Some images sear in our memories, capturing in one frame dramatic events and emotions: a GI kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day at the end of World War II; a three-year-old John Kennedy Jr. saluting his father’s casket; a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl running naked as napalm burns her flesh after a U.S. bombing raid. The photograph of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose body washed ashore on a Turkish beach early this month, was as powerful and heartbreaking as any image.
Aylan, a Syrian refugee, died along with his brother and mother when the small boat that was to carry them to Greece capsized in the Aegean Sea. They were part of a growing army of migrants fleeing the violence and devastation of Syria — as well as other crisis-torn states, from Iraq to Libya to Nigeria — in search of safety and economic opportunity. The human toll has been horrifying. Hundreds, if not thousands, have died at sea, and 71 migrants were found dead in a truck on an Austrian highway. The diplomatic and political toll has been great, too, fanning tensions among European countries and inflaming anti-immigrant sentiment, with Hungary building a wall to keep migrants out. But the photograph of Aylan Kurdi inspired more change than months of dire headlines. Germany offered to take as many as 800,000 asylum seekers, prompting other countries to open their doors wider.
Migratory pressures seem certain to grow, though. At a time when people and information flow more freely than ever, inequality, political dysfunction and violent extremism propagated by the likes of the Islamic State and Boko Haram can inspire millions to risk everything for the hope of a better life.
In coming weeks political leaders will gather at the U.N. General Assembly in New York to endorse sustainable development goals that are intended to drive policy for the next 15 years, and officials will assess the health of the global economy at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Lima, Peru. There will be contentious discussions about how much advanced nations can afford to spend to help poor nations cope with climate change, and about the consequences of slower Chinese growth and potential U.S. rate hikes on emerging-markets economies. There are no easy answers to such questions. But we have now seen, too graphically, the costs of failing to take action that strengthens security and extends opportunity.
Follow Tom Buerkle on Twitter at @tombuerkle.
