In scale and complexity, the crisis of the world’s displaced—65.9 million people, according to the UN Refugee Agency—is difficult to grasp. The need for a public reckoning, a working through of a societal response to this unprecedented circumstance, is clear.
Much of the serious reporting that does exist often presents refugees as the problem, rather than displacement and its drivers. The narrative is driven by the supposed inconvenience of Western citizens rather than the actual story of the refugees themselves. We don’t get to hear the stories of why people leave, because it seems as if the public in the West is more invested in how to deal with the refugees than what their lives are about.
This leads one to wonder how much media help, not just in the fight to ensure that people’s humanity is respected, whatever their status, but in the effort to understand the roots of this global phenomenon and address it in a humane way.
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