Empathy key to refugee response
Measured on a per-capita basis, New Zealand ranks a miserable 87th in the world for refugee intake, writes KINLEY SALMON.
The war in Syria has been going for four years but it is only now, as the tragedy arrives on the beaches of Europe, that empathy has broken through in more than a handful of places.
The refugee crisis sweeping the world has been generating extraordinary responses. In the Netherlands, three students created a popular Air BnB for refugees allowing people to share their homes with newly arrived refugees.
In Austria and Germany, huge numbers of everyday citizens have brought food water and blankets to refugees as they arrived in their train stations.
Football fans across Germany have swapped their usual banners for those which read ‘‘Refugees Welcome’’.
In Sweden the police have made a video of officers going about their everyday lives – with their kids, families and pets – to welcome refugees and reduce their sense of fear of those in uniform.
Right around the world the outpouring of empathy has forced political leaders to make changes to refugee quotas.
People have shown a heart-warming emotional connection and empathy with the plight of the refugees. But there is also no doubt that this reaction has been conditional on people caring.
It has been conditional upon seeing the suffering of refugees, of being confronted with their reality. It has been conditional on stumbling across them sleeping rough.
It has been conditional upon Aylan Kurdi, the three year old who washed up on the beach in Greece face down. Yet another young life snuffed out trying to flee the horrors of Syria.
Above all, in so many ways, it has been conditional upon understanding that Syrian refugees are just like us.
We know it is conditional because in some places, this reality has not been close enough, or seemingly real enough, to change attitudes.
The profoundly moral question of saving a life instead has been tied up in a more mundane question; how far away is it?
The countries most willing to help are neighbouring countries: Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. Next come European countries like Germany and Sweden which have taken remarkable numbers by western standards. Then comes the UK, seizing this moment more than ever to emphasise the identity-defining importance of the narrow Straits of Dover.
The United States, where many liberal publications focus heavily on the inept European response, took only 36 Syrian refugees in 2013. It has pledged to increase this significantly but in per capita terms it is still extraordinarily far behind places like Germany. By the end of 2015 Germany will have accepted 500,000 refugees compared to 70,000 in the US. In per capita terms, Germany will be accepting 30 times more than the US.
New Zealand’s efforts, despite the recent increase, are even more paltry. We rank a miserable 87th in the world for refugee intake per head of population with only 750 per year and just 600 in total added over the next three years after recent pressure.
There are exceptions of course, both positive and negative. The Gulf States for example embarrass themselves by taking no refugees whatsoever, despite their proximity.
We know it is conditional too because the war in Syria has been going for four years but it is only now, as the tragedy arrives on the beaches of Europe, that empathy has broken through in more than a handful of places.
This points to a lesson of the Syrian refugee crisis that is gradually emerging: extending empathy across space and time is extremely difficult but slowly, sometimes very slowly, it is achievable.
This extension of empathy is crucial to addressing not just the Syrian crisis but also two of the biggest challenges in the world today: climate change and global poverty.
To us in the Western world, the impacts of climate change and global poverty are distant in either space or in time. It is the people of South Sudan who are at risk of starvation. It is the people of Bangladesh and Tuvalu that are threatened by rising sea waters today.
Here in New Zealand, it will be our grand-children that feel the effects of climate change, not us. And yet neither our grand-children nor the people of Bangladesh are here today in the places where these problems can be addressed.
But basic human goodness is extendable beyond our immediate neighbours. It is extended by telling new stories about ourselves and about others. Humans have achieved incredible things through a common belief in a new shared story.
The American story of Nazi Germany changed from one of ‘‘not our problem’’ to ‘‘very much our problem’’.
The story of slavery, even in far-removed middle class British living rooms, changed from ‘‘natural order of the world’’ to ‘‘moral abomination’’.
These processes are characterised by the extension of basic human empathy from the circle of our closest acquaintances to those which are further away, who may look or sound different, but who are ultimately just like us.
Today, at this critical juncture in history, the same task awaits us.
We must change the stories we tell about how we here, today, now, relate to people in other places and other times. How we relate to Syrian refugees, to Bangladeshi coastal farmers, to South Sudanese villagers, to our grandchildren.
For good or for bad, ultimately, we control the story.
It is time we started changing it.