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We live in a world where human sympathy is in short supply, even towards people who have survived civil wars, massacres and the most appalling sexual violence. The popular press foments hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers until the occasional tragedy - dozens of Chinese suffocated in the back of a lorry, or drowned in Morecambe Bay - mutes the onslaught for a few days. Then it is back to the dominant discourse about immigrants, in which Eastern Europeans, Roma and other foreigners shamelessly exploit our welfare system, creating a demand for even more draconian methods of…