The cover image of this issue sums up a worldwide problem. The cartoon actually dates from 2014 and is by Australian cartoonist Simon Kneebone, who drew it in response to boats full of people trying to reach Australia from Indonesia. It caught my attention along with an interview in which the cartoonist said 'the cartoon tried to take a step back, and show that we are all humans on a small planet, trying to hang on... I think that the causes of these great movements of people escaping terrible circumstances, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for example, have radiated seismic waves of social collapse that are going to be harder than ever to repair. An unfortunate outcome is that life has become devalued. People have become commodities, trafficked by the disposable boatload, tainted as “economic migrants” because they paid the traffickers.'

If you asked many people in this country about the problem of immigration, they would probably respond in terms of the images they see in the media. These media are anxious to boost ratings and sell papers which require sensational images and extreme language. Even worse is the world of social media, where extreme language is seen as a way to get noticed and to provoke. These venomous critics are perfectly willing to disregard humanity (and usually the facts) in favour of a smart headline or a glib lie. 

The danger with immigration seen in this way is that it tries to reduce a complex and ever changing process to a sound bite and a snapshot - usually calculated to appeal to existing prejudice. Immigration is one side of a two way process balanced by emigration in what are called 'migration flows'. These are recognised among the 28 member states of the EU as a condition for membership.

At the international level, there exists the right to emigration for all migrants: 'Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country' (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13).This right guarantees the right of emigration covering not only immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, but also internally displaced persons, economic migrants and even students.

But while the right to leave one's country is recognised, on the other side there is no corresponding right to enter or immigrate in another country without that state's permission. Ultimately the decision on who should enter a country remains subject to the law of the country of entry. And since the laws vary in principle and application, the tendency is to refer to irregular rather than illegal immigration. Although there is no general right of immigration, international human rights law guarantees the right to seek asylum: 'Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution' (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14). The UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families (ICMW) entered into force in July 2003. Countries that have ratified the Convention are primarily countries of origin of migrants (such as Morocco, Turkey and the Philippines). Significantly, no migrant receiving state in Western Europe or North America has ratified the Convention.

In July 1951, a diplomatic conference in Geneva adopted the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which was later amended by the 1967 Protocol. This is for anyone who 'has a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion' and has left their own country as refugee and is unable or unwilling to return because of the risk. 

If you want to get an up to date and accurate overview, the Scottish Refugee Council has an excellent booklet, Asylum in Scotland: The Facts and the UK Refugee Council has just revised its excellent factsheet Tell it Like it is - The Truth about Asylum. You can google the organisations to download these publications. There are those of course who are unwilling to let mere facts get in the way of their carefully constructed prejudice.

But if you live in Dover or Kos, your experience and perspective is going to be different from someone living in Dingwall or Kirkcaldy.  Eurostat figures from May of this year show that in 2014, by far the highest number of asylum seekers from outside of the EU-28 was reported by Germany (203,000), which was two and a half times as many as the number of applicants in Sweden (81,000); Italy (65,000), France (64,000), Hungary (43,000), the United Kingdom (32,000), Austria (28,000), the Netherlands (25,000) and Belgium (23,000).  These nine member states accounted for 90 % of the EU-28 total in 2014.

Shortly before UN World Refugee Day in June, Pope Francis said to the crowd in St Peter's Square: 'It is my hope that the international community should act in a fitting and effective way to prevent the causes of forced migration of those who seek a home where they can live without fear'. While expressing gratitude to those who offer support, Pope Francis was critical of those who turn away and fail to offer assistance. 'I invite everyone to ask forgiveness for those persons and institutions that close the doors on these people who are searching for family, who are searching for safety'.

I return to the striking power of the cartoon I described at the beginning. The image of people adrift in a boat on perilous seas has long been a metaphor for the uncertainty of the human condition. It is also a powerful symbol of faith - remember Noah and also Peter in Galilee (Matt 8:25f). And while the pictures of a few hundred desperate young men trying to get through fences and squirrel into lorries may fit our prejudice, the greater reality is of thousands of men, women and children, young and old, crammed on unseaworthy craft by mercenary traffickers.

A bit less specious indignation about all these foreigners pitching up on our shores and a bit more consideration of what made them leave everything they have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles might be enlightening. We might also consider the part played by the government of our country and its allies in demolishing the fragile social fabric of many middle eastern areas alongside of our support and provision of weapons to repressive regimes in the middle east and Africa. Only when we realise that we are collectively a part of the problem can we become a meaningful part of the solution.