Refugees in Lampedusa, Italy. Image: Flickr/NBN
How do you react when some 1500 people are said to have drowned in the Mediterranean this year alone in their desperate efforts to escape the poverty and conflicts that they face in Africa and Asia? Do you express your horror at such a terrible human disaster and demand that search-and-rescue operations are restored immediately? Do you condemn the actions of those European governments who called for rescue operations to be scaled down in the first place? Do you reflect on the causes of the circumstances that force people to embark on such hazardous journeys in the first place?
Or do you, as Katie Hopkins did in her recent Sun column, shrug it off and say that you don’t care. ‘Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don’t care.’ Having heard that 700 people may have lost their lives in one single incident, Hopkins was granted the opportunity to host a phone-in radio show on Sunday morning where she defended her position and asked: ‘Why do we take on everyone else’s problems? We can’t afford to take on these problems. We need to push these boats back.'
