Post 81--Better Help to Refugees

Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun (VS) wrote a very sensible column under the title “Poviding better help to refugees” (Nov. 28, 2015, D5) that I am going to partially summarize for you. And unless I come across something else spectacular on the subject of refugees, I will try to let the topic rest for a while after this one. Notice the careful nature of this promise? “I will try….”

Todd reports how almost every Canadian supports Trudeau’s efforts to welcome refugees, thousands of them. There’s a lot of Canadian compassion floating around in Canada’s frigid airspace, along with sympathy. Many people look at it as a “feel-good policy,” a phrase Todd borrows from Oxford’s economist Paul Collier.

You see how we all borrow from each other? I borrow from Todd, who borrows from Collier and others whom you’ll meet in this post. Except perhaps for the most brilliant among us, we all do so borrow. It’s a borrowing world. We are “homo mutuatis,” a "somewhat Latin" for “borrowing man,” a phrase I just concocted from a more classic expression. And sorry for the exclusive male reference. That’s just the way Western cultures formed their languages in the past. There might be some alternatives: “Thinking person” would be something like “persona mutuatis,” while “thinking woman” might come out as “femina mutuatis.”  Don’t mind me. I just like to play around with such expressions, even when I’m not sure of their exact forms.

All this “feel good” stuff turns it into an emotional issue for many. Now there’s nothing wrong with emotions, but when it beclouds reasonable judgement, it can become dangerous, especially if it involves the destinies of many thousands of people and even of nations. When I expressed my misgivings about the 25,000 goal and the need for proper vetting to a retired professor for whom I have high respect, he dubbed my reaction as “paranoia.” Me paranoia?  Me, who has lived for 30 years in a country that now has some 80 million Muslims, who has throughout all these years kept a research eye on events around me and collected research materials on the subject all these years, me who ultimately published a series of eight volumes on Christian-Muslim relations in that country and numerous other articles? (Go to www.SocialTheology. com/Islamica.htm.) That went too far for me and, though I hid my reaction from him, I felt insulted at his unthinking (?) dismissal of my experience and surprised that someone of his stature could be so misled by emotions as to isolate him from larger reality. Remember my earlier warning that compassion, like love, should not be blind. As to the impossibility of proper—and, thus, safe--vetting, also remember that letter to the Prime Minister in Post 78. 

But maybe I am doing the same thing, when I so dismiss the man’s opinion about paranoia. He is an experienced psychologist and thus knows a thing or two about paranoia as I do about Christian-Muslim relations! Now where do I go?!

But sympathetic as most of us are, polls also indicate that roughly half of us question the Government’s asylum programme.  We mostly approve of their intentions but doubt the way it is being done. The CBC, being aware of the deep suspicion floating around in our collective mind, has gone out of its way to make the process of accepting individual refugees transparent, In the meantime, even the Government itself has already scaled back from its campaign promise of 25,000 by end 2015, which, truth be told, could only be described as something close to ridiculous. Germany and Sweden, two countries who are accepting far more refugees per capita than we are, Todd reminds us, are having second thoughts about their “carrying capacity.” Sweden, in fact, has since “closed its borders.” 

Todd also adduces the opinions of recognized experts on refugees such as Michael Teitelbaum of Harvard and Collier, whom you’ve already met. Since the number of refugees accepted by the West, though perhaps overwhelming for the host countries, in reality represents only a tiny fraction of displaced persons, the money spent on that fraction would go a lot farther if spent on helping “the ten million Syrians who are living safely, but in poverty, in refugee camps or on the margins of society in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.” The West, according to Teitelbaum, needs to far more support the UN refugee agency, which is “chronically underfunded.” Todd quotes Teitelbaum that this is “hardly a humanitarian” situation. “It is well established that most refugees would prefer to stay near their home countries in hopes of returning when conditions stabilize.”  “The same funds now spent on refugees “could protect far more people in need.”  Germany alone has budgeted $ 7 billion for its refugee programme. That’s more than one-third of the amount needed by the UN to adequately fund its programme for the entire global refugee situation. That one-third would proportionally help a lot more people than Germany’s expected 800,000.  The same would be true of the Canadian budget.

Collier describes Western refugee policies as “often short-sighted.”  “Encouraging the mass emigration of their most enterprising young people” is not helpful in the long run. Canada today is struggling with a lack of skilled labour and professionals. Perhaps behind the scenes of government our refugee approach is less compassion than a cynical and calculated effort to supply our own manpower needs.  Who knows? Governments are extremely clever in their public relations. 

I am reminded of the colonial era during which Western governments hoodwinked their citizens with the ideology of a God-given “white man’s burden” for other races and nations.  In reality it was our own economic self-interest that was the real motivation. Believe me on this one, for here, too, I published a dissertation on the subject, a summary of which can be found on my < www.SocialTheology.com/boeriana.htm >.  

But then again, perhaps the Canadian Government’s motive is a combination of compassion wedded to self-interest, but that would then be short-sighted compassion for thousands of individuals while it short changes their home countries. No doubt someone will come out with a book explaining the full picture for us. I am eagerly waiting….

In the meantime, let us welcome with Christian grace and compassion all the refugees Canada is accepting. I am happy I am member of the Vancouver Christian Reformed Church that “happens” to be next door to the world’s very first refugee welcoming centre that is soon to open its doors to the incoming crowds and that does not constitute a welcome into a refugee camp. Even if their arrival is/were (The correct form of the verb depends on your opinion of the situation!) the result of short-sighted policies, since they’re coming, let us embrace them wholeheartedly. They need all the love and compassion with which many Canadian hearts are overflowing. Let's not waste that.

Unfortunately, the name of the highly respected long-established organization that will operate the centre is “Immigrant Services Society”—ISS! The greatest of people, but that name! My advice? Change that name! Don’t fill your incoming guests with fear and suspicion even before they cross your threshold! Let them feel welcome, loved and secure at that moment.