Dear Sir,

The news around the world can be so distressing that I am sure, for health, sanity and to escape the bombardment of painful issues, people turn off the news.

We cannot block out reality, but we can at least give the mind the space to contextualise what we see.

There is good news on several fronts, starting with the major exodus from Iraq and Syria. The good news is that it is leading to a European solution. No European nation can handle the problem on its own and shouldn’t.

I don’t think that when the EU was founded it had this type of issue in mind, particularly the scale of it. But as life has it, this issue is causing Europe to see a humanitarian purpose underlined by its own stated values for the respect of life, from which it cannot draw back and which in essence tests the veracity of the EU.

This could become a golden moment for Europe, if handled properly.

Our humanism is expanding, pushing us beyond national, ethnic, religious or simple tribal considerations, which is a good thing. Even the global economy and questions of whether we are headed for a global financial crash are seemingly suspended by a shared responsibility to be rational in the face of significant challenges, not reactionary.

The Google tax resolution is a huge step that will help to trigger tax reform mechanism that will bring large corporate bodies that are undertaxed at present into some acceptable level of corporate responsibility.

The wheel of life is spinning in the right direction; it’s just that other wheels are also spinning, whose life is temporary and lacking positive input.

The temporary nonsense looks permanent but truly is not. If it doesn’t inspire, and if it doesn’t benefit everyone, it’s on the way out.

We just need to help the process.

KHALID WASI