Hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into Europe, fleeing war and desolation. Nations reeling from the influx of displaced people with nowhere to go. Cultures colliding as people are forced to mix with the foreign and unknown. Professor Holly Chase shed some light onto the refugee crisis in Europe, specifically in Hungary, which is on the path from the Middle East and much of Europe. How does Hungary react? Accept them all, without question? Provide some measure of help, while retaining boundaries? Outright rejection? Crises like this cause enormous confusion- who knows what is best? What does “best” even mean? Can vastly different groups all find a common benefit? Interestingly enough, they can also bring a stark clarity. Some react to concerns like the mass fleeing from the Middle East into Europe with fear: In Hungary, Prime Minister Vitctor Orban fills the state-controlled media with fear-mongering articles about how all the immigrants are terrorists bent on uprooting the hard-earned Hungarian way of life. The government builds a fence a hundred miles long to physically block refugees from entering their borders. Others react with love and altruism, rushing to these same borders to provide worn out immigrants with necessary food, warmth, and advice. They drop whatever else was going on in their lives to support those in a place of desparate want, without expecting anything in return. Divides between those determined to maintain life as they wanted it and those willing to lend a hand to those in need start to form. Selfishness and selflessness begin to separate in a clearer way, which may not be apparent in ordinary circumstances. Still others, particularly the Two-Tailed Dog Party, seek to break the constant anxiety by satirizing the government’s attempts at pushing fear by pulling pranks. Although they don’t offer answers specifically, they provide a platform where visionaries can potentially emerge and break the controlling hold of the powers that be. Even if they don’t define have a specific game plan, they offer a message of hope: “We can do this together”.

I find it interesting to put myself in the place of a Hungarian living in a refugee-trafficked area (or should I say previously-trafficked, now that there’s a fence along the border). What would I be doing? Would I be willing to make sacrifices to support those who I could, or would I tenaciously hold onto ideas of MY rights or MY entitlements? Would I encourage those who have journeyed long and are flagging or would I mock them for seeking an unrealistic utopia? To bring it closer to home: how am I helping those around me who are in need right here, right now? They may not be as visible as hordes of refugees, but they are still there. Need may not even be physical. Do I take time to cheer up people who are feeling depressed or anxious? What if it somehow jeopardizes my schedule or my plans? Selfishness vs. selflessness. It’s a dichotomy of thought, feeling, and action that’s always there. Maybe the amount I think about it sheds light onto which side I often fall…