It is always interesting and salutary when people talk about what they would do in some dire situation or, indeed, what the people in the dire situation should do. I once edited a book which constantly referred to collaborators in Nazi-occupied Europe when speaking about people who simply kept their heads down and carried on doing the jobs they had done and, as far as possible, the lives they had lived pre-war. The author had no family – older or younger. I had a husband and a baby, plus an extended family all of whom I loved and, while I would like to think I would be brave and strong-minded enough to find a way to fight tyranny, I am not at all confident that I would be, given my hostages to fortune and, no doubt, my own cowardice. I didn't see these people as collaborators – they weren't choosing deliberately to help the occupying power – but were protecting themselves, their husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children and simply trying to get through a horrendous time.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to live in a country torn apart by civil war or frequently bombed by a neighbouring – or even not-so-neighbouring – state. I cannot imagine what it must be like not to have enough to eat and there not being anywhere to obtain enough to eat even if I had the money to buy it. I cannot imagine having to watch every word I say or write for fear of the knock on the door. I cannot imagine being imprisoned, raped or beaten for being the wrong ethnicity. I cannot imagine many of the things that are a day-to-day reality for many refugees. I cannot imagine what I would do, what I would encourage my family to do and how the hell I would go about it.
