1Story of German Politician gave shelter to couple of
refugees in his home, also provided ability to find proper work in Germany so
they can start living normal life unlike so many Syrians – did not went viral
but the story of drowned Syrian child on a seashore of Greece shaken the whole
world. The latter story is quite afresh and previous one happened long before,
because Syrian Refugee crisis itself is not something new.
On the backdrop of these two events, I gazed deeper into the
matter and found answer of the question in title of this blog.
The pivotal word in the question is not Refugee, not Europe
or Gulf, it is Moral Obligation. What this Moral Obligation really mean? What shapes
one’s morality? From where does the sense of morality has come and obliged to take
those really tough decisions by the whole nation? And why do some countries
don’t feel anything, when practically, geographically, ethnically those were
more obliged? Don’t they have any morality? Or their very source of morality is
distorted?
If you go to human history – bit by bit, it will unfold lot
of fascinating stories how the Christian God has cultivated love, humility,
grace and ultimately changed hearts of many individuals, renewed minds of whole
nations. Higher state of moral standards were being embossed on those hearts.
Probably it will take rest of your life to uncover history
and learn what impact God has given to really streamline the wandering world by
shading His own precious blood on perverted hearts of humans who are later to
put great impact on this world. But to make that task easier, let’s see one
classic case.
Missionaries from western world, filled by God given
compassion sailed across many nations including Indian subcontinent. Due to
prevailing religious Hindu framework of that ancient time, which advocated race
& ethnicity based division among people, kept many people deprived of basic
living rights. One of their authenticate source of scripture “manusmriti”
taught those “savarnas” (higher cast) to look down upon “shudras” (lower caste)
up to an extent where shudras did not have access to well waters, their
children were not supposed to learn but to live as slaves of savarnas.
Missionaries embraced those deprived people and talked them about the God who
makes no difference between man and woman forget – castes. They provided them
their dignity and rights which are inherent to any human who takes birth. Those
missionaries opened up schools, hospitals and many other avenues to serve
people. You can consider it kind of intrusion, but let me tell you that the way
of this intrusion was through piercing of hearts not by means of any power,
weapon.
Many of then come to know about God to whom, those missionaries were
representing. You must have heard about Mother Teresa, but do you know Dr. Paul
Brand? He spent his entire life serving leprosy patients in India and given
tremendous contribution towards this skin disease treatment. His
little book “wonderfully and fearfully made” talks about creator God and His
amazing design. You take that labor to learn how leprosy affected persons were
treated before independence of India and then you will realize, Dr. Paul Brand
was not just a doctor, but a true Christian, practicing Godly love
This Christian God has shaped morals of many individuals and
entire nations. If you look at the founding stones of those greater western
civilized countries, you would see the building blocks embossed by God’s word
in them. Leaders like Cameron draws their moral standards from this legacy.
Hence they obviously feel morally obliged when they look at the childhood being
drowned. Else think about these practical questions and tell does Europe has
any practical obligation?
1. The situation caused within Syria and peninsula
is by their internal disturbance, civil wars and Islamic State militants. Why
refugees out of this condition should be sheltered in European countries?
2. Geographically speaking, rich and comparatively
peaceful gulf countries like Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi are much closer to Syria –
why don’t they go there and in fact why those countries cannot open their
borders to let those refugees in?
3. The refugees will directly impact upon social and economical position
of European Union and increase burden. More detail study is out here.2
And yet their moral obligation is way higher then what those practical reasons may suggest.
May I dare to re-phrase the question? – Why Christianity see
it as a clear moral obligation and not Islam – given the fact the situation is
fundamentally caused by radical Islam?
People tend to shy away from this reasoning and pursuit of
real Truth and mainly discuss on “humanitarian” ground. Let’s wrestle upon this
ideologies and see what come triumphant and truthful.
Would like to conclude by quoting following quote from
German Philosopher Jürgen Habermas.
Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of
liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of
Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options. We continue
to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern
chatter."
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, Europe will not be the same after this Refugee Crisis, she is right, it is very important juncture in the history. Let me tell you if Europeans turns back to their roots and seek God again, they will still be able to hold the eternal values which have been carved into their hearts, creating greater impact on those who are sheltered.
1. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33771112
2. http://www.vox.com/2015/9/5/9265501/refugee-crisis-europe-syria
