A young musician’s death pinpoints this never-ending tragedy on our shores
mainI woke up in the middle of the night, bolt upright, haunted by the young Turkish violinist, Baris Yazgi who drowned off the shores of Greece while trying to find his way to a better life in Belgium.
While Baris’s body was being recovered from a beach, leaders of the European Union were playing Brexit games over dinner with Theresa May. Those two images illustrate, for me, the distance between leadership and reality.
From what we know of Baris, he was an ambitious musician who wanted to study abroad, but was refused a visa to live with his brother in Belgium. A film clip that we shared shows Baris in a Turkish ensemble, eager but none too confident yet of his skills. He was only 22. Europe denied him the chance to make a life for himself in music.
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