Refugees

Most people know this famous picture, but not many know how big it is. Gericault wasn't impressed by small. The original is 7m wide and 4m high. The figures at the back of the raft are life size, and those in the foreground twice life-size.

The inspiration for the painting was the wreck of the Medusa when she ran aground. There were not enough small boats to accommodate much more than half those on board, and about 150 people had to escape on a hastily constructed and utterly inadequate raft.

When the raft was found after 13 days, there were 15 survivors, and their experience is hard to imagine.

Drifting. Lack of care. Conditions that would make hell tremble. Over-crowded boats. Sound familiar ?

There was a great joke on the radio yesterday. The economy of Greece, it said, is built on yogurt and hope. It made me laugh, maybe because I eat so much yogurt. 

Yet, amazingly, the Greeks, the Greeks whose economy leaves them amongst the poorest in Europe, the Greeks have shown more humanity and more imagination in welcoming - yes, welcoming - refugees than anywhere else. Their generosity and humanity have not been reluctant, but warm.

What the Greeks can see, maybe, is the scale of the problem. It must look a lot bigger in the original than from the distantly cosy UK, the world's boastful fifth largest economy.

The refugees who are fleeing so recklessly in overladen boats, those refugees who have paid so richly to escape, those refugees who are so willing to risk their children's lives, well, they need help, and they need it now. They are in big trouble, and the people on Lesbos can see that. And they can imagine it, as many of their own families were once expelled from Turkey.

And our response ? The British values we are so proud of (but never define - they are a bit like our constitution, also conveniently not written down) seem to be headed by xenophobia and a failure of imagination. With the fifth largest economy on the planet, this isn't our problem.

It does not matter what drove these people to become refugees. They need help, and we should be giving that help whatever the cost. Whatever the cost. 

Regardless of the crazy way the planet is governed, these people bleed the same blood as you and I do, and feel the same pain and despair. They, too, have one shot at living.

Time to stop looking the other way. Time to give.