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Værker af Patrick Kingsley

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Fødselsdato
1989
Køn
male
Erhverv
journalist
Organisationer
The Guardian

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I intended to read this book years ago now, but I think it still stands up well, even if the details shared about the precise routes migrants use may no longer be relevant. Patrick Kingsley manages to trace several journeys of migrants fleeing upheaval in Africa and the Middle East to Europe in 2015, the year the crisis began to make headlines. He interviewed smugglers, politicians, aid workers, and refugees to provide one of the fullest and most nuanced accounts I've encountered of this movement of people. Highly recommended for those who want a deeper understanding of how and why so many people left their homes and fled to Europe in the past few years.… (mere)
 
Markeret
wagner.sarah35 | 1 anden anmeldelse | Oct 22, 2023 |
One of the things I love is hearing people from other countries and cultures talk about Denmark – my small, but lovely country. The different opinions, the general assumptions and the (mainly) nice things people say make me happy, make me laugh and they make me proud. I knew, I had to read Patrick Kingsley’s book – if for no other reason than to see how much I could recognize.

Unfortunately (for me), I know less about Denmark than he does and I actually find that kind of embarrassing. But I don’t watch Danish TV, I know nothing about Danish architecture and my knowledge about Noma? Let’s not even go there! In the end, I actually learned a whole lot about my country by reading a book about it written by a British guy – I would never have guessed that in a million years!

Patrick Kingsley is a great writer and even though the book is short, it contains so much information. It is funny, interesting and it showed me a country that I can (and am) very proud to be living in. If you have any interest in reading about Denmark, this is the book to go for!
… (mere)
 
Markeret
Hyms | 1 anden anmeldelse | Aug 9, 2020 |
The body of a 3-year-old washes ashore in Turkey. Seventy-one bodies are left to decompose in an abandoned truck in Austria. These are truly disturbing images that force one to consider the catastrophic consequences of the world’s most recent mass migration. In THE NEW ODYSSEY, Patrick Kingsley takes us to the front lines of what he calls the “migrant trail” to examine this monumental tragedy up close while occasionally pulling back to provide a clearer understanding of the scale of the catastrophe. Yet the personal stories give his book its lasting impact. Many of the people Kingsley interviewed are indeed heroic figures, but others are the most despicable of villains. These stories not only reveal the people involved but also their motivations and methods. On one hand, he migrants see themselves as having no choice (“There we know we will die. If we make it, there is at least hope.”). On the other, there do not seem to be any limits to the smugglers’ greed, nor does the fear mongering evoked by shortsighted politicians seem to have any restraints.

Kingsley emphasizes that the current approach to the crisis is not working and probably will never work. “Their desperation will ultimately prove stronger than our isolation.” He claims that the policies of denial and blockade are based on the foolish assumption that desperate people will stop seeking safety if you just make it hard enough for them to achieve it. This ignores the underlying realities at play: war, terrorism, unrelenting poverty, despotism, and even slavery. Kingsley offers the only reasonable alternative: adopt policies to manage the flow. He further argues that adopting distinctions between “economic migrants” and “refugees” is facile and useless for managing the crisis. He maintains that the crisis is “caused largely by our response to the refugees, rather than by the refugees themselves” and buttresses his argument by citing population data indicating that Europe and America have more than enough capacity to easily absorb these refugees.

His narrative follows the main routes into Europe, beginning in places like Niger and Eritrea. From there migrants flee despotism, war and poverty by first traversing the Sahara, a barrier the refugees call the “second sea.” This trek is strangely reminiscent of that of the Mexicans in North America, characterized by insufficient food, water, and smugglers who care for little else than the migrants’ money. The story then moves to the waterfronts of Libya and Egypt were the migrants are warehoused under inhumane conditions and tortured until leaky and overcrowded vessels can take them, at great financial cost, on dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean to Italy. Many of the smugglers are themselves refugees, but greed seems to dampen any sense of kinship. Kingsley notes that “If they (the smugglers) weren’t dispatching the boats, they’d be on the decks themselves.” The book then moves to the western route across Turkey to Greece, following a desperate walk through the Western Balkans with its multiple closed borders.

Kingsley personalizes his story by adding profiles of migrants, smugglers and people who provide assistance. If this book has a protagonist, it would be the Syrian refugee, Hashem al-Souki. Kingsley refers to him as an “every man.” As a successful civil servant with a wife and three sons, Hashem was imprisoned and tortured by Assad’s police. This experience motivated him to flee to Egypt, were authorities once again assaulted him. Following failed attempts to cross to Italy with his family, he decides to attempt to make it to Sweden alone. Although eventually successful, his family still waits in Egypt.

Abu Hamada runs a smuggling operation in Egypt. He lives like a wealthy man running a remarkably complex business, involving Facebook marketing, purchasing decrepit fishing boats that one could afford to lose if they are either seized or sink, maximizing profits by charging inordinate fees and cutting costs at the expense of safety, bribing corrupt officials to look the other way, providing meager shelter for the migrants that is anything but safe or comfortable, and jamming inconceivable numbers of people onto each boat.

There is no shortage of heroes or villains in this book. The heroes include coastguard crews and a merchant ship chartered by Médecins Sans Frontières who rescue migrants from certain drowning, hotel owners who provide shelter in the Balkans, an Austrian Jew—his family fled the Nazis in WWII—who drives migrants through Hungary, and volunteers on the Greek island of Lesbos who provide food, water shelter and transportation after migrants wash ashore from nearby Turkey. On the other hand, the villains include border guards who harass and deny entry to the migrants, and politicians who see their duty as closing borders and erecting totally ineffective fences. Clearly the latter resonates for Americans today.

Reading this book is indeed harrowing. The writing is crisp and clear giving one an appreciation of the magnitude of the crisis and a clear-eyed, sober assessment of the inadequacy of the measures thus far employed. One can’t help but agree with Kingsley’s conclusion. “It just reminded me of how privileged I've been in my life and how privileged many of us who live in North America or in Europe are compared to people who are actually very similar to us but have drawn the short straw in the lottery where they were born.”
… (mere)
 
Markeret
ozzer | 1 anden anmeldelse | Apr 10, 2017 |
In spring 2012, Kingsley spent a month travelling around Denmark, observing and interviewing people to produce this sketch that is an insightful examination into contemporary Danish life and culture which tries to get to the heart of the claim in many surveys that Denmark is the happiest country to live in.
For all the comfort and tolerance that he found, most notably expressed in the concept “hygge” (roughly translated as friendship and cosiness), Kingsley found some dissent. Some were of the opinion that this very comfort now meant a lack of new exploration in design and architecture and a lack of understanding of other viewpoints. Others, especially those born in Denmark to immigrant parents or who had moved to the country and been resident for many years, found a growing intolerance of their presence and difficulties in being accepted into Danish life.
It would appear that not all in Denmark would view it as the happiest country.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
camharlow2 | 1 anden anmeldelse | Mar 18, 2016 |

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Medlemmer
235
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#96,241
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½ 3.3
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ISBN
20
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