Looking at pictures of families going through the smashed wood, masonry, obliterated furniture and overturned cars after a tornado has hit their homes, you know not to just look at them as people trapped in only that moment, especially if you live in or near the area or have experienced a tornado. You know deep down that something like that could happen to you, and that taking action to help persons made homeless by such things is infrastructure.
Obviously, this applies to pictures of internally displaced people and refugees we see in places like Darfur. But with a record number of families worldwide made homeless by violent conflict, you want to say that infrastructure has failed.
We’re in a bad time right now. Darfur is an excellent example of why that is, and you can name plenty more. But the thing to get is this: if we do not solve the root causes of these displacements many millions will die or be damaged beyond recovery, and an insidious precedent will be reinforced. Ignoring the problem makes it easier to do it again, to diminish that infrastructure we all need to live. If everyone got this, the UN would work much better, and a lot of the examples you thought of a moment ago would be solved.
It helps to realize that refugees and internally displaced people just want to be able to take care of themselves.
It’s terrifying that right now violence has kept over 59 million people worldwide from doing that.
