To paraphrase William Gibson, the post-apocalypse is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.
Many of our post-apocalyptic stories—“Mad Max”, “The Road”, “World War Z”—feature desperate people on the move in a friendless and resource-poor environment. The world hasn’t ended quite yet, but these modern nomads have nearly lost hope. Something terrible has happened in the past, and the future looks no less bleak. They are propelled, often without volition, from tragedy to tragedy. It’s an endless series of frying pans and fires.
That’s “reality” at the Cineplex. Unfortunately, it looks a lot like the reality of a refugee.
Like the movie denizens of the dystopian future, today’s refugees are fleeing the end of their worlds and hoping to find safe haven somewhere else. The odds are long. Just ask the border guards.
According to the latest U.N. report, we face an unprecedented refugee crisis. Nearly 60 million people are now classified as refugees, more than at any time since such records have been kept. Perhaps our civilization won’t end with a bang or a whimper. We'll all simply become, failed state after failed state, refugees in a heartless world.
