On Refugees and Migrants

One of the profoundly unsettling consequences of global communication and social media is the way it shatters our illusions about how compassionate we are and shines a spotlight on our own selfishness and impotence.  The entire world was heartbroken at the sight of two drowned boys and a despairing father from Syria, but our despair seems to have no outlet, no path to right these horrible wrongs or to prevent them from happening over and over again.

We donate money to various aid organizations, but this tiny gesture seems sadly anemic in the face of the horrific political and military forces that shatter the lives of so many human beings.  Is it our fate to become inured to the misery that this world so often causes, to close off our hearts in an effort to shield ourselves from pangs of conscience?  Can we assuage our guilt with modest sympathetic declarations and monetary contributions?

It is particularly frustrating that years of economic development and steady improvement of living conditions can be wiped out in a few months by a despot or a rogue militia group.  The world looks on in helpless outrage, but short of sending in ground troops and undertaking major military operations – an operation that few are willing or able to undertake after the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan – there is almost nothing to be done other than to try to be compassionate to the desperate souls who flee.

We try to distinguish between refugees and migrants, but I would argue that when we look deeply at the causes, these descriptions become a distinction without a difference.  In theory, a refugee is someone fleeing because it is no longer safe for them to remain in their country.  A migrant is someone who is ‘merely’ seeking a better life – migrating to a more prosperous country than the one they inhabited.

But both refugees and migrants are risking their lives and what little fortune they have managed to accumulate in the same desperate and dangerous voyage.  And they are both almost always the victims of corrupt political systems that have squandered the country’s economic resources, or of anarchic, civil war conditions that make normal commerce impossible to sustain.  Almost all of the significant migrations are in the end the result of politics and/or war – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali, Sudan, even Mexico and Central America.

Is a migrant with no opportunity to improve his life so different from a refugee fleeing for his?  If you cannot put food on the table in your native land and have no hope for improvement because of years of political corruption or civil war, is your quest for a new life any less worthy than that of a person whose life is similarly devastated but perhaps in more immediate danger?

The statue of liberty and Ellis Island stand as symbols of America’s long history of accepting immigrants and transforming them into the engine of the U.S. economy.  But these immigrants were never really ‘welcomed’, were they?  Every immigrant group that came to these shores suffered tremendous hardship and prejudice – the Irish, the Germans, the Jews, the Italians, the Chinese and so on.  There were always concerns that the ‘pure’ nature of American society would somehow be diminished by these ‘hordes’ of new citizens. Yet we prospered by the infusion, and still do.

As long as the gulf in this world between rich and poor nations is so large and the incidence of mayhem and war so great, there will be large movements of people willing or forced to risk all to find a better life.  And it is only human that those who are already enjoying the peace and prosperity of a favored land will jealously guard their treasure and good fortune from new aspirants.

But sadly, this refugee and migrant crisis is now even more complex because of an increasing skepticism by many that assimilation is not really occurring for many ethnic and religious groups, and that countries willing to host them are taking a risk for future conflict and possible terrorism within their borders.

Germany has been the rare example of a courageous voice for setting aside suspicions and reservations to do the right thing.  It is an historical irony, but an inspiring one, that the country whose past was the very essence of ethnic purity and intolerance is now the leading advocate for humane and charitable treatment of the many different groups looking toward it as a beacon of hope.

In the end we must all overcome our fears and doubts and welcome the stranger if we aspire to our better natures and a better world.  For we are the fortunate ones who won the random lottery of birth and circumstance.  In no situation it is more accurately stated: there but for the grace of God go I.  But it will require all of the humanity that we can muster to embrace the spirit of the poem that adorns our Statue of Liberty: 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"