I've been invited to "like" the following Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Creative-Collective-for-Refugee-Relief/1685067585059703
There is a LOT of paranoia flowing about re: immigrants trying to swamp "Great" Britain. This is creating xenophobia, which ALL creative artists should work to eradicate. The truth of the matter is VERY far removed from the scare scenario that scruple-less politicians are encouraging in order to forward there own murky agendae.
In fact, the number of immigrants camped at Calais, TRYING to get into Britain is only between 1 and 2.5% of the number who arrive in Italy and Greece, and THAT's only a drop in the bucket when compared with the global situation.
Let's keep things in perspective. According to The Guardian's article "10 truths about Europe’s migrant crisis",
"There are countries with social infrastructure at breaking point because of the refugee crisis – but they aren’t in Europe. The most obvious example is Lebanon, which houses 1.2 million Syrian refugees within a total population of roughly 4.5 million. To put that in context, a country that is more than 100 times smaller than the EU has already taken in more than 50 times as many refugees as the EU will even consider resettling in the future. Lebanon has a refugee crisis. Europe – and, in particular, Britain – does not."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/10-truths-about-europes-refugee-crisis
Please consider contributing something (e.g. signed copies of your book or ms, a custom-tailored short story for the buyer) to this refugee relief appeal.
I don't know how European politicians hope to solve the refugee crisis. However, I do know that there are much larger countries in the Europe, like France, Germany and Poland that would swallow the total land mass of England many times. They have room and cheap land to house people, whereas we have a shortage of both in our cities and towns. In addition to those problems we have two million young people without jobs.
I sympathise with the plight of genuine refugees, but the more we take, the more we encourage others to follow.
I was also invited... and have invited all my FB friends. I've also donated 3 sets of signed books (one 1st edition + one latest edition in each set) for sale or auction. (I hope that they're auctioned, because in the case of a good cause, this generally brings in MUCH more than the donated article's actual worth.)
Thanks for thinking of posting this here. I join with you in hoping that other writers will contribute something.