It is pouring rain as we arrive with the Refugee Women Center. Women are standing in a line. A few hesitate about finding shelter, but there is hardly any place to take cover. “Stay in line, or you’ll lose your spot,” someone shouts to a few others. They stand close together. Some hold on to each other.
It is still raining as we set up the gazebo. Meanwhile, the line keeps growing longer. A number of women step out of the line to help, then quickly return to their place.
Next to this spot, Project Play is playing with children under a small shelter. They are coloring, puzzling, playing. Small children. Tonight, they may or may not sleep in a tent. They run around. A brief moment of lightness. Their mothers are standing in line for a tent.
But beyond that, there is nothing light about this place. Nothing at all. Truly nothing.
While angry people in the Netherlands shout that these are criminals—yet set fires themselves and then go home—people here are standing in line so they do not have to sleep outside tonight. Children play in a place without perspective. Just for a moment.
These people, who can still laugh, who help each other, where sometimes anger takes over and sometimes, astonishingly, it does not, are standing in line for a small tent. A blanket.
Imagine standing in that line. Set up in a place where there is nothing. And tomorrow the police will clear it.
In this place, your heart breaks into a thousand pieces. Because people are reduced to non-people. Because it is a senseless loss of billions to keep taking everything away from people again and again. An endless cycle that says: you are worth less than nothing.
And no, it does not deter. The numbers are not decreasing, and they will not decrease as long as wars are encouraged, as long as bombings are supported. As long as every country says: we do not want you.
The only thing in this hell that gives courage are the people who help each other—the organizations, but also the people themselves. But what used to be enough for me is no longer enough.
We are creating a world in which the downfall of people is the goal.
This world suffers not only from a lack of empathy, but also from a lack of imagination. Imagination to see how these people are trampled when numbers are used to create a sense of control. Imagination to see how all of this could be different.
A small boy wearing a self-colored mask tries to scare me. We both burst out laughing. Tonight, he will sleep in a small tent—or not. The wind is too strong, so no one is crossing.
For the love of all that is humane, support these organizations that are doing everything they can to preserve the last glimpses of humanity. If they disappear, hell will be complete. Then there will be no drinking water, no tent, no blanket, no aid, no clothes. And as Europe shifts further to the far right, there is little to expect from governments. It will simply come down to people of goodwill—to you and me.
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