Refugees: The Pope has the Right Idea

Pope Francis has been quoted as calling on society to respond to  the world’s largest and most severe refugee crisis in recorded history: “May every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe, take in one family.”

With 1,9 million Syrian refugees having escaped persecution into Turkey and a further 2,1 million scattering themselves across the Middle East and Europe, one thing is apparent in Syria under the governance of Bashar al-Assad and parts controlled by ISIS. It has become a hell on earth for many of her people.

A further 55 million people are escaping persecution elsewhere. Closer to home, millions are escaping brutal rapes, murders, tortures and sieges in the Democratic Republic of Congo, whereas many Somali nationals leave behind the tumult of a country torn to pieces by the exploits of tribal and clan warlords. Some of these refugees, along with many others, flee to South Africa, a country that boasts “The world’s greatest Constitution” as well as the miracle tale of transition out of apartheid. Therefore the promise of respect for basic human rights and an opportunity at fulfilling your potential as a human being—both for yourself and your family—has made South Africa a lucrative destination for refugees.

Hence, according to statistics at the end of 2014, there are 65000 refugees and 230000 asylum seekers in South Africa. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, and one of the few world leaders who has shown leadership by accepting 800000 asylum seekers has been paraphrased as having said: In spite of everything, Germany is a “good country” and is in “a good state of health”. Civil society, often invoked and praised, is a reality, and added how proud she is to see so many people giving freely to help refugees in Germany. “The number of helpers is many times higher than the number of rabble-rousers and xenophobes,”she said. This should hold true for South Africa as well.

However, with a global debate raging around whether people who are fleeing for their lives should be called refugees or migrants, the tragic fact is lives are being lost while world leaders and nations are arguing semantics. The numbers are stark, if one had to gather the 59 million people who are displaced at this very moment, and they were to create their own state, they would constitute the 24th largest country in the world!

As stark as these numbers are, they do not tell the human story at the face of the true tragedy playing out at a global scale. Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy, has been reported as being happy and excited at the boat trip he, his brother, mother and father were to undertake. Little did he know that his aunt had financed their space on the smuggler’s boat to Greece, little did he know that his parents wanted to escape the Syrian war and escape the misery of life in a refugee camp in Turkey.

Tragically, Abdullah, Aylan’s father, in an effort to save his family from war and the tragedy of a refugee camp, did not anticipate to lose his wife, least yet, have the photos of his two toddler sons’ drowned bodies splashed across the international media! Abdullah lost everything he wanted to save, his wife and two beautiful sons claimed by the Mediterranean. Since then many similar accounts have emerged, of children being taken by the brine as their parents tried to save them from the chemical weapons of the al-Assad government or the unforgiving swords of ISIS.

Here too, many Somalis escape the persecution of warlords, many Congolese escape certain death and rape, however, as opposed to adopting Pope Francis’ humanitarian and compassionate approach, we at times greet them with xenophobic violence veiled in a shroud of economic friction. Creative solutions need to be sought, exactly what this would be, is yet to be determined, for the world has not seen as many people displaced by conflict since 70 years ago, the end of the World War II. What is central to that solution however, is compassion, however, few seem to have the compassion the Pontiff has asked for.

Gushwell Brooks is the communications officer for the Jesuit Refugee Service, Southern Africa Regional Office.