EARL HAIG’S PIERRE BERTON

WRITING CONTEST 2015 ENTRY FORM

Final Submission Date: January 24, 2016 at 11:59pm

To enter a submission:

Complete both parts of this entry form.

Ensure that your entry is submitted using the format outlined here:

1) 3column format. Note: If your piece is shorter, leave the 2nd or 3rd columns blank.
2) New Times Roman, 10 point font
3) Title (Bold capital letters, 14 point font), your grade level (in brackets, 10 point font), all centered over the first column
4) Put a page border around the whole page, just as you see on this entry form.
5) It must be fewer than 2000 words and it must be a Microsoft Word document.

Submit this form and your work on Turnitin. Go to the Earl Haig website, look in the English Department Folder, and open the Pierre Berton Writing Contest folder for
instructions.

Note: Incomplete or incorrectly prepared submissions will be discarded!

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Title of Entry: Refugees and Migrants

Genre (Embolden one) DRAMATIC EXCERPT - Junior / Senior

FORMAL ESSAY - Junior / Senior

INFORMAL WRITING - Junior / Senior

POETRY - Junior / Senior

SHORT STORY - Junior / Senior

Please also fill out the same information in the space below.

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Title of Entry :Refugees and Migrants

Genre (underline one) DRAMATIC EXCERPT - Junior / Senior

FORMAL ESSAY - Junior / Senior

INFORMAL WRITING - Junior / Senior

POETRY - Junior / Senior

SHORT STORY - Junior / Senior

Certification:

I, Andrew Wang, certify that this entry is my original work.

Andrew Wang Ms Kardsih ENG1D3-02

(Your Name) (Your English teacher’s name) (Your English course code)
 REFUGEES AND
MIGRANTS (9)
If you have been following the
news lately, you cannot have
missed the news about the refugee
crisis in Europe. The last time
Europe had a massive refugee
crisis on this scale was during
World War II. Now, hundreds of
thousands of refugees are being
hosted in Europe alone. Turkey,
Lebanon and Jordan, countries
whose GDPs are significantly
lower than that of the European
Union, are hosting four million
refugees. Unfortunately, many of
the world’s leaders let these
numbers fly past their heads
before considering how to address
them. David Cameron, Prime
Minister of The United Kingdom,
called the refugees a “swarm of
people” and a swarm of anything
sure doesn’t sound pleasant. Take
kids for example; if I hear that a
group of kids are coming over to
my house I’d be delighted but if I
hear that a swarm of kids are
coming, I’d get out of my house
and run for my life. David
Cameron, however, only scratches
the surface when it comes to the
derogatory language used against
migrants.
Several nations’ leaders in the
European Union have not held
back their opinions about this
refugee crisis. The Prime Minister
of the Netherlands has made it
clear to the refugees that “They
will not make the Netherlands
home” and the Danish government
also made sure the refugees were
well aware that a horrible wave of
strict regulations await them once
they arrive in Denmark. Perhaps
you agree with the harsh
regulations Europe has imposed
on these refugees; it’s totally
understandable to fear any
violence that may arise from the
crisis, but you have to understand
how tedious these screening
processes are. First, a migrant has
to sign several papers and provide
evidence that they are not
escaping their home country to
pursue any violent interests (as if
that wasn’t hard enough already).
They then have to give up all their
valuable jewelry, electronics and
other valuables for either a short
period of time up to a decade.
After that, migrants are given an
appointment with the government
with an average wait time of three
years before their applications for
asylum are even considered. And
just in case you’re trying to
process what you just read, you
read that sentence correctly: the
average wait time to get a mere
appointment with the government
is three years. Who in the world
would think it is possible to wait
three years when these migrants
are not allowed to work in their
respective countries they plan to
live in?
Even if there are countries in
Europe that are more willing to
accept refugees in an easier
fashion, many of them are quite
selective about whom they take in.
Slovakia, for example, has agreed
to take in a sizeable number of
refugees as long as they are
Christian. They have made it clear
that Muslims will not fit in to
Slovakian society because Slovakia
does not have any mosques.
Someone needs to give a lecture to
the Slovakian government and tell
them that mosques don’t appear
naturally in the wild, people build
them!
It is quite clear that our world
has some work to do if we are
going to get past this crisis.
Fortunately, one country,
Germany, will be accepting up to
about a million asylum seekers.
This is a smart move. Germany,
like many other countries, has a
rapidly aging population and is in
need of a greater workforce to
support the aging population. Now
if only we could find a large group
of people willing to come to
Germany and find work… oh wait,
there are millions of them that just
happen to be coming to Europe -
how convenient!
Not only is accepting refugees
the morally correct course of
action, it makes sense for all the
economies in the West. When we
accept migrants into our
countries, they find jobs, start
businesses and solidify our
economy. To all you skeptics about
these migrants being “lazy” and
not finding jobs, it is particularly
difficult to call these migrants
“lazy” after how hard so many of
them have worked to make it to
Europe either by boat or by foot.
Other people have concerns
about Islam and whether Europe
would turn into an Islamic
continent if all refugees were
accepted. Here’s the thing, even if
Europe were to accept all Syrian
refugees and all refugees were
Muslim, the Muslim population in
Europe would rise from about 4%
to a shocking 5%. A Muslim
minority is nothing to be afraid of
as statistically, these Muslim
migrants are less likely to commit
crimes than the native population.
Despite these facts, our world still
remains divided on the Syrian
refugee crisis.
The United Kingdom has agreed
to allow twenty thousand Syrian
refugees into their borders by
2020. Jordan, despite having a
significantly smaller GDP, has
been forced to care for over six
hundred thousand refugees.
Countries in the Arab peninsula
such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar
have shut their borders entirely
and will not be accepting any
refugees. Fortunately, more
countries have pledged to accept
more refugees but it isn’t enough.
Canada will only be accepting
forty thousand more refugees by
February compared to the millions
of civilians displaced by this crisis.
Right now, we are writing history.
Do we want our future kids’
textbooks to describe us as rich
xenophobic cowards or do we
want our textbooks to say we took
the morally correct course of
action to solve this crisis? I think
the choice is clear.