Quote:
Originally Posted by bfisher
I remember in 2015 there was considerable debate in Canada over the question of accepting Syrian refugees. After the publication of pictures of Alan Kurdi's body on a beach in Turkey, his aunt Tima Kurdi, living in Vancouver, was interviewed and her stories helped make him a real person to many people. It became an issue in the federal election that fall. I don't think that would have happened just on the abstract knowledge that millions of Syrians were refugees.
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I am perhaps more sanguine than you about what we would have done with the whole refugee crisis, but I absolutely agree that the Alan Kurdi case had a profound impact on the Canadian consciousness. As did the case of the two refugees who lost their hands to frostbite crossing over in Manitoba, though not as dramatically as with the Kurdi case.
Seeing these women as individuals, not statistics, is an important step to understanding the cost and pain. But that didn't require the fictionalization, as I think we all agree.