Migrants

Caught an excellent if bleakly depressing episode of Reporters on BBC World this afternoon dealing with the plight of the Rohingya, more specifically those Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar and setting out as migrants to find new lives in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. It's obvious that these nations are not terribly welcoming and I hope I don't sound too cynical when I say it's not difficult to see why. And it's also obvious that there are plenty of ruthless traffickers in the region - as there are elsewhere in the world - who see a glorious opportunity to exploit. So no easy solutions in sight - though some pressure on those who are responsible for fostering the persecution of the minority in Burma itself might not come amiss.

The plight of those fleeing persecution, or just looking to make a better living somewhere else, looks set to be a familiar theme of this age of globalisation. As I suppose it has been through centuries one way or another. Lucky me, to have been a sort of migrant in a different sense, for whom the luck ran in history's wayward direction.