Sunday Star-Times

Come on, help adopt a refugee

Debut column: Big talk about boosting our refugee quota isn’t enough; we all must step up.

- Ali Mau is the host of RadioLIVE Drive, 3-6pm weekdays

You have to watch your language these days. I don’t mean swearing – that’s getting more acceptable all the time – but more the elastic meanings and modish labels that get a massive hammering on Twitter for a while and then jump the shark altogether. ‘‘Social justice’’ was once a noble thing but is now a cliche´d insult; ‘‘snowflake’’ went from winter treat to alt-right invective. Stuff happens and words you thought you knew suddenly take on a different tone. So it seems with ‘‘refugee’’. Just a few years ago, preSyria and the largest humanitari­an crisis since World War II, refugees were the blameless victims of other people’s decisions. Now you can feel the zeitgeist changing. It started with the massive wave of desperate people clambering onto leaky boats in the summer of 2015 and drowning in their thousands in the Mediterran­ean. Angela Merkel welcomed the survivors to Germany and paid the price; you might have heard she’s since admitted she made a mistake. If you read further you’d also know she regrets only that Germany was not better prepared for the huge numbers arriving, and that her fellow EU members were being such utter Scrooges about it. US President Donald Trump has stepped things up a couple of notches, and is now peddling the ‘‘refugee = evil’’ line with alacrity. Thursday’s humiliatio­n of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull included a classic Trump tweet about the ‘‘dumb deal’’ where he talked about ‘‘illegal refugees’’. Think about that nonsensica­l phrase for a moment. Once declared refugees, they are not illegal, by definition; under the 1951 Refugee Convention, they cannot be. But it fits so well with his US-First shtick, doesn’t it? Let’s consider for a moment that refugees are actual people, not the gargoyles that Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, want you to see. Local examples: Late last year, at a Refugee Aid NZ fundraiser, I met Hana Schofield and Atka Reid, a lawyer and graphic designer respective­ly. Hana and Atka are probably New Zealand’s most famous ever refugees, if there can be such a thing. The sisters were trapped in the Sarajevo siege in 1992, separated from their mother and supporting eight brothers and sisters. Two of their uncles were killed as the siege wore on.

Atka put 12-year-old Hana on one of the last UN buses out of Sarajevo, staying behind to look after the younger children; it was years until they saw each other again. Atka worked as an interprete­r for foreign media during the siege, fell in love with Kiwi photojourn­alist Andrew Reid, and eventually came to New Zealand. The Reid family then worked tirelessly to unite the family and bring them all to Christchur­ch, where they’ve been hardworkin­g contributo­rs to this country ever since.

Hana and Atka are both blonde and fairskinne­d, and therefore might look like some people’s idea of the ‘‘right kind’’ of refugees. Trump is after the Muslims – a different story altogether, you might say. But it was the Muslim Bosniaks who were the ones massacred, raped, and tortured in the Bosnian conflict.

Are the rest of us Kiwis really the generous, charitable open-hearted people we like to think we are? New Zealand is under pressure on multiple fronts – internal and external – to lift our formal refugee quota even further, but these calls are so far falling on deaf ears. Taking 2000-3000 refugees a year would be wonderful; without the resources to fund their complex needs it could be utterly counterpro­ductive.

This is where the willingnes­s of ordinary Kiwis to help will be put to the test, sometime this year. The Government has promised to launch a small community sponsorshi­p pilot programme like the one that operates – apparently brilliantl­y well – in Canada. Groups of five or more private citizens, or community groups, band together to take a refugee and set them up with everything they need for a year; after that, the Government takes over.

Refugees are helped with language issues, shown how to use public transport, where to find a job, how to enrol their children in school. With instant friends to help, integratin­g into the community is much easier.

I’m in. If Canada can do it, surely we can too? I refuse to believe that Canadians are more generous, more open-hearted, more interested in the welfare of others, than Kiwis are. Let’s hope the Government, in election year, is still willing to help us show that we can.

 ??  ??
 ?? PETER MEECHAM / FAIRFAX NZ ?? Bosnian refugees Hana Schofield, left, and her sister Atka Reid fled the horrors of the Sarajevo siege and found a new life in New Zealand.
PETER MEECHAM / FAIRFAX NZ Bosnian refugees Hana Schofield, left, and her sister Atka Reid fled the horrors of the Sarajevo siege and found a new life in New Zealand.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from New Zealand