(Statement on the Occasion of the Observance of the World Refugee Day)
When I was a stranger, you welcomed me (Matthew 25:35, CEB).
Unfortunately, not everyone will heed this prophetic challenge. There will still be those who will close their doors to those in need of sanctuaries and places to stay in.
On this year’s observance of the World Refugee Day (June 20), we are pronouncing our solidarity with the least of our sisters and brothers who are forced to leave their homelands, go out of the national borders and seek safe places. They are those who are affected by wars, civil strife or impacts of environmental destructions or persecution due to religious, ethnic or political affiliations.
Today, and the days ahead, we remember:
The Rohingya refugees who long lived in the margins of Myanmar and the neighboring nations, faced political persecution, denying them of citizenship by their own country. Our hearts are torn by the fact that even the United Nations admit that the Rohingyas are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world[1] and probably among the most forgotten ones. The past year, we were witnesses how countries in the South East Asia refused them entry as they begged to land on these countries’ shores. They are practically living on boats as no one is receiving them. They could do nothing as one by one, their fellow Rohingyas die. We joined the rest of the world in a plea for more welcoming gestures of nations in the region.
The people from Africa and Middle East braved the Mediterranean Sea to escape from war, persecution, and human rights violations in their countries. We joined the peoples’ mourning when the shore brought out the lifeless body of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi. He became the face of the danger of traveling the sea in a cramped boat in their desperation to find a safer place. We continue to pray that European states will grant them legal and safe passage.
All these, and other untold stories constitute our desire to work for a world that is more welcoming to refugees. But more than that, our Christian faith compels us to go deeper and question why there are refugees in the first place.
We affirm the stand of the Churches Witnessing with Migrants (CWWM), an international platform for common advocacy of migrants, migrant advocates, churches and ecumenical bodies, and where NCCP is involved in, ‘…this current massive dispersal, displacement, and dislocation of peoples has clear, although complex, historical roots of injustices brought about by slavery, colonialism and racism even as neoliberal globalization exhibits contemporary forms of economic exploitation, political oppression, cultural subjugation, and intervention and occupation by enriched and powerful countries that we must confront.[2]
We further believe that refugees are also like us, created in the image of God. Human rights are their rights, and the human dignity that we bear is also their dignity, inalienable and indivisible.
The challenge to be good Samaritans goes further than simply welcoming them. They are daring us to look into systems and circumstances that drive them away from their homelands. We working with the vision that sooner, what we shall have a world where everyone is in their place of choice, peacefully and safely developing themselves and productively contributing for nation-building.
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[1] U.N.H.C.R., “Burma: Study: Rohingya Among World’s Most Persecuted,” UNHCR Refugee Daily, October 20, 2014, accessed March 2, 2016, http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refdaily?pass=52fc6fbd5&id=5445f0238.
[2] Forced Migration: Pain and Tragedy, Challenges and Responsibilities, The Istanbul Agreements of the Churches Witnessing With Migrants, Istanbul, Turkey, 10-11 October, 2015
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