Greyduster I feel that in the main this is a fairly tolerant country. But a country is made up of individuals and some of those individuals hide their prejudices under a veneer of "tolerance". Like all bullies and cowards, they only "break cover" and join in the attack on certain individuals or groups when they feel that individual/group is at its most vulnerable. This has always been the case. As another poster mentioned, Jewish people who came here as part of the kindertransport during WWII have given accounts of the prejudice that some people displayed towards them as well as of the great kindness that was shown by others.
Some people have suggested that more resources be put into the refugee camps to make them more "bearable". In that way, we can apparently with a clear conscience, put to the back of our minds the fact that families, through no fault of their own, may spend many years stuck in the middle of nowhere, dependent on handouts of food because there is no work, living in basic dwellings and in featureless "neighbourhoods" that stretch for miles in which there are none of the amenities we take for granted - shops, libraries, playgrounds, cinemas, etc. - and which offer no opportunity to achieve personal or professional goals. I wonder if we would be happy to accept such an aimless existence for ourselves or our children/grandchildren and, if not, why should we think it acceptable for anyone else?
