Scapegoating the Refugee
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
Those who are in want to stop others from getting in. America is the land of immigrants. Yet, old immigrants dislike new immigrants, preferring not to see in them a mirror of their misery, which drove their forebears to seek a better and new world.
Many Caucasians now feel unhorsed by the slow-motion browning of America, with its mix of race and religion. An estimated 10 percent of Americans (and 8 American Presidents) can trace their ancestry back to the 1620 voyage of the ship Mayflower, which transported over 100 passengers, today known as Pilgrims, from England and Leiden, Holland, to what is present-day Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After an arduous journey, disease and brutal winter decimated about half of them.
Why then did they choose to risk it all? Confucius answered this query centuries ago when he posited that “an oppressive government is more to be feared than a maneating tiger.”
A 2015 historical drama, “Saints and Strangers” depicts the ordeal of the Mayflower passengers. There are uncanny parallels to Muslim migrants streaming into Europe to escape death and destruction in their native homeland.
Pertinent here is the awardwinning Italian documentary, “Fire at Sea”, which won the Golden Bear prize for Best Film at the February 2016 Berlin International Film Festival. It depicts the Mediterranean Sea crossing ordeal of desperate migrants striving to enter Europe, and its impact on the Italian isle of Lampedusa.
Overall, Western has been a mixture of generosity, hostility and even outright cruelty. Shamefully, Denmark sees fit to confiscate the valuables of asylum seekers. When Hitler’s Panzers blitzed Denmark for 6 hours on April 9, 1940 – the briefest military campaign of WWII – the country collapsed like a house of cards. The ferocity of resistance to refugees now can be contrasted to the craven capitulation then of Danes in face of the German juggernaut.
Neutral Switzerland during WWII did not exactly cover itself with glory. Many desperate refugees were shunned and abandoned with the frequent alibi “our boat is full.” A 1981 award-winning Swiss film, “The Boat is Full”, substantiates this sordid episode tellingly, demonstrating once again that being oblivious to the suffering of strangers remains a malignant facet of the human condition.
Such a stance, as Pope Francis remonstrated, is inconsistent with the Christian ethic. In times of crisis, nations that appear bright are sometimes unveiled as dim. In striking contrast is the open-heartedness, compassion, and empathy shown by Pakistan and its citizenry to millions of Afghans uprooted by the Soviet invasion. A 2015 UN report states that since 2002, it assisted in returning 3.8 million Afghan refugees from Pakistan, while nearly 1.5 million remain in Pakistan, “the largest protracted refugee population globally.” One unexpected silver lining in refugee camps was the incubation of cricket culture, which now brings joy in war-torn Afghanistan.
500 years ago, after Muslim Spain was re-conquered by Christians, and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered the expulsion of Jews, it was Ottoman Turkey that provided sanctuary. The humanitarian crisis today is a classic opportunity for the West to show moral leadership and to self-correct its dark 20th century past.
