Dear Mr President

Dear Mr President

You are reported to have said the following:
THE attacks on foreigners in the “dark days” of May were not xenophobia, but “naked criminal activity. What happened during those days was not inspired by possessed nationalism, or extreme chauvinism, resulting in our communities violently expressing the hitherto unknown sentiments of mass and mindless hatred of foreigners – xenophobia.”
“I heard it said insistently that my people have turned or become xenophobic … I wondered what the accusers knew about my people which I did not know. And this I must also say: None in our society has any right to encourage or incite xenophobia by trying to explain naked criminal activity by cloaking it in the garb of xenophobia.”

Mr President – you are wrong. I have housed 30 Zimbabwean people who fled from their attackers. And every one of them told the same story: that they were attacked for being foreigners. They experienced this as a “mass and mindless hatred” .

Mr President, you “wonder what the accusers knew about my people which I did not know”. But then, Mr President, had you taken the trouble to personally visit these people you might have reached a different conclusion. You might have learned that your people (my people) are capable of racism, chauvinism, sexism.... and xenophobia. It is extremely difficult to know what our people are thinking and doing when your only contact with your country is through the darkened windscreen of a luxury car in a speeding convoy.

Mr President: You used to live amongst the people. But your speech shows that you have left us for another world. I pray that you might return to us.

Pete Grassow

People behaving Badly - and a God who never gives up on Them

This Sunday’s Old Testament reading is the story of Hagar and Ishmael. And it is a tragic, awful, embarrassing story to own as my faith history:
Sarah, the wife of Abraham, chases Abraham’s first-born son out of the house so that he does not inherit anything from his father.
This is more than just jealousy – it is an effective death penalty: They live in a desert, and without a family to protect them, they will die of exposure. And the worst of it all is that Abraham gives in to his wife’s jealousy. (Go read it in Genesis 21)

And it is quite possible that if this family had placed more trust in the promise of God, then both Abraham’s sons could have grown up together. And together become the leaders of the people of God.... and the rift between Jew and Muslim might never have happened.

But it was not to be.
Sarah’s jealousy of Hagar, and her desire for her son to be the only son of Abraham, caused her to drive the two into the desert.
And so Hagar and Ishmael became outcasts.

It shouldn’t have happened,
it didn’t need to happen,
but it did.
And we have it in the Bible, staring us in the face, bearing witness to the failure of our ancestors to treat each other with the most basic level of human decency.

But I wonder how many of you have ever heard a sermon on Hagar an Ishmael?
I wouldn’t expect many of us, because this is not just a dark story, it is not just a story of our Abraham and our Sarah behaving so badly, it is also the story of the beginnings of Islam. And we have evidence right here before us as Christians and as Jews that Ishmael and his descendants were under God’s care from the very beginning and part of God’s plan.

I think we haven’t really known what we should do with that information and so we’ve just not talked about it very much. Because so much of the prevailing wisdom of Western society makes Muslim people out to be evil. The way stories and Movies are told have shifted ground: The bad guys used to be the Germans; then they were the Russian Communists; now – they are Muslim fundamentalists. But the children of Ishmael are the people of God.

As are every other kind of people who have been chased out into the wilderness. The aliens, and the orphans, and the gays, and the street people, and the refugees from Zimbabwe/Congo/Somalia are all loved by God: The story of Hagar and Ishmael is a story that warns us against our jealous rejection of other people.

In fact, the more I read the Bible the more I think that the Bible should come with a longer title, something like, “The Holy Bible: the story of people behaving badly and the God who never gives up on them.”

I am indebted the Rev. Sara Buteux, First Congregational Church of Hadley, for her rendition of the story of Hagar. She got me going.

Charity is not Romantic

This is the fourth week that we are hosting displaced people in our church hall.
And that which began with chaotic good humour has now become a more considered act of charity. We have invented systems for feeding people, clothing them, and housing them. We have learned how to estimate the food requirements, and how much soap and toilet paper will get used each day. But the congregation is getting tired – what some call “donor fatigue”.

The refugees have also adapted. They began as a disorientated collection of individuals. The only thing that they had in common was an experience of rejection and loss of both property and dignity. Four weeks later they have begun to recover some independence. Many leave our premises during the day to go to work. And the women report each morning to the office to discuss catering arrangements and other housekeeping needs. But the newly forming community is showing rifts.

The family units provide leadership in terms of cooking the food, and organizing community life. But there is a large group of young men who go out in the late afternoon and do not return until late at night. They often show signs of having been drinking – and on their arrival they demand food. This has caused tensions, and I suspect has led to some of our guests choosing to move out.

Today two family units moved out.
And tomorrow there will be unhappiness, because the cooks have now gone, as has Baba Abel, who acted as the glue to hold the community together.

So pray for us tomorrow.

Blessing

He is two. Big eyes set into a broad forehead, framed with short curly black hair. And for almost two weeks he has burst into tears every time he sees me. I do not pretend to know why. Other than the knowledge that his mother fled a mob of people intent on burning her home down. And he was traumatised by her fear, and the screams of the people, and the sudden insertion into the strange world of a church hall.

His name is Blessing. After a few days of living with us he cheered up, and began to play with a car given to him by Kyle, another two year old from my congregation. Kyle is from the same Nguni ancestry as Blessing, but with parents who did not flee from Zimbabwe.

Over the weekend Blessing managed to get his fingers caught between a closing door and the door jamb. A visit to the clinic across the road put two stitches into the wound and a white bandage around the painful fingers.
So tonight I went to see how he is doing – and for the first time he smiled at me without tears.

Perhaps he is cried out of tears for now.

The Teacher

He is a teacher in Khayelitsha. This is a contract post, renewed each term, employed by the school’s governing body. But now he is uncertain of his post – because he is a Zimbabwean.

He is uncertain: not because he is teaching illegally. He has a work permit from the South African government. The uncertainty is not because he is unqualified, because he has a teacher’s diploma, and many years of experience. The uncertainty is because he knows that he is not welcome.

He lives in my church hall with his wife and son. And he gets up early to catch two trains and a taxi to school. But as he travels he wonders who is going to accost him and ask him to say something. It is in speaking that he reveals his nationality. He bears the same colour skin, and the same Nguni features as those who travel with him. But his inadequate Xhosa language skills reveal his nationality.

He failed the test yesterday: and was robbed of his cellphone and wallet. Many passers by saw him being robbed, but did nothing. He is convinced that people see foreigners as “fair game” for robbery. The township will protect its own against theft, but will not rally to protect the alien.

He left for work in the pouring rain this morning. “I am glad for the rain” he said. “There will be less people walking on the road”.

Cheers Ben

Ben came to us last Sunday evening.
He is a Zimbabwean who had run from a crowd of township youths intent on beating him up. And had landed up with us, having heard via the grapevine that there were displaced people with us. He is articulate, funny, and deeply religious. He led the Thursday evening prayers, and offered to preach on Sunday.

His trauma was deep – having first run away from political persecution in Zimbabwe, and now having run from Xenophobic hatred in Cape Town. Each of our “guests” fills in a registration form, which asks them to tell their story. He needed two full pages to get it all out of his system.

From this form we discovered that he is a diabetic, and requires a special diet and medication. So we sent him to the clinic around the corner to check his insulin levels. The clinic nurse kept him for the day, as stress was causing his levels to fluctuate dangerously. Finally, the contacts of my circuit treasurer got him into hospital: this allowed him to jump the queue and receive emergency treatment. Having spent the night on a drip, he was discharged from hospital – with the well-meant admonition not to allow himself to get so stressed again.

He came to me yesterday to say goodbye. One of his work colleaguea has invited him to say in his home. And he shared a prayer with me, thanking God for the blessings of the past week. Truth be told – I am blessed for his brief encounter with us.

The story continues...

We continue to care for people...
The School teacher returned to his school classroom yesterday – and left when a pupil pulled a gun on him. So he returned to us with another Zimbabwean teacher from the school. When I asked in amazement why he returned to the school, he answered that he was anxious to receive his month’s salary.

We now discover that the group of four men we had housed all have families. So another 13 people have just arrived – wives and children who had been in hiding. When asked who they had not come with the men, they answer that they were too afraid. “We did not know what the people in the city would do to us”.

And I am deeply moved by the compassion and care of my congregation: one 84 year old lady arrived last night with four lamb chops and some rice. She explained that she had planned this as her lunch for the next few meals, but decided that the displaced people needed them more than she did. Another arrived with her children’s toys – even a beloved Thomas the Tank Engine – because there are children who need to know that they are loved. And then there is the amazing time and care from Lynn and Lorna who work in the church office: sourcing everything from nappies to cell phone chargers (because people had fled without taking their electrical chargers with them).

Pray that the Province and the City might set aside their petty political squabbling. They must come up with a joint plan that will help us all find a way forward. Because all we can be is a temporary emergency shelter. The macro re-integration of people, or repatriation of people is beyond us.

Weeping

Along with most of my fellow South Africans I am deeply disturbed by the xenophobic attacks currently sweeping our nation. The responses I have read and heard over the last few days have expressed anger, disbelief, fear, outrage, despair and deep concern. Perhaps what confuses and hurts me the most is that something like 70% of South Africans are reputed to be Christians. I don't understand how something like this can happen in a country where faith is so prevalent. Although, historically the people who call themselves by the name of Jesus have done things like this far too often. All I can pray is: 'God forgive us, and teach us what it means to love the world - including the stranger, the different and even those we fear - as you do. And may your Spirit of peace flood this nation'. Please join with the people of this beautiful country as we pray for God's intervention

I lifted this from the blog of my colleague John at sacredise who says what I want to say - only better

“GET THE FOREIGNERS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY?”

The numbers of organized attacks against foreign nationals in South Africa are increasing. Media reports tell how residents of Alexandria and of Diepsloot went on a rampage against foreigners, who were forced to flee after they were assaulted, robbed and their houses torched. A few months back in the Eastern and Western Cape, Ethiopians and Somalis were being chased out of their homes and their spaza shops.

Xenophobia is of course not new. Ever since the beginning of time people have banded together in clans and cultures. We do this for mutual support and protection, and we clothe this in communal terminology such as English manners, or Afrikaner culture, or Xhosa traditional ways. While this is useful for social cohesion, it becomes evil when used as a tool to harm people who are outside of the cultural grouping.

The children of Israel were often tempted to exclude people who were not Jewish – but they were reprimanded: “If an alien who resides among you wants to celebrate the Passover…he may draw near to celebrate it” (Exodus 12:48). In fact they were expressly told that aliens had equal rights before the law: “There shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you” (Exodus 12: 49).

Jesus insists that hospitality to the foreigner is an essential part of being his follower: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me…just as you did it for one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25: 38-40). It is the Christian way to welcome the aliens/refugees/strangers into our midst. And when we are unwilling to do so we demonstrate that we have not understood Jesus who changed us from being strangers and aliens, into citizens of the household of God (Ep 2:19).

Those people who want to throw foreign national out of our country are sinning against God. And they will be held to account for their selfish disregard towards the sanctity of human life. Let us hear the instruction of Romans 12:13 to “extend hospitality to strangers” and show the love of Jesus to all who are aliens and foreigners.