Today's Boat People

An enduring image from the late 1970's is of overcrowded, rickety old fishing boats filled with refugees from Vietnam's war with Cambodia. No one knows how many drowned or were murdered by pirates but over a million eventually resettled in the West, some 860,000 in the U.S. Many of them live in North Texas today. Some of them are among the more active members of my parish in Plano. Americans felt some responsibility for their plight and communities and churches across the country came to their aid, offering financial assistance, housing, English lessons; whatever we could do to help. More than a few of their children became high school valedictorians. Something like the boat people exodus is happening now in Iraq and Syria, and now as then Americans bear a share of the responsibility. Today's imagery is more of barbaric executions but the refugees are there too, they are desperate, and there are a lot of them. Many are Christians who have been persecuted for centuries. Now with ISIS on the rampage they are crowding into towns and cities ill equipped to accommodate them. Hundreds, maybe more, have been taken captive and have met or can expect unspeakable fates. So what can we do about it? Their leaders are asking for air strikes and we have done some of that but they need more than air strikes. They need military supplies and equipment which we have been inexplicably unwilling to supply. Kurds most notably have proven willing and able to stand and fight. Kurds are not Christian but predominantly Sunni Muslims who differ from their Arab coreligionists in both language and culture. There are also Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians, and others who have formed police and militia groups for defense but they need help. Not least they need humanitarian assistance; food, shelter, clothing, medical personnel supplies and facilities, and secure schools for their children. We famously provided some of that for trapped Yezidis but that was partial and temporary. Where refugee camps have been established relief services are overwhelmed and there are places, especially in Syria, where the need is dire and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is nowhere to be found. Most of all they need prayer. One of my fellow parishioners is an Assyrian Christian and has asked for that. We will be meeting this week to organize a prayer vigil, most likely interfaith. To say our parishioner is distraught about what is happening in her native church is an understatement and we will be doing more than organizing prayer. We will also explore ways to increase awareness and to offer substantive help. I propose that one thing we can and should do is advocate for a resettlement program to bring some of those refugees here. We've done it before, not just with boat people and just as successfully. Under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 we brought over 400,000 people to the United States, primarily Eastern Europeans who had no homes to return to. We even sent troop ships to fetch them. The experience affected later policies toward not only Vietnamese but Hungarians and Cubans. It's time we extended the same hospitality toward refugees from Iraq and Syria, especially since many of them find themselves displaced due at least in part to our own missteps. These prior large scale resettlements weren't all or necessarily primarily government efforts. They enjoyed the enthusiastic support of all sorts of religious and civic groups both local and national. These groups organized sponsors who assessed the needs of families and individuals, and met them, whatever they were. Not all of the stories had happy endings but an awful lot of them did. It can happen again.