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A crisis can bring out the best in us. Most of the time. There are exceptions. Covid-19 is one. Our response to the pandemic has been distinctly mixed: hoarding sanitisers, public squabbles

over mask-wearing, vaccine disinformation. But these moments of darkness are the exception. Against these are countless moments of light, compassion, courage and ingenuity. The unprecedented

rescue of desperate Afghans fleeing Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is one such moment. As we watch, in real time, the biggest human airlift in history, desperate people fleeing a country sinking

back into medieval darkness, perhaps the hard edges of our mindset towards refugees will soften a little. British and American troops hold the ring as flight after flight climbs out of

Kabul over snow-dusted mountains to safety. Their heroism – an overused word but not on this occasion – is matched only by the sight of soldiers in full combat gear tenderly cradling Afghan

babies. This exodus, like every exodus in history before it, right back to the founding legend of the Israelites fleeing Egypt (and of course the modern Jews and others fleeing the Nazis ),

is the story of peoples fleeing persecution: Vietnam, Somalia, Syria, Czechoslovakia and Palestine. My own family fled first the Red Army and then Communist Poland. It’s a story as old as

time itself. People like them, people like us, uprooted, homeless, in fear of their lives and their future, who can no longer count on the protection of their government. It’s worth

reminding ourselves that the word refugee was coined, not in the 20th  century, not in Syria or Somalia, but back in 17th- century Europe. The edict of Nantes in 1685 sent Protestant

Huguenots fleeing religious persecution by Louis XIV of France. It’s “them” now but it was “us” then. History has a funny way of repeating itself. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban has,

unsurprisingly, been followed by savage opportunism by its enemies. The suicide bombings at Kabul airport mark the beginning, not the end, of the struggle for Afghanistan. Islamic State

Khorasan is just the latest iteration of the extreme face of militant Islam. America and Britain invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 to combat terror. As we leave, 20 years later, the terrorists

are still dictating terms. The ideology driving these movements that have such a disproportionate effect on international security is here to stay for a very long time. But amid the horror

there is hope. Hundreds of people in Britain have offered to host Afghan refugees in their homes. Airbnb has announced it will help house up to 20,000 refugees worldwide. Boris Johnson has

said that Britain must find enough housing to accommodate a whole new town for the refugees. As a species we are, by and large, social animals who tend to altruism. One of the first stories

I covered as a reporter was the expulsion of Uganda’s Asian minority in 1972. President Idi Amin, more monster than buffoon, gave them 90 days to leave the country. The first evacuation

flight from Kampala landed at Manchester Airport. The first passenger to disembark was a tall man in an old British army greatcoat. As he stepped onto the tarmac, he knelt and kissed the

ground. The arrival of 28,000 Ugandan Asians fuelled anti-immigrant feeling at the time. Britain was facing economic hardship. Yet today, 50 years later, Britain’s Ugandan Asians are a

resounding economic success story. The Afghan crisis is desperate, but it is not the first and it won’t be the last. Europe is now braced for a new influx of refugees. It mirrors the

conflict in Syria, when millions of people fled into Turkey and Europe as the country descended into hell. Refugees are not ordinary immigrants. They do not choose to leave their country,

their homes, their friends and their livelihoods. Refugees are, by definition, desperate and enterprising. They leave everything behind to find somewhere safe to rebuild their lives. Their

journeys are fraught with danger. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014. The number of refugees fluctuates, depending on what’s happening around the world. Britain is not

“flooded” with refugees. According to the Red Cross, around 0.26 per cent of the UK population are refugees or asylum seekers. That’s roughly 175,000 people out of a population of 67

million. As the crisis in Afghanistan unfolds, Heathrow’s Terminal 4, RAF Brize Norton and Birmingham International airport have become refugee processing centres. Children are given

coloured crayons. Families begin the long, confusing process of verification and resettlement. The future for these people is uncertain and scary. Most will be penniless. After a wrench that

no one who has not experienced displacement can imagine, they will likely have to live in limbo, unable to work until their status is settled. All the evidence suggests that the vast

majority of Afghans who settle abroad, given half a chance, build successful lives and contribute to the well-being of their chosen country. The same is true, as it happens, of Syrians and

another people uprooted by civil war, the Lebanese. Judging by the current mood around people coming from abroad – whether willingly or not – the auguries for these latest of history’s

cast-offs are not encouraging. The Home Office’s “hostile environment” is not a myth. It is an instrument of policy that breeds division. Once the immediate drama has passed, public sympathy

and official urgency will fade. In some respects, the hard graft lies ahead. We are not entirely blameless in these people’s fate. How can we help them rebuild their lives, find jobs,

become part of communities? These are now the questions the Government, like the rest of us, must address. The Afghan crisis, like the Syrian catastrophe and many others before them, will

require complex, multi-faceted, long-term responses. It will take time, patience and commitment. We’re not very good at that: think of Windrush and Grenfell. As a n island nation , Britain

can choose to respond to the ebb and flow of history by pulling up the drawbridge. This is neither wise nor, in the long-run effective. Or we can keep reaching into our better selves and try

to make a difference. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more

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