Thursday, September 03, 2015

Not my UTMB race blog

I woke up intending to write about the beauty of Mont Blanc.

I woke up intending to write about the run that I chose to do.  About how painful it was.  About how hot it was. About how much I suffered. About how it was all worth it just to cross the finish line.

Somehow that all seems a little irrelevant now because I woke up and saw this photo.


I am not ashamed to say that I am sitting here crying.

These people are human beings, like you and I. We can not imagine how bad their life must be, how scared they must be, to put their families at this kind of risk. Would you risk all this just to 'sponge' off our benefits system?

Why are we so slow to help others, so resistant to helping others, when they are crying so loudly for help?

We are lucky enough to live in relative safety, in relative comfort. Our lives are luxurious compared to these unlucky people yet we are so slow to help. Are we afraid of upsetting the status quo?

I’m OK, Jack.

Even worse, elements of the press still pursue their pitiful anti-migrant stance. I find that sickening.

In all honesty, I would happily house a refugee family fleeing the horrors and atrocities of Syria, Iraq and so many other countries in the Middle East and Africa, today if the opportunity arose.


These people are human beings, like you and I. They deserve our help. They need our help. They are begging for our help.

4 comments:

Nick Papageorge said... [Reply to comment]

Too right!

Well written!

Maxine Grimshaw said... [Reply to comment]

Your perspective I'd do true. This is a human tragedy not a political row. We are so lucky to have the freedom to run in beautiful.places.

mark brooks said... [Reply to comment]

Agree with everything you say there Rich, but it's about time our fucking Governments pull there fingers out and do something.. They can if they really want to but I wonder?

Richard Lendon said... [Reply to comment]

@mark brooks
Absolutely agree Mark - our government needs to do something. I really believe the will of the people is there

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