WHO CREATES THE CRISES DRIVING PEOPLE FROM THEIR HOMES AND HOW COULD FAITH COMMUNITIES RESPOND?

Interdisciplinary Conference
THE POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL DIMENSION
OF THE ECONOMIC AND THE REFUGEE CRISIS
Thessaloniki, 20– 23 February 2018
Who creates the crises driving people from their homes and how could faith communities respond?
by Ulrich Duchrow

Abstract

In Europe the governments, the media and the majority of the people speak about „Refugee crisis“. But the real question is: “who creates the crises driving people out of their homes? If you raise the question this way there are at least three aspects to be looked at in terms of the root causes (I):

·         Direct violence (imperial wars)

·         Structural and ecological violence (global capitalist economy)

·         Cultural violence (discrimination, humiliation)

But then: What to do about the drama – particularly as people of faith? Also this question contains various dimensions. Here are some of them (II):

·         The biblical foundation

·         Overcoming bad theological traditions in binary logics

·         humanitarian engagement as starting point of radical politics and inter-faith solidarity.

In Europe the governments, the media and the majority of the people speak about „Refugee crisis“. For Greece this way to put it makes sense because this country carries an immense burden in this respect. But in the Central European countries the first thing to do in this situation is to reject this framing of the issue. The formulation suggests that the refugees create a crisis. But this means victimizing the victims and has the only function to hide and repress the real question: who creates the crises driving people out of their homes? If you raise the question this way there are at least three aspects to be looked at in terms of the root causes (I):

·        Direct violence (imperial wars)

·        Structural and ecological violence (global capitalist economy)

·        Cultural violence (discrimination, humiliation)

But then: What to do about the drama – particularly as people of faith? Also this question contains various dimensions. Here are some of them (II):

·        The biblical foundation

·        Overcoming bad theological traditions in binary logics

·        humanitarian engagement as starting point of radical politics and inter-faith solidarity

I. The West creates forced migration

1. The direct violence of imperial wars

Since more than 500 years(1495) Europe and subsequently the whole West has waged imperial wars. From the beginning there was the coalition of capital and territorial military powers under the leadership of a hegemonic power. E. g. Giovanni Arrighi convincingly demonstrates this in his book „The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times“.[1] The linkage between capital and a hegemonic territorial, military power can be seen in subsequent phases: starting 1492 with the conquista alliance between Genoa and Spain, followed by the hegemonic powers The Netherlands and Britain up to the US hegemony after World War II in the globalizing system.

In regard to forced migration today the outstanding examples are Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. In all of these cases the USA and European allies are the most responsible actors breaking international law and creating death, chaos and forced migration. In Germany we have a specialist, Michael Lüders, who wrote two bestsellers, one “Who Sows the Wind....How the West wreaks havoc in the Orient” (26^th edition), the other “Who reaps the whirlwind....How the West lured Syria on to chaos” (6^th edition).[2] You know the main facts:

Iran: In 1953 USA plus Britain topple the democratically elected Prime Minister  Mosaddegh and replace him by the military dictator Shah Pahlavi who later could be overthrown only by the Islamist forces of Khomeini; against him Saddam Hussein is put on the CIA payroll in order to wage war against Iran with 1 million deaths. The Iran deal of Obama and Europeans to finally establish peace is now in the danger of being withdrawn by Trump who again wants to break international law and fuels Saudi Arabia with weapons in order to stimulate this dictatorship to wage another war against Iran.

Afghanistan: US creates and nurtures the Mujahideen, the later Taliban against Russia; using 9/11 to invade Afghanistan to wage war against their own creatures breaking again international law, only later getting UN mandate for reconstruction (ISAF) but in reality creating permanent civil war.

Iraq: After having built up Saddam Hussein on CIA payroll to wage war  against Iran US traps him to invade Kuwait in order to wage war against Iraq (2^nd Gulf War of Bush sen.) one of the real reasons being that Saddam wanted to shift the oil payments from US dollar to other currencies; this war with subsequent sanctions again costs more than one million deaths, esp. of children. Everybody knows the next round: G.W. Bush jun. betraying the American people with lies about alleged WMD breaks again international law not only in waging the war but afterwards plundering the country and last not least creating the conditions of the Islamic State (IS), whose military successes are due the ousted generals of Saddam.

Libya: Here it is particularly Hillary Clinton who – together with France – misuses the UN mandate to establish a no-fly zone for regime change in order to have Gaddafi ousted and murdered who was about to create an independent African Reserve Bank which would have replaced the Central Bank of West African States with the common West African CFA franc currency and thus stopped or seriously hampered the French domination of West Africa. The result: a failed state, civil war among war lords (worse than Afghanistan).

Syria: already in 1945 the US organized the first regime change in Syria which served as model for the many later coups manipulated by the CIA. But the recent catastrophe in Syria came about by using the Arab spring to immediately turn the protest into a civil war for regime change. No doubt, Assad was and is a dictator responsible for massive destruction and death. But dictators are the usual allies of the USA, the only difference is when a dictator is not subservient to the imperial power. And after the democratic forces have long ago given up in Syria, the alternative to Assad is different forms of Islamists. So the pattern of Afghanistan is repeating itself: you create the Islamists who later have to be fought – another source of profit for the arms industry.

The result of all of this – besides the millions of deaths in this track record – hundreds of thousands refugees. Only few come to the USA but hundreds of thousands come to Europe. Here are some figures as example:

According to UNHCR in 2016 about 3.000 (2.884) asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Libya and Syria came to the USA, about 400.000 (394,398) to Germany.[3]

Summarizing this means that the USA with changing allies from Europe have created root causes of forced migration by direct violence both trying to keep the victims away from their territories – with another death toll of thousands perishing every year by drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. But others have to pay the costs, among the European countries especially Greece and Italy.

2. The structural violence of the global capitalist economy

This, of course, is a wide field. Starting with the genocidal conquista in Latin America in the 16^th century Europe and later the global North develop the underdevelopment of the global South by siphoning off its resources and the surplus value of cheap labor.[4] The century of the conquista is followed by the trilateral trade of Mercantilism including slave trade in the 17^th and 18^th century, colonialism and classical liberal imperialism in the 19^th century, and eventually neo-colonialism and imperial capitalist globalization in the 20^th/21^st century. In the field of direct violence through imperial wars there is an asymmetry between the USA and Europe as US is the main perpetrator but Europe reaping by far the bigger boomerang. In the field of structural violence both have the same backlash through illegal migration. The forced migration in both cases come from the combination of historic injustices and present day free trade agreements, in the one case between the USA and Mexico/ Latin America, in the other case between the EU and Africa.

With most African countries the EU has contracted “Economic Partnership Agreements” (EPAs). The governments have been blackmailed to accept the conditions by linking development aid to the treaties. Sometimes the governments also accept them because the main goal of the EPAs anyhow is the profit of foreign capital and the local elites. What they basically do is to open the markets completely (by estimated 83%) to cheap or even subsidized goods and services thus destroying the local economies. Famous examples are meat and milk products. Also big European fishing boats are allowed at the sea coast so that local fishermen don't find enough fish. The main interest of the Europeans in Africa are the raw materials the price of which is kept low in comparison to high costs of the processed goods like machinery. So the old question of neo-colonial terms of trade is key to the impoverishment of the Africans.

But when the young Africans want to enter Europe they are kept out at all costs. The European governments are about to cooperate with dictators to stop the refugees not only at he coast of the Mediterranean Sea but already in the continent. They train military and the police against the refugees. They hinder NGOs when these send life boats to save the drowning people. Many European Countries like Hungary and Poland refuse to take refugees at all. So it is a cynical situation. The Europeans produce refugees but reject them when they want to come.

The parallels in the US can best be seen at the free trade agreement NAFTA between USA, Canada an Mexico. The report “Did NAFTA Help Mexico? An Assessment After 20 Years“ of the Center for Economic and Policy Research/Washington (CEPR) provides us with interesting figures:[5]

·        Between 1994 and 2014 the quota of impoverished people rose
from 52.4 to 55.1 % (20 million Mexicans more under the poverty line)

·        In agriculture about 2 million small and medium sized peasants were ruined because of the import of subsidized US agricultural products. Mexico lost its food sovereignty

·        Mexican real wages went down. The buying power of a minimum wage worker dropped by 38%. More the 50 % of the total population and more than 60 % of people living in the countryside still live under the poverty level. No NAFTA paradise as was promised

·        In 1994 430.000 Mexicans annually migrated to the USA, in 2000 it was 770.000 which is an increase of 79%. Since 2007 the migration decreased again because of the crisis leading to more unemployment in the US and subsequent sharper control of immigration.

·        Foreign investments into Maquiladora production raising competition led to the ruin of small and medium size Mexican firms.

·        Because of low ecological standards there ecological destruction increased.

·        Drug traffic south-north and ars trade north-south have added to the decrease of security and  stability of the country. Mexico belong to the countries with the highest rate of homicide. some people speak already of a failed state.

Also the consequences of NAFTA in the USA are by no means mainly positive. The promises for the majority of people have not materialized:

·        Production was transferred to profit from cheap labor. Within 10 years the USA there was a net loss of 1 million jobs. People loosing their jobs, if they got another one, were offered only precarious jobs. There was a net reduction of wages by 20%. Mexican migrant workers were exploited as cheap labor, thus splitting the income of the workers even ore than before

·        Because of privileged conditions for foreign investments in Mexico industries in the US were dismantled and led to a huge trade balance deficit of USA vis-à-vis Mexico

·        Because free trade agreements give investors the right to fine governments when they raise ecological (or social) standards and thus lower their  ecological standards have been lowered.

So instead of having produced a win-win situation as originally promised NAFTA has turned out to be a lose-lose game for the majority of the people. The only winners are transnational capital and local elites. As Noam Chomsky had predicted NAFTA was decided by the elites and governments against their people.

What can be expected from the renegotiation of NAFTA? It is very unlikely that there will be a progressive reform. In that case

·        the private courts of arbitration would have to be abolished and to be replaced by regular public courts

·        ecological and social standards would have to be strengthened

·        new orientation towards an economy that privileges local, regional and national diversity, ecological agriculture and food sovereignty.

As this is not in the interest of capital this will not happen. Probably the only thing that will happen is the imposition of some more advantages for US capital because Mexico and Canada are weaker negotiation partners – except there would be a broad popular movement in all three countries to put pressure from below.

NAFTA is just one example how imperial global capitalism works. If you look at the deeper dimensions of the problem the key is that the whole economy operates according to the dominating principle that capital must grow, must be accumulated for the owners of capital. So profit maximization is the guiding principle, not the satisfaction of human needs and the guarantee of circular reproduction of nature for future generations. In terms of forced migration ecological disasters, produced by the capital induced economic growth will have much more impact in the future. Think of the predicted rise of temperatures by 10 degrees Celsius in some parts of Africa and the rise of the sea level worldwide. They mean migration or death.

3. Cultural violence

Let us also have a short look at cultural violence. You know the concept of clash of civilizations. It was designed by Huntington in the interest of the Pentagon, needing a new enemy image after the implosion of the really existing socialism. As so often, religion was misused for power purposes. Together with the imperial wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, hurting the self-esteem of the Muslim nations, the declaration of Islam as main enemy and labeling it as war against terrorism has been creating more and more terrorism causing refugees and forced migration. Here faith communities have a very important task and also possibilities to change the situation as we shall discuss later.

This cultural and religious discrimination also has very detrimental effects on the mentality, spirituality and dignity of imperial societies like the USA and Europe. It strengthens the traditional white European and North American racism driving the societies in general to the right. This dismantles the cohesion of our multinational and multicultural pluralistic societies. It also reinforces imperial behavior “We, the civilized – they, the barbarians” which adds to the antagonistic contradictions in our societies.

II. How to respond as faith communities?

1. The biblical foundation

It is interesting to look at the socio-historic conditions of the first regulations concerning strangers in Israel. In the 8^th century the Assyrian empire raided the northern kingdom of Israel and imposed regular tribute payments on it. When it did not pay Assyria destroyed the kingdom (722 BCE). So people fled to the southern kingdom. At the same time money and private property had started to enter daily life. The consequences were impoverishment and debt, even debt slavery. The prophet Amos had been the first to speak up against this. So both problems, refugees and social degradation together, were picked up in the first legal reform, documented in the Book of the Covenant (Ex 21-23), probably under king Hezekiah (728-699 BCE). Here we read concerning the particularly effected groups, the strangers, widows and orphans:

“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry.....

 If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbour’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate” (Ex 22:20-26).

One of the big problems today in Europe and in the USA is that imperial capitalist economy and politics dismantle social welfare inside and the life conditions of people in the global south, thus producing forced migration. These victim groups are played against each other and create a trend to the right wing instead of realizing that they both are victims of the same system at different places and should rather work together in order to achieve systemic changes here.

It is most important to see the theological reason given for God's law: “I am compassionate”. It is God's compassion and God's justice which is the ground on which the social regulations in Ancient Israel and early Messianic Christianity are build. And the justice itself is compassionate and not neutral, it is affirmative action as the Magnificat, the song of Mary teaches us (Luke 1:52f.):

“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.”

Also the working conditions of the alien citizens must have the same including the Sabbath:

“You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. … For six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your home-born slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.”

The next legal reform developed around the time of the Exile, in the late 7^th and the 6^th century BCE. Here you find the fundamental statement (Deut 24:17f.):

“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.”

It is very important to realize that the Bible regards this a right of the people not a grace. There three concrete laws derived from this principle:

·        Peasants are not allowed to harvest their fields 100% but must leave some grain for the poor and aliens (Deut 24:19ff.). The basic perspective is the Manna economy of the enough for all (Ex 16)

·        Alien citizens are fully integrated in festivals ( Deut 16:9-12);

·        Aliens – together with widows etc. – get their portion of the tithe (Deut 26,12f.).

For the return to the land of Judah from exile in Babylon the prophet Ezekiel receives the following order from God (Ez 47: 21-23):

“So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe aliens reside, there you shall assign them their inheritance, says the Lord God.”

This is amazing in view of the fact that the conditions to reconstruct the country were very hard. Ezekiel formulates in a nutshell the biblical vision of society: all members must participate in the means of production for their own sustenance and at the same time in mutual solidarity with all groups in society. Nobody must profit of the occasional or structural difficulty of people including the aliens, who are so easily exploited.

It is very interesting to realize that Ezekiel is also the first to see God in the category of humanness. In Babylonian exile he has a vision of God moving from the temple in Jerusalem to Babylon. “there was something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form“ (1:26).

Ezekiel is descended from a priestly family – the same circles developing the idea of the human being as male and female being created in the image of God (Gen 1:28). This tradition is further developed in the vision of the book of Daniel, chapter 7. Daniel sees the sequence of empires in the image of wild and greedy beasts. They will be overcome by a figure like a human being who at the same time represents a democratic group of people leading an alternative human society (Dan 7:13).

“I saw one like a human being
   coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One“.....

It is this figure that Jesus is referring to very often – normally in the false translation “son of man”. This in Semitic languages means the human being as collective, humanity. It also has the connotation of humanness in difference from the wild beasts. Walter Wink in his famous book on the subject translates it with “The Human One”. The classical text what this means is Matthews 25: 31ff. The divine Human One judges all people and peoples according what they did to satisfy the basic needs of needy people by giving them bread, water, clothes, health, freedom. So the Human One is hiding in the most needy people. And one of those is the stranger, the alien:
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me”

So we encounter the Human One of the last judgment, the Messiah, Jesus, God in the stranger. This is the strongest possible expression of solidarity with the stranger.

We could also look at other religions, originating in the Axial age, which I define as the period between the 8^th century BCE and the rise of Islam in the early 7^th century CE. They would show a similar picture, not only the Abrahamic religions but also e.g. Buddhism. So inter-religious solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers is the firm basis of any concrete action.

This demonstrates that those who cherish the binary logic of “We versus They” do not have any ground in the Scriptures. This includes those people of the so-called Christian Right who elect a person like Trump or who pretend to defend the “Christian Occident” with the Hungarian president Orban. But we have to admit that also reformer Martin Luther had serious deficiencies and ambiguities in this regard. On the one hand he clearly rejected the medieval theology of post-Constantinian empire that the government had the right and duty to spread and defend Christianity with the sword and he also insisted that in matters of faith only the word and not the sword must be the means of propagation and defense (non vi sed verbo). But on the other hand he fell back into the old pattern and called upon the governments to persecute Anabaptists and Jews, thus producing refugees instead of caring for them. In the case of Muslims the arguments were a little different because they waged war against the empire and the question was whether one should defend the country.

2. Humanitarian engagement as starting point of radical politics and inter-faith solidarity

Kairos Europa, the ecumenical grassroots organization in the conciliar process for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation in Europe, has started to develop a model and a process how to respond in this situation. The project is called:

“Inter-religious Solidarity against the Causes of Forced Migration”.

What does this mean?

1. Nearly every Christian congregation in Germany is engaged in work with refugees. When in 2015 masses of refugees – particularly from Syria – came to our country there was a wave of solidarity from all sectors of society, especially also in congregations, besides the upcoming hatred from the right. This was a very encouraging experience. However, as indicated right at the beginning, few people are asking: “Who creates the crises driving people out of their homes?” How can we get people to work on this question and thus politicize the humanitarian work with refugees?

Our proposal is that congregations form working groups with refugees in their area asking them about the causes of their leaving the country. In many cases one of the causes analyzed above in Part I will emerge, be it one of the imperial wars or the capitalist global economy. After having identified the causes people are invited to get in touch with the respective peace or social movements. E.g. in our area there are two US military bases: 1. in Ramstein the coordinating center for the US-drones sent into the Middle East and even weapons to the rebels in Syria – which is illegal in terms of our Basic Law, or constitution, which allows only a defensive army; 2. in Büchel we have the US nuclear weapons. In regard to both places there are strong and active peace groups. So the congregational groups can join the peace network thus strengthening the movement pressurizing our government to terminate the treaty with the USA on these two military bases.

2. Concerning neoliberal capitalist root causes of forced migration the congregational working groups can join or cooperate with our main social movement for economic justice, called attac. It was founded with the particular focus on the problems the financial markets are creating: speculation, privatization of basic goods and services etc. There is also a movement working on the practice of solidarity economy. And there are others which can be strengthened by the congregational working groups with refugees.

3. We have a right wing party, AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, 13% of the votes in national elections) which is playing the unemployed and the workers in precarious positions against the refugees, saying that these people take the resources away that should be given to the socially weak and poor. The congregational refugee working groups try to bring together the poor Germans and the refugees to analyze the respective root causes of their misery. That way they will discover that they are both victims of the same system – at home and in other regions from which the refugees come. So they should join forces and together fight the capitalist system and its servants in the governments. So the necessary humanitarian work with the refugees can become a public progressive force.

4. Most refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are Muslims. The congregations can form inter-religious working groups with refugees but also with neighboring Muslim congregations. The ancient sources of our religions, Bible and Qur'an, can be read with new eyes when we read them together. Solidarity, Justice and Peace are common to the Abrahamic faiths – especially when experienced in the context of exile and social degradation. Also the culture of “The Other” can be better understood when experienced in a context of solidarity work.

Kairos Europa is offering the service of networking among the congregations starting this work. It also offers working and study materials as well as consultations from local to national, conferences, parish evenings etc. This is a small beginning – like the mustard seed Jesus was talking about. The Bible or rather the spirit blowing from its stories nurtures our hope that our interreligious solidarity for justice can be the seed bed for a new culture of life replacing the death-bound capitalist civilization.

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[1]     ARRIGHI, Giovanni: The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London/New York: VERSO, 1994. Cf. also DUCHROW, Ulrich: Europe in the World System 1492-1992. Geneva: WCC, 1992.

[2]       LÜDERS, Michael: Wer den Wind sät – Was westliche Politik im Orient anrichtet, 17. Aufl. München: C.H. Beck, 2016; idem, Die den Sturm ernten. Wie der Westen Syrien ins Chaos stürzte. München: 6. Aufl. C.H. Beck, 2017.

[3]     http://popstats.unhcr.org./en/asylum_seekers_monthly. There may be some more from these countries to the US from among the resettlement refugees (84.994 in 2016)

[4]     The classical books about this are RODNEY, Walter: How Europe Undeveloped Africa. London/Dar es Salaam: Bogle-L'Ouverture/Tanzania Publishing House, 1972; GALEANO, Eduardo H.: Open veins of Latin America. New York: 25th anniversary ed. Monthly Review Press, 1997.

[5]     http://cepr.net/documents/nafta-20-years-2014-02.pdf.