Foreign Policy Magazine (Opinion):
By Rosa Brooks
September 18, 2015
It took the combined efforts of Donald Trump and a Hungarian camerawoman called Petra Laszlo to drive me to religion.
To
say I’m not religious would be an understatement: I grew up in the most
secular of households. My maternal ancestors turned their backs on
several varieties of Christianity
— one dramatic family story features my dying great-great-grandmother
flinging a crucifix violently across the room — and my paternal
ancestors abandoned Judaism with similar zest. My family embraced Santa,
the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy with pagan
enthusiasm when I was a child, but the sacred texts of the world’s
major religions were approached only in a spirit of anthropological
inquiry.
But,
well, my God, people! The Scrooge-like attitude toward immigrants and
refugees now evident on both sides of the Atlantic is enough to send me
straight to the Holy
Writ. The Scrooge-like attitude toward immigrants and refugees now
evident on both sides of the Atlantic is enough to send me straight to
the Holy Writ.
Over
in Europe, we have police using water cannons and tear gas to repel
refugees fleeing Syria’s deadly civil war, which has left Syria in ruins
and killed more than
200,000 people. And we have one Petra Laszlo, a Hungarian camerawoman
who, sent to photograph the influx of desperate migrants, decided to go
the extra mile by kicking a few kids and then tripping a refugee
carrying his 7-year-old son in his arms.
Petra
is now an unemployed Hungarian camerawoman, but there’s still a lot of
kicking going around. Here in the United States, Donald Trump recently
told an enthusiastic
Texas crowd that the number of undocumented immigrants in this country
is “disgusting,” reserving much of his ire for Mexican immigrants (too
many “rapists” and “criminals”) and “anchor babies.” (Too bad The Donald
couldn’t find a convenient anchor baby to
kick!) Trump also had some special words for American municipalities
that he considers insufficiently enthusiastic about cracking down on
undocumented workers: “We have to end this sanctuary cities crap.”
Don’t these people ever read the Bible?
I
mean: Even I, godless heathen that I am, had no trouble recalling the
gist of Matthew 25: 31-46. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory … All
the nations will be gathered
before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd
divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right
hand, but the goats on the left.”
Being a sheep, in this context, is not such a bad thing:
“Then
the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world: for I was hungry
and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a
stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick
and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
Then
the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You
hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? … And the King will
answer and say to them,
‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of
these My brethren, you did it to Me.'”
But it’s not so great to be a goat:
“Then
He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you
cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
for I was hungry and you
gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a
stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me,
sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
Then
they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or
thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not
minister to You?’ Then He
will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did
not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'”
Not
a Christian? Every major religion offers some version of this story.
Islam, for instance, has Allah making much the same points: “Verily,
Allah, the Exalted and Glorious,
will say on the Day of Resurrection: O son of Adam, I was sick but you
did not visit Me. He will say: O my Lord, how could I visit Thee when
Thou art the Lord of the worlds? Thereupon He will say: Didn’t you know
that a certain servant of Mine was sick, but
you did not visit him, and were you not aware that if you had visited
him, you would have found Me by him?” And so on.
Looking for a Jewish version? Try this.
The
sheer moral nastiness of the current wave of anti-migrant sentiment
should appall people of any religion — or none.The sheer moral nastiness
of the current wave of
anti-migrant sentiment should appall people of any religion — or none.
It betrays a stunning lack of empathy and imagination. After all, the
refugees swamping Europe and the undocumented immigrants Trump believes
are turning America into “a dumping ground”
have two crucial things in common: They’re all searching for a better
life for themselves and their children, a life free of fear and hunger
and repression, and they’re all willing to take enormous risks and
endure great privation to find that better life.
Do we really want to kick these people in the teeth?
Unmoved
by parable and sacred texts? We should still push back hard against the
trans-Atlantic desire to build walls, turn away ships at sea, and
corral the hungry, frightened,
and desperate into camps surrounded by barbed wire. It’s just common
sense — and self-preservation, if it comes to that.
What
goes around, comes around. When a society is nasty to migrants — when
it takes them in grudgingly, treats them badly, and makes it difficult
for them to become fully
integrated — guess what happens? Sooner or later, many of those
migrants (whether driven by economic hardship, war, natural disaster, or
political persecution) start resenting their surly, uncharitable hosts.
Sooner or later, some of those migrants, or their
children, or their children’s children, get resentful enough to take up
arms against their hosts — or against their host’s interests.
Conversely, societies that are kinder to migrants tend to generate
loyalty rather than resentment among migrant populations.
This
is a primary reason the United States has seen so much less “homegrown”
terrorism and extremism than Europe. In much of Europe, nationality is
still a matter of blood,
land, and religion to a significant extent, and migrants find full
integration difficult: The children and grandchildren of immigrants may
still be unable to become citizens, and even those with citizenship may
forever be viewed as cultural “foreigners.” In
the United States, it’s different: The Donald notwithstanding, America
remains a nation of immigrants, and national identity isn’t a matter of
skin color or ethnic heritage. The foreign-born and the children of
immigrants can be quickly accepted: Think of
Bobby Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, or Marco Rubio, the son of
Cuban immigrants (both anchor babies!), or Barack Obama, the son of an
American and a Kenyan student. Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger (born
Austrian), or Madeleine Albright (born in then-Czechoslovakia),
or Samantha Power (born Irish).
Numerous
studies and polls confirm that those societies that give immigrants an
easier path to full integration end up with happier, more prosperous,
and more loyal immigrant
communities. Foreign-born and second-generation Muslims living in the
United States, for instance, have much lower levels of support for
extremism and terrorism than their counterparts in Europe; they’re also
wealthier and more positive about the nation they
live in than European Muslims (though, to be fair, the integration of
Muslims and other immigrants varies substantially within different
European countries).
In
general, American immigrants of all national and religious origins —
including those undocumented Latino immigrants who so enrage Trump —
fare better and are more positive
about their adopted homes than immigrant communities in Europe. Their
children do better, too: While the children of migrants in Europe are
more likely than their parents to say they face discrimination, the
children of immigrants in the United States generally
say they feel like “typical Americans” and view their heritage as
either irrelevant or helpful to their efforts to find work, gain
admission to colleges, and so on. Immigrant communities “give back,”
too: In the United States, both legal immigrants and undocumented
immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits,
and studies suggest that overall immigration tends to boost, rather than
depress, the wages of native-born workers.
Generosity
and empathy toward migrants and refugees won’t transform our world into
the kingdom of heaven, but it just might help stave off several
varieties of everlasting
fire.
And
now that I’ve found religion, I can articulate what I always knew to be
true: Donald Trump, you’re nothing but a nasty old goat.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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