Will a picture wake us from our slumber over refugee crisis

There are occasions when a powerful image disturbs us so much that it alters our understanding in a significant way. The photo of Kim Phuc as a small girl in 1972 running naked and screaming from the searing pain of a napalm bombing; or Fikret Alic, an emaciated Muslim in a Bosnian refugee camp in war-torn former Yugoslavia 20 years later.

In recent days, the media has carried pictures of Aylan Kurdi, aged 3, being carried lifeless from the sea onto a Turkish beach. His picture has shown with a clarity that would defy a thousand pages of text, the pain of exodus.

Europe stands unable to come up with any immediate plan of action to give ease to the plight of those fleeing conflict. Of course the situation is complex, of course the long-term solution must rest in solving the crisis at home that has given rise to so many thousands of our fellow human beings seeking safety.

But now, today and this week, what can be done to give relief to suffering, how can the European Union ignore the problem and squabble over the help that is desperately needed? It is not a problem directly attributable to the EU, although the actions of individual countries have contributed to the instability of the Middle East.

The UK, meanwhile, has a proud history of offering refuge to those fleeing oppression.

From the 50,000 Huguenots, members of the French Protestant Church, who left their homes before the French Revolution of 1789 to escape persecution and death. To the 10,000 Jewish children brought out of Nazi Germany.

Now we have shown ourselves reluctant to take in more than a token number. Our country has been shamed by its political response. At a late hour we have offered to accept a number, as yet unspecified, from camps surrounding Syria. Yet surely, those who have risked their lives, both on land and sea to reach Europe deserve first consideration.

In Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, the two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, wait at the crossroads under a tree. At one point, Vladimir asks Estragon: “Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?”

Maybe the loss of that small boy’s life will ensure that we sleep no longer.