Angelina Jolie Slams Western Attitudes Towards Immigrants  10/11/06

Angelina Jolie has hit out at the attitude of Westerners towards immigrants from troubled countries, because they are often seen as sub-human.

Writing in United Nations magazine Refugees, Jolie reveals her disgust at a photo recently printed in the publication which showed an unidentified couple relaxing on a Spanish beach while the washed-up corpse of a black man lay nearby.

Jolie, a UN goodwill ambassador, writes, "We'll never know who he was or why he ended up there and the couple on the beach apparently couldn't care less.

"Someone's son, someone's brother, or someone's loved one. In fact, you or me, if we had been born at another time, or in another place.

"Many have also died trying to get into the United States and Australia. But we don't notice."

And Jolie also writes about how her trips to Bosnia, Rwanda and Afghanistan have exposed her to the harsh realities of living in war-torn nations.

She says, "I have been to some of these countries, or to their neighbors, where most of the refugees remain. It is a truly humbling experience, a shocking eye-opener.

"It has made me realize that we are all - myself included - behaving like the couple sitting under their umbrella on the beach, gazing studiously out to sea."