Opinion

from the editor

Walking a mile in someone else's shoes

The refugee cri­sis af­fect­ing Eu­rope has thrown up the sort of heart­break­ing scenes long thought con­signed to its past. Yet the mi­grant cri­sis is real enough and its con­se­quences are con­fus­ing Eu­ro­pean so­ci­ety and chal­leng­ing the ca­pac­ity of its in­sti­tu­tions.

The re­port on pages 28-35 sheds light on the enor­mous dif­fi­cul­ties faced by peo­ple forced to flee their coun­tries, from set­tling in a new land with­out any re­sources to the strug­gle for ac­cep­tance in an alien so­ci­ety. The sit­u­a­tion is not helped by prej­u­dice and stereo­types that un­der­mine the sol­i­dar­ity and em­pa­thy for the refugees in the pub­lic opin­ion of most Eu­ro­pean coun­tries.

In the face of legal and ad­min­is­tra­tive hur­dles and often hos­tile treat­ment from the au­thor­i­ties, the task of help­ing refugees falls to hu­man­i­tar­ian or­gan­i­sa­tions. It is thanks to their ef­forts that many asy­lum seek­ers are able to achieve their dream of set­ting up a new life.

Also this month, we ask Amer­i­can res­i­dents in Cat­alo­nia for their take on the up­com­ing US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. And, as al­ways, don't for­get to fol­low us on El Punt Avui TV and sub­scribe to our pod­casts and au­dios on Sound­cloud!

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