Golfers and asylum seekers: a clash of realities

The photos of African migrants looking on as white people play golf are a metaphor for Europes attitude to refugees

They look exhausted, wretched and disconsolate. Suspended in space, between the desert and the green, 12 or 13 people hang and hunch and slump in their sunlit limbo, while below those who have been born to sweet delight play sport, slowly, calmly and with studied contempt.

The obscenity of this photograph lies in the willed indifference of the golfers. They play as if they could not see the desperate danglers so close to their pampered game. They are clad in expensive, well-laundered white clothes and equipped with caddies of top-notch gear. The creases and cleanness of their apparel are obvious even at a distance and contrast glaringly with the shabby garb of the migrants. The players shine in the African sun, their unwilling audience wears clothes that grimly repel it.

Continue reading...