He (God) defends the cause of the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. You are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Deuteronomy 10:17,19
xe·no·pho·bia noun \ˌze-nə-ˈfō-bē-ə, ˌ: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign - from Merriam online dictionary
Dear Cathy:
Regrettably the letter you have circulated adds the growing xenophobia we have here in Canada towards new immigrants and refugees.
Canada's history of welcoming immigrants is a checkered one at best. Just ask the Japanese and Chinese who were imprisoned during the war, the immigrants from Eastern Europe who were forced to hard labour before they could bring their wives and children here.
Our first Native people, allowed the first Christian immigrants their religious freedom. They didn't seek to impose on the first white settlers their customs or traditions.
And in return we took their land, bludgeoned their people, traditions and culture, and then stuck the ones we didn't kill in reservations. And then we proceeded to forcibly make them like us by separating their children from their parents to attend residential schools, where many were sexually and physically abused.
We white anglo folk were proving to be mean nasty hosts of the land we had taken from the Native people.
And so we adopted 'multiculturalism', a flawed but nonetheless civil attempt to embrace people from different races and ethnicities, without forcing them as we had the Native people, to abdicate their culture. It's not perfect, but it's better than how our French and English forefathers had welcomed people from Eastern Europe, China and Japan.
But even now in welcoming immigrants, we don't recognize their academic credentials prior to their coming here. Few we'll accept if they're poor. Many refugees we turn away, sending them back to countries where they face imprisonment or death. The struggles they face in coming here may not seem as harsh as endured by those who came 80 to 100 years ago, but they are harsh. Just talk to a taxi driver in Halifax or Toronto - the one who obtained his doctorate in Zimbabwe, or Taiwan - whose only work option coming here is to drive a taxi 60-70 hours a week in a city he doesn't know. He didn't come to undermine our freedoms, nor our way of life - he came because he wasn't safe to fulfil his life's ambitions living where he lived.
I would encourage you, if you haven't already, to attend a swearing in ceremony for immigrants choosing to become Canadian citizens. It is one of the most moving events to ever be a part of. There you'll hear the Canadian anthem sung in a myriad of accents, by people in a myriad of dress, singing the anthem with a heart and depth of conviction you'll rarely hear among those 'native' to Canada. Their feel for freedom, not yet tainted by the affluence and apathy which dulls our taste for freedom, is inspirational.
These we should be welcoming, not condemning.
This does not preclude our society's right to not adopt certain practices that some immigrants may be more accustomed to, sharia law for instance. We are a democracy which embraces new Canadians as fellow citizens with the same right to influence our country's future as we old Canadians have.
We can't blame on immigrants and refugees the growing prevalence of various institutions i.e. government, public school boards, multi-national corporations etc to abandon Judeo-Christian traditions.
The blame lies elsewhere. It can be laid at the feet of those who abused the Judeo-Christian tradition to oppress and marginalize those not of that tradition. It was also used to keep women in the kitchen, blacks on plantations and gays in the closet.
We have a long and ungodly history of twisting the words of God into traditions which bully people outside the norm. Instead of our rightly putting into practice the love God has for the stranger, we soiled the image and holiness of the One our traditions were meant to reflect and honour. Had we as Christians recognized the wrong we'd done to the peoples not like us, perhaps God wouldn't have needed the ACLU and other agencies to take issue with the wrong we'd done. Conjecture I know, (for who of us can claim to know how God works), but maybe not far from what's transpired.
Every immigrant and refugee I know wishes me 'in season' Merry Christmas and I in response wish them 'in season' Happy Chanukha, blessed Eed or whatever. And we all gain as a result. Strangers become neighbours and in that backdrop and richness of cultures, the essentials of loving God and loving one's neighbour emerge. If we as Christians are taking the lead in that, then the truth of the gospel rings true for all people of peace and goodwill.
Immigrants and refugees are our future. But for them Canada's population would be shrinking and our capacity as a people to fulfill our pension, health and other social obligations to our fellow Canadians won't be met. So welcome the stranger, not only because the gospel commands it, but because it's good economic sense.
John Deacon
