Great challenges lie ahead for great nations
Refugees are some of the most misunderstood people on the planet. Whether they leave their home countries for social or economic reasons (or both), the irony is that societies have moved across land masses for centuries. Wherever there’s food, water and security, people will migrate (or invade). We’re all children of migrants.
According to UNHCR, an unprecedented 65.3 million people around the world are currently displaced from home. New Zealand is one of about 26 countries that take part in the UNHCR. New Zealand’s customary annual refugee quota is 750 refugees and this will be increased to 1000 refugees from 2018. Last year, the Government announced an additional 750 Syrian refugees will be welcomed in response to the ongoing conflict in Syria (these figures will increase once refugees are reunited with their families).
The overarching vision for the New Zealand Resettlement Strategy is that ‘‘Refugees are participating fully and integrated socially and economically as soon as possible so that they are living independently, undertaking the same responsibilities and exercising the same rights as other New Zealanders and have a strong sense of belonging to their own community and to New Zealand’’.
In Europe, the refugee situation has divided people’s attitudes concerning immigrants and demonstrates what could happen if refugees aren’t participating fully and don’t have a strong sense of belonging to their own community and to New Zealand. The UK’s Brexit referendum saw ‘‘Leave’’ campaigners propagate the UK was at ‘‘breaking point’’ showing photographs of refugees trying to enter European borders. What is a society where misrepresentation of reality actually has an effect? Whenever there is an overwhelming experience, we need to grasp it, which is complex. We tend to oversimplify, polarise and settle for binary solutions – narrative slogans such as ‘‘Welcome refugees’’ and ‘‘No refugees’’ become the norm. Simplified narratives stoke community tension. There are valid tensions on both sides.
But forget about who came when and how, New Zealand is now full of migrants and refugees and that can create a new framework – a ‘‘postmigration society’’ – which reflects the diversity of New Zealand and presents a challenge and creative possibilities. We can’t always just work with them (refugees) and get their confidence up. We’ve got to do something about ourselves. We’ve got to teach each other to accept refugees otherwise there could be a terrible backlash.
Young refugees ‘‘at risk’’ could cause such a backlash. ‘‘At risk’’ is a broad term and many young people fall into this category in the course of their adolescence, but it is strongly linked to social exclusion, a process of social, economic and cultural marginalisation that creates profound feelings of alienation and associated problems. There needs to be strategies to support young refugees and non-refugees to restructure their identities that counter the risks of social exclusion. Equally as problematic is a lack of understanding from the host society and their expectations. Developing an understanding between groups is a two-way process.
At a smaller level, positive youth involvement in civic society may challenge dangerous and divisive political ideologies. The practices of drama can promote civic responsibility. Applied theatre projects are an effective drama intervention to promote citizenship. How might practising drama encourage people to become active participant citizens? The applied theatre project creates a space where this can happen, where participants get to work alongside others, celebrate difference and similarity and develop and be valued for their own strengths. Through play and creativity, participants are open to new ways of seeing and responding. Contact between different groups can reduce the anxiety and prejudice. Effective interventions can utilise culturally appropriate ways of engaging with refugees that do not pathologise, but rather honour cultural systems and values to foster recovery and resilience processes.
An arts approach uses culturally appropriate methods to engage different groups. There have to be integration projects, and that’s not about getting the refugees to integrate, it’s about us, the host communities, understanding, talking, researching, finding out and welcoming people, and recognising difference and finding a way forward with them. Refugees have capacity to share skills (they might be able to teach their cuisine, language and performance traditions). Cultural diversity is one of the glories of human existence. The lives of all New Zealanders can be hugely enriched by celebrating their own cultures and the practices and traditions of other cultures. As New Zealand becomes more numerous and interwoven, living respectfully with diversity is not just an ethical choice, it is a practical imperative.
Stephen Wakem is a Rotary Scholar for peacebuilding and conflict prevention/resolution and post-graduate of applied theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London.
In an 1893 essay, American historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the ongoing challenges presented by the American frontier forged the character and vitality of the nation: the Virginia colony, the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Each obstacle posed a challenge, including an untamed wilderness, vast distances, lack of food, physical hardship, Native American resistance, the unknown, isolation, struggle, lawlessness and violence
Daniel Boone, Davey Crockett, General Custer, Geronimo, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, the ill-fated Donner Party – all part of the legend. All faced challenge and all made America great.
Challenges drive action
We tend to oversimplify, polarise and settle for binary solutions. We might be witnessing the decline of American greatness built on the pursuit of challenge.
Beyond Frank Turner’s frontier, Americans accepted more challenges. Traversing the continent with roads, railroads and communication networks. Transforming the oil, rail, steel, shipping, automobile and finance industries into the greatest in history. Two world wars, the Great Depression and the ‘‘New Deal’’, landing a man on the moon, civil rights, a war on poverty and a renewed vision of America based on a spirit of individualism under Ronald Reagan. New Zealanders also faced challenges, beginning with their own settlement in a new land.
Richard Seddon’s social democratic reforms set us on a course to being the ‘‘social laboratory of the world’’. Ground-breaking social welfare legislation under the 1935 Labour government. A progressive addressing of the injustices against indigenous peoples. And between 1983 and 1993, our radical economic about-face from one of the most highly state-regulated capitalist democracies to one of a competitive free market.
In both nations, challenges drove action and forged the character of the people.
Commonalities
The great challenges share a varied matrix of common traits. They seek fairness and justice for as many people as possible. They provide a vision of what can be, grand, far sighted and comprehensive. They aim to help those who need it most. They call for co-operation, trust and self-fulfilment. They foster opportunity and development across borders.
‘One belt, one road’
And now we might be witnessing the decline of American greatness built on the pursuit of challenge.
In 2013, China proposed a new initiative, focusing on connectivity and co-operation between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. By reinvigorating the ancient ‘‘silk road’’ land and sea-based trading corridors, Chinese President Xi Jinping hopes to recapture the formula that made China great centuries ago. ‘‘One belt, one road’’ aims to become the world’s largest platform for economic links, including policy co-ordination, trade and financial collaboration, social and cultural co-operation.
It could stand as a new benchmark for challenge and usher in an era of Chinese greatness and world leadership.
The tentacles of ‘‘One belt, one road’’ encompass as many as 68 nations, 65 per cent of the world’s population, one-third of world GDP and one quarter of all goods and services the world moves. The enterprise asks for an investment, in an as yet unidentified time space, of between US$4 and $8 trillion.
The new ‘‘silk road’’ is paved with Chinese investment through a consortium of banks and funds. It might reshape global trade.
The plan promises much to many. Infrastructure spending alone, on ports, rail links, roads, pipelines, information highways, airports – whole cities – promises to revitalise entire national economies and offer employment to millions. Prosperity and development for all, in an inter-connected world, would follow. The proposition is bold in concept and sweeping in scope. Or, so it goes.
American abdication
Meanwhile, American world leadership, by contrast, languishes in reactions to world events and the hatching of conspiracy plots, fuelled by fear and pledges to ‘‘Make America great again’’ and ‘‘America first’’: isolationism, xenophobia, environmental degradation, unco-operativeness, exceptionalism and selfishness.
On the other hand, with one bold undertaking, China undertakes a breathtakingly vast challenge, grabs the imagination of the world, seizes a high moral ground with a positive view of a better future and sets a benchmark for altruistic hopes of international co-operation.
Perhaps, China has retrieved the mantle of exceptionalism misplaced by America.
Many challenges
The challenges are there: ethical boundaries of artificial intelligence; economic and social inequality of income and opportunity; realigning our technology and employment structure for the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy; managing global warming; and at the same, minimising the dangers of state overreach through intervention, regulation and control.
End of national greatness
‘‘One belt, one road’’ might not succeed. Maybe Turner’s hypothesis died. Too many diverse peoples, cultures, ideologies, beliefs, goals and needs. Too much individual selfinterest, ranging from enrichment to ego to survival. Too many special interests, pushing their own agenda at the expense of the many for the benefit of the few. Maybe the age of challenge passed us by. We can’t agree on what needs doing and certainly can’t agree on how to do it. Perhaps the America we see today presages a new ‘‘challengeless’’ model for nations of the world. I will watch the progress of ‘‘One belt, one road’’ as an omen.
John Hellner was a high school history teacher in New Zealand and taught Theory of Knowledge at an international school.