/p>\n

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
\n“If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread”:
\nHe was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.<\/p>\n

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
\nIt was Hitler over Europe, saying, “They must die”:
\nO we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.<\/p>\n

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
\nSaw a door opened and a cat let in:
\nBut they weren’t German Jews, my dear, but they weren’t German Jews.<\/p>\n

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
\nSaw the fish swimming as if they were free:
\nOnly ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.<\/p>\n

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
\nThey had no politicians and sang at their ease:
\nThey weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.<\/p>\n

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
\nA thousand windows and a thousand doors:
\nNot one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.<\/p>\n

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
\nTen thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
\nLooking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.<\/p>\n

–<\/h4>\n

While you certainly can’t just remove the bits about the Holocaust and be left with the experiences of contemporary refugees, it’s a poignant lament on the push and pull factors associated with involuntary migration. I especially appreciate that Auden points out the fallacy of equating passport possession with genuine “identity”. Also, the fish metaphor reminds me a bit of Kibera slum – in that stands in stark contrast to the area surrounding it, only ten feet away:<\/p>\n

\"Kibera<\/a><\/p>\n

When you think slum, you don’t usually think “golf-related injuries”, do you? I wouldn’t be surprised in this case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by W.H. Auden (1907-1973) 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. Once we had a country and we thought it fair, Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there: We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":720,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[640],"tags":[4409,5070,205],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-human-rights","tag-research-discovery","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/720"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1457,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/1457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}