His name was Charles. I met him a few years ago shortly before Christmas. He had moved to Atlanta just a few months before that. That’s not the most accurate way to say that. Charles was relocated to Atlanta. He was a refugee.
Having grown up in Cameroon, Charles was an English-speaking Christian in a country led by French-speaking Muslims. Like many African nations, the government is repressive and has a long history of human rights abuses. Charles studied to become a lawyer and was advocating for human rights for English-speaking people in the South of Cameroon. I know that both of his parents had been killed. His sister left Cameroon. Somehow, he was able to get to Kenya and had been living in a refugee camp there when he applied for political asylum through the United Nations. In this process, a refugee has no choice about which country will accept the petition of asylum and become the refugee’s new home. One day, after a couple of years in a refugee camp, he was notified that he’d be relocated to the United States. A few days later, he was on a plane which led him to a small town outside of Atlanta where he shared an apartment with another man relocated from a different African country.
I’ve known other refugees. When I lived in Tucson, there were a number of people who had been refugees from the wars in Latin America which occurred in the 1980s during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Those were the years when the CIA was attempting to overturn elected governments in several countries because they weren’t friendly to US business. Ironically, refugees came to the US from Latin America after being tortured by militias who were armed by the CIA.
As I reflect on the Christmas stories this year, I am drawn to consider the passage from Matthew’s gospel: warned in a dream about impending danger from the government, Joseph took Mary and the newborn Jesus and travel across the arid land to Egypt. They were refugees fleeing the threat of violence. As the sacred story has been handed down to us, we understand that the Holy Family remained in Egypt as hosts of the foreign nation until it was safe to return to Judea.
As I write, refugees are gathered along the Southern border of the United States outside of San Diego. They have been mislabeled as “a migrant caravan.” They are not migrants but refugees fleeing violence which was orchestrated by US actions in their home countries. (That’s not my opinion but the analysis of the UN and our allies.) Following both international law and laws in the United States on refugees, their intent was to present themselves on US soil and apply for asylum. Despite what some government officials and news media claim, this is legal entry and their plan was based on US law.
Evangelicals claiming that the United States is a Christian nation. Governmental leaders hide under a blanket of faux-Christianism In this context, it is the height of irony that as we prepare to celebrate Christmas that the United States is treating the least of our brothers and sisters with scorn. Rather than obeying our own laws, we have sent troops to the border with orders to fire at people who are exercising what we understand to be legally safeguarded human rights. If I compare the Biblical story to what’s happening today, I conclude that our government leaders are not much different from Herod who legend tells us ordered the slaughter of all male children under the age of two so that a newborn king wouldn’t threaten his power.
No, my reflection this week is not all covered in tinsel nor is there a bright and shining ending. Instead, I wonder: what kind of nation do we want to be? Are we a place where refugees fleeing violence are received as were Jesus, Mary, and Joseph? Or are we people who lash out at others because our power feels threatened by what we don’t understand?
Yes, this is Christmas: a celebration of an unwed teenager giving birth to a baby whose father is someone other than her fiancée. Yes, this is Christmas: a day when we remember people whose lives teetered on the edge of poverty yet struggled to make a way in the midst of political and economic oppression. Yes, this is Christmas: a holiday meant to bring joy to the world and peace among all people. Yet, I wonder: what has become of us this Christmas that we oppress others and treat them as less than human while telling lies about them and ignoring our own laws?
Photo by MTSOfan on Visualhunt.com/CC BY-NC-SA (found on foter.com)