Aliens and outsiders

 

Living here as a foreigner in a strange land it gives me some insight as to what it feels like to not belong. To have everything you've ever known turned upside down. To live with people who do not think like you do. Who have a collective history that is unknown and inaccessible to you. To be part of a conversation that you don't understand even if you are speaking the same language.

It's one thing to have chosen to leave my homeland. I did not leave Australia because I could no longer live there. I did not leave Australia because I was threatened. I did not leave in fear. So one could say in my coming here to Uganda, that as I have chosen to come here, I should learn to speak the local language, I should learn to fit in, I should leave my thinking and culture and my way of living and adopt the lifestyle and customs of those around me. I should learn to be more like the people I am surrounded by.

But no one has said that to me. Apart from a certain national/tribal pride that motivates friends and strangers alike to teach me their language, whether by actually teaching me or just speaking at me in the hope that I'll catch what they are saying, I have felt no pressure to conform. Although sometimes my accent is hard to understand no one has told me that I should learn to speak proper English. People here have welcomed me with open arms. The cynical might say that it's because I'm white and I'm seen as an open wallet. And while there have been plenty of occasions that I have been asked for money that in no way diminishes the love I have been received with.

       surrounded by students at Nakivale HOPE Nursery and Primary School   located in Nakivale Refugee Settlement

This week in Australia Go Back to Where You Came From aired on SBS, a series of three episodes focusing on refugees and some of the journeys they experience to get to Australia. I did not get to see the program (I tried to watch online but it was not available in my location) but have been watching with interest the debate that it has raised in the media and in my facebook friends community (check out this link to read an article from the New York Times on the program). I also understand there has been a follow up program this week.

I know what Australia is like. I know that there are many arguments for and against refugees coming to our country. The one that cracks me up is the 'Australia for the Australians - we don't want foreigners' argument. My question is ‘how long does it take to make you a true Aussie?’ Australia is a country founded on the migration of different peoples to it and not much more than 200 years ago we were mostly convicts and the poverty stricken hoping for a better life.

While the debates will inevitably continue to rage, especially when it comes to 'illegal asylum seekers', 'queue jumpers', 'boat people' and 'waiting ones turn' to come to the 'lucky country', it is the fact that we have the right to debate and freely exercise this right without compassion that sickens me. June 20th was World Refugee Day. I saw some UN stats in an article that astounded me. Around 80% of the world's refugee's are given refuge in the developing world. In what is now politically incorrect to call the Third World. This is 80% of the world's refugees burdening countries that already have few resources and yet they are welcomed (check out these articles to see some of the data and stats - UNHCR 2011 refugee statistics: full data, UNHCR report says refugee numbers at 15-year high). For example, Afghanistan accounts for around 30% of all refugees in the world today. 62.9% (more than 1.8 million) of these refugees are in Pakistan and 34% (more than 1 million) are in Iran. Australia, on the other hand, houses 0.2% (or 5518 members) of the Afghani refugee population.

I understand that I don't understand everything about the refugee situation in the world today. I also know that I don't have the answers to government policy in this area. But I do know this. That one of the refugee camps that was visited in the program was located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And that in 2008 I visited that camp. And that it is the most awful, depressing, suffocating place I have ever been.

 

DRC Refugee Camp 2008 Australia HOPE International Mission Trip VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The sea of UN tents and desperate humanity remain one of the most overwhelming and at the same time motivating memories I have. It's a reminder that every day there are people who live in a way that I do not want to live. That there are people who live in a way that no human should have to live. And that it is my responsibility as someone who does not have to live like that to do something. Whether it is to educate the uneducated of the Western world who enjoy their comfort (or even in their comfort complain about how little they have) with little thought for those without or whether it is to give hope to those who are hopeless, I know that I have to do something. Anything. Everything. Because to not is to be someone I don't like.

Working with HOPE allows me to do something and see for myself the good that does come out of money that is donated. It allows me to remind myself that I am blessed. It allows me to be part of the change in someone's life. It allows me to be a bearer of hope.

As someone who believes in and loves Jesus with all my heart, there are passages I read in the Bible that stir me whenever I read them. Please allow me to indulge and share a couple with you.

In the book of Isaiah, God says,

'Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter,

when you see the naked, to clothe him

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?'

And Matthew quotes Jesus saying that giving the hungry something to eat, giving the thirsty something to drink, being hospitable to strangers, clothing the naked and caring for the sick and imprisoned is like looking after Jesus himself.

But whether you love Jesus like I do or not, it remains that the 9 billion of us share this planet and it would be nice if we could leave it saying that it's better and others lives are better because we were there.

Be blessed and be a blessing,

bron

I feel like I need to add this. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to belong somewhere. I think it is inherently human to want to be part of some sort of community. Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their homes because of war, persecution or natural disaster. It is estimated that there are 12 million stateless people (people who have nowhere to call home) in the world. Imagine living like that. Refugees in refugee settlements although they are able to earn money are not allowed to build permanent homes. I have met refugees who have lived in a camp all their life. Imagine living like that. What can we do? In our corner of the world we can be hospitable, welcome all people and invite others to belong.