Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics Seminar (Thursday - Week 8, HT19)
Thursday 7th March 2019, 17:30
Oxford Martin School
John Harris (Manchester): 'Xenia: Refugees, Displaced Persons and Reciprocity'
What has happened to our culture today that strangers to our shores are not welcomed, not given the protection of our laws and the warmth of our hospitality. What has happened to civilization? Refugees, displaced persons and desperate would-be migrants are treated as creatures of no consequence, no interests and no rights. Great Britain, a nation built on migration: Celts, Saxons, Danes, Romans, Normans, Huguenots, Jews, West Indians, Asians from India, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Singapore and so many others has turned its back on contemporary strangers and on ancient values. To understand this tragedy and both the origins and possible solutions to its disastrous effects, we need to start in the bronze age, nearly three thousand years ago, with one of the most complex and human of humans ever imagined, Odysseus of Ithaca.
