Nothing new under the sun

All that week it had been raining, never stopping, never drawing breath, the heavens pouring down their torrents, more water than you could imagine. The earth was full of water. The fields were sodden and the drains were overflowing. The sky too was dark, pregnant, threatening, ready to drench us still further in its never ending flood. I sat beside the Rhine, watching the endless flow of water, down, flowing down from the mountains of Switzerland in the heart of Europe, through the flatlands of Germany, through the Netherlands and emerging at last into the waters of the wide grey ocean. There was more water than you can imagine.

In central Europe thousands of homeless, shifting refugees are flooding through the barriers, leaving the wide open arms of the blue-skied Mediterranean for the grey, watery desert of the north. Germany is their preferred destination. 'Mother Merkel' has bidden them all welcome, although the rank and file of the nation seem a little less keen. There will be riots. The air is thick with the menace of growing discontent. Britain is trying to close its doors, keen to do the right thing for its own people and walled in, separated by the deep, grey-green Channel, fenced in by tunnel defences: presenting a coldly indifferent front. The Netherlands, ever practical, are devising new ways of accommodating the hordes, without detriment to their own priorities of social housing, but the mood is turning ugly in the city halls and meeting places of the nation. There are storms over Europe, more of a flood than we can deal with.

Where will they sleep? Where will they hide when the cruel forces of nature are unleashed on innocent men, women and children? On the Hungarian border thoughtful border guards are giving them a practice run - with water cannons and tear gas. They will soon learn the ropes, soon understand what it is to be European. Their Syrian homeland is hostile, evicting them forcibly from their homes, their livelihoods and their families, but their new home is unpredictable, capricious and not always what it seems. Nations are complex entities, with complicated histories; how will they behave? What is their agenda beneath the conflicting attitudes, the posturing, the threats and the desire to appear humanitarian? The pawns on Europe's chess board are at the mercy of its leaders, as kings, queens and bishops battle it out and their victims are caught, helpless, in the cross-fire.

Christmas is coming. We are once again on the relentless treadmill that will carry us nearer, still nearer to the spirit of Christmas and to the season of greed. Will there be room this year? History has a habit of repeating itself. The first Christmas is forgotten by many now but the story lives on. Still in our memory, clinging on by its fingernails, the holocaust whispers its uncomfortable, disquieting remembrances into our almost deaf ears. No room at the inn? No room on our island for fleeing Jews in the thirties, a displaced people, running for their lives. Boatloads of refugees denied access by the authorities of many nations, a shameful neglect of suffering people. And now this. What will we do now? History repeats itself. Is there room now?