PLASTIC
SHEETS AND INNER STRUGGLES
It is hard
to be patient with the constant requests of the poor. Are they genuine? If I
give to one, why not to all? Then a woman comes. She says she has four children
and has the youngest with her. Her husband is in prison, the rains have come
and the roof of her shack is leaking. Could she have $25 for some plastic to
cover the leaks? It so happens we too had a leaking roof. We spent a good deal
more than $25 repairing it. In fact we put on a new roof as the old was rotting.
Ours is one of those countries of the excessively rich and the grindingly
poor.
For
centuries, people in poor countries have migrated to richer ones: the Irish to
England, Italians to America, Turks to Germany, Zimbabweans to South Africa. It
was quite acceptable when labour was needed in the rich countries. Suddenly, in
recent decades, the rich are closing their doors on the poor. Mexicans can’t
get into America, Afghans can’t get into Australia, Africans can’t get into
Europe.
But they try
anyway. They risk their lives in flimsy boats in the hands of unscrupulous
go-betweens or they climb fences or walls. They do not give up. Anything is
better than the wasted lives they live at home. There was a time they were
welcomed for economic reasons; they provided labour. Now they are refused for
moral reasons; they are too many and we are afraid. They will take our jobs,
our benefits; they are a nuisance. The tightly pressed spring of colonialism is
let loose and is bouncing back. The colonisers were happy with what they could
get at the time. They never thought there would be a price for their
descendants to pay.
Well, those
descendants don’t seem – yet – willing to face the issue. There is a report just out from the UK
entitled, A Callous Disregard for the Vulnerable lies at the heart of the UK
government, which begins;
On Wednesday, we learned that our government has taken refugees it had held at the camp at
Manston on the Kent Coast and left them on the streets of London late at night.
They were not told where they were, where they could go for safety or given any
money.
This does not seem to have been an anomaly involving a few people – 50
were dumped from a bus near London’s Victoria Station. These people had been
forced from their homes and had struggled here in hopes of safety. Abandoned in
a strange place by those who were supposed to protect them, it is fair to
imagine they were confused, disoriented, and afraid…
This is the tail end of colonialism
and it is not pretty. There is not even a hint of understanding that these
migrants are the desperate victims of a world order designed to favour the
powerful. The word compassion, leave alone justice, seems far from the minds of
those who deliberately exploit the weak by dumping them in a strange place
without help.
Compassion is not a soft cuddly word.
It is hard courageous work to think out the demands of justice at whatever cost
to ourselves. We are being urged to combat global warming but ultimately, we
can understand that combat will benefit us and our children. This combat,
justice for migrants, seems to carry no obvious benefits for us. But, if we can
stretch our minds and our hearts, reaching out to others will bring
unimaginable benefits to us too as well as to them. 13
November 2022
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