What do you see in this picture? I glimpse the darkness of European fears | Jonathan Jones

I can insist this is an image of heroic, defiant, brave refugees, trying to make us live up to our liberal values. But to terrified European eyes they are the other, the enemy

It is only when you notice the railway lines that all the historical echoes converge. On a train line between Greece and Macedonia, where a gate protected by barbed wire has been set up to keep migrants on the Greek side of the border, men are pulling down the defences. They’ve already weakened the gate with battering rams. As they make the final assault with bare hands, a crowd pushes and yells behind them, desperate to run along those railway lines, deeper into Europe.

The sky is white and remorseless. They are all wrapped up warm against a lingering winter. Photographers jostle among the crowd, for this is news. Another day. Another assault on a European border. Good pictures, like the one above , have been splashed across the press. It is full of furious humanity and a deep enigma. Who are these people and what do they want?

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