Refugee Crisis – Moral Obligation for Europe, why not for Gulf?

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