Alan Kurdi and why Canada embraces Syrian refugees

“The government of Canada has a long and proud tradition of providing protection to those who need it the most by providing refuge to thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people,” says Faith St. John, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada in Vancouver.

“I’d really say it’s in our national DNA to stand up and respond to these situations of upheaval and humanitarian crisis around the world,” says Louisa Taylor, director of Refugee 613, a grassroots coalition of individuals and nongovernmental organizations advocating refugee resettlement in Ottawa. “We see ourselves as a nation of immigrants, we can empathize with people in these situations,” she adds. “It’s also important that we’ve responded to these refugee crises for a long time, going back at least to the Vietnamese in the ‘70s, so Canadians tend to say, ‘We can do this, we’ve done this before many times.’”

It would be impossible to explain the outpouring of support and compassion that allowed Canada to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees in a matter of weeks without taking into account the impact on Canada’s national psyche of the death of Alan Kurdi. Alan was the three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned while crossing the Mediterranean with his family last September and whose body washed up on a Turkish beach–to be famously photographed as he was picked up and cradled by a Turkish police officer.

For Canadians it became personal when it was learned that his family had relatives in British Columbia and had been trying to legally immigrate to Canada before giving up in desperation and taking to the sea.

Says Ms. Taylor. “When it became known that his family had been trying to get to Canada, it was like a national punch to the gut,” she adds. “People were saying ‘That’s not Canada,’ that if we had been true to our values the Kurdi family wouldn’t have got in that dingy and Alan would be preparing for nursery school in B.C.”

[CS Monitor]

Humanitarian fears hang over Balkans migrant talks

Balkan countries along the well-trodden migrant path towards northern Europe met Wednesday to explore ways to stem the flow despite growing fears that tighter controls will spark a humanitarian crisis, particularly in Greece.

The talks come after figures showing Europe’s migrant headache continuing to rage, with over 110,000 people arriving in Greece and Italy so far this year alone, following more than one million in 2015.

The influx has boosted anti-immigration parties, driven a wedge among many of the 28 members of the European Union and thrown into doubt the continent’s cherished passport-free Schengen Zone that is crucial for commerce.

Sparked by sparked by Austria’s much-criticized introduction last week of daily migrant limits, countries throughout the western Balkans have begun unilaterally to impose restrictions. Most recently, Macedonia has closed its frontier to Afghans and introduced more stringent document checks for Syrians and Iraqis seeking to travel to northern and western Europe. The restrictions have caused a bottleneck of thousands of people at the Greek-Macedonian border.

Amnesty International hit out Wednesday at Europe’s “shameful” response, saying most EU countries had “simply decided that the protection of their borders is more important than the protection of the rights of refugees”.

[AFP]

Will international NGOs survive?

International NGOs (INGO), whether humanitarian, human rights, development or environment, are all facing a set of critical and far-reaching crises.

Their very legitimacy is in question from all sides: governments, southern partners, donors, and even their own staff. The critiques are myriad. Southern organizations and governments argue that INGOs are unaccountable and have too much power; humanitarian agencies, meanwhile, fail to consult beneficiaries and local groups effectively, and it’s unclear where donors’ money goes. At home some politicians argue that INGOs shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them by campaigning while receiving government grants. Conversely, they’re accused of not campaigning enough; that they are apolitical, and too close, in some cases, to the corporate sector.

In spite of what some perceive as great successes of the sector – reaching the 0.7% foreign aid target or international debt relief – there is no backing away from the view that the sector needs, at the very least, a tune-up, if not a wholesale revolution to enable it to face modern times.

Social innovation seems to be rising up around INGOs, making them appear out-dated and static. Social enterprises are rapidly occupying the service delivery space where INGOs once led, with a fresh wave of philanthro-capitalists seeking out “beyond charity” solutions to poverty.

The sector’s traditional approach to challenge has been to develop codes of practice, joint charters, or training schemes. Some go further: Action Aid and Oxfam have shifted their headquarters to the global south. But such approaches feel a bit like changing a warning sign on a poorly engineered aircraft – they still have a high likelihood of failure.

It is unlikely that INGOs will survive, at least in their current form, without a direct full-frontal assault on the sector.

[An Opinion printed in The Guardian]

Pope delivers a stinging critique of both US and Mexico for mistreating the poor and marginalized

On Wednesday, Pope Francis unleashed another aspect of his complex public persona: The disappointed prophet who excoriates world powers for mistreating the poor and marginalized.

Celebrating Mass in Ciudad Juarez, a city just across the border from the United States, Francis delivered a stinging critique of leaders on both sides of the fence, calling the “forced migration” of thousands of Central Americans a “human tragedy” and “humanitarian crisis”. … “Injustice is radicalized in the young,” the Pope said during his homily before a congregation of more than 200,000 people. “They are ‘cannon fodder,’ persecuted and threatened when they try to flee the spiral of violence and the hell of drugs.”

The Bible readings at the Mass told the story of Jonah, another angry prophet. The Bible passages set up the Pope to blister injustices in Mexico and indifference in the United States, casting both countries as modern-day Ninevehs. “Go and tell them that injustice has infected their way of seeing the world,” the Pope said, describing Jonah’s mission to rouse the city of Nineveh from the morass of moral decay. “Go and help them to understand that by the way they treat each other, ordering and organizing themselves, they are only creating death and destruction, suffering and oppression.”

It was a grand geopolitical gesture from the Pope’s political playbook, mirroring his prayer at the wall separating Palestinian territories and Israel in 2014. It also thrust Francis into the polarized debates over immigration in both the United States and Mexico.

[CNN]

Two Danish aid workers charged with “human trafficking” in Greece

Two Danish aid workers from the non-profit organization Team Humanity were arrested on human trafficking charges on the Greek island of Lesbos.

The two men, aged 26 and 33, are now sitting in custody awaiting a trial that could possibly see them get four years in prison. The organization’s chairman said the men were saving refugees from a sinking boat in the Aegean Sea.

Allegedly, they had contacted the Greek coastguard after receiving a distress call, but when the Greek coastguard did not show up, the Danes together with three Spanish volunteers began to help the refugees onto their own boat. Then they called the coastguard again, and this time it responded by escorting them to the island.

Later that day, the volunteers were arrested and charged with human trafficking.

Team Humanity was established spontaneously in the autumn of 2015, when a group of young friends, mostly from Copenhagen, decided to travel to Lesbos to help save Syrian refugees from drowning.

Canadian Red Carpet Treatment for Syrian Refugees

Jim Estill, who made his fortune as a tech entrepreneur, has launched a new startup in his hometown of Guelph, Ontario. Estill is leading a huge community effort to settle about 50 Syrian refugee families. He’s expecting the first to arrive by the end of January and is prepared to foot a bill of about $1.1 million for food, housing and clothing.

“This is absolutely not a religious thing and not a political thing,” Estill said. “It’s a Canadian thing.”

About 125 kilometers (80 miles) to the south, across the world’s longest border, Americans are struggling to reconcile a celebrated immigrant history with fears refugees from the Middle East will steal jobs, drain public services or, worse yet, turn out to be terrorists. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has issued a call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. altogether and governors of more than 30 states are opposed to accepting the victims of a brutal civil war in Syria that has displaced more than four million people.

In Canada, there are no such qualms. The new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has personally helped fit Syrian children into puffy winter jackets and major corporations are donating goods, services and cash, including a C$5 million contribution to resettlement programs last week by Canadian National Railway Co., the second-largest railroad in North America.

“We get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations,” Trudeau said as he and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne greeted the first chartered flight of refugees at Toronto’s Pearson airport. His government has promised to bring in 25,000 Syrians before the end of February, more than twice the target of the Obama administration.

Perrin Beatty, chief executive officer of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a former member of parliament, is set to meet with 60 company executives to figure out how they can help the new arrivals. In 1979, Beatty was a rookie cabinet minister in a Conservative government that evacuated 50,000 Vietnamese refugees — the so-called boat people — to Canada. He is struck by the contribution they have made to the country and sees the new influx of Syrians as no different than earlier settlers who fled persecution and other disasters, including his own Irish forebears in the early 1800s.

A former defense minister, Beatty said any security anxieties about the Syrian refugees are misplaced. “Your average planeload of refugees is far better vetted than the average planeload of tourists,” he said. “What you’re getting is enormously grateful people who fled from the most terrible conditions of oppression and war. These are people who want to make a new life and contribute.”

Canadians take pride in the waves of refugees they’ve taken in since the Second World War (the record was more checkered beforehand), including the 37,000 Hungarians in 1957; more than 7,000 Ismaili Muslims evicted from Idi Amin’s Uganda in 1972 and the boat people in 1979. Canada’s positive record of diversity is often invoked when its leaders visit other nations and has become a major component of the country’s self-identity.

As for Donald Trump’s views, Estill said he has little patience for people playing politics with so much hardship to address. “It’s just troubling that someone with as much influence as Trump would be mongering hate,” he said. “I don’t believe in hate, and I don’t believe hate ever solves anything,” he said. “These are people. That’s what they are.”

[Bloomberg]

Migrant crisis a historic test for Europe

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has described the migrant crisis as a “historic test” for Europe.

More than one million refugees have come to Germany so far this year, officials there say.

Defending her policy on migrants at the annual conference of her CDU party, Mrs Merkel said that Germany was standing by its humanitarian duties. But she said the flow of migrants would be reduced – a step that some members of the party have been calling for.

The German leader said the decision by Germany and Austria to allow in migrants stranded in the Hungarian capital, after many started walking towards the border on 4 September, was a humanitarian imperative.

“Something that was far away from us – that we have seen on television – is now literally at our front door,” she said. “The war in Syria, the barrel bombings by (Syrian President Bashar al-) Assad, the spread of IS in Syria and Iraq, the fact that Libya has no functioning government, the situation in Afghanistan – all that is no longer far away but has come to us.”

Mrs Merkel, who has led Germany for 10 years, was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year last week. The US news magazine cited her role in Europe’s crises over migration and the Greek debt crisis, saying she had provided “steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply”.

[BBC]

Gaining a perspective on the refugee crisis

The following are from the comments section of a video criticizing refugees in Europe.

“These people are sub human,” read one actual comment.

“They haven’t fully evolved from apes yet,” another commenter replied.

I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading. Is this really how some people regard their fellow human beings?

In reading through that comments section, I sensed an underlying current of one emotion: fear. Faced with a sudden influx of people you don’t know, whose culture you don’t understand and whose lives are in some ways very different from your own, it’s easy to succumb to fear.

Click here for eye-opening online experiences you can check out to gain a perspective on things.