IT IS NOT ALWAYS EASY TO KNOW, WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG!

It is difficult for me to find a new expression for how we sometimes feel, working in the Hatune Foundation. Sometimes it feels like the fight against windmills – I am talking about the global refugee crisis and the root cause behind it.

Yes, I know you are all tired of hearing the word “refugee”. Maybe for different reasons, one gets fed up. But you shouldn’t be ashamed. It is natural. In nearly two weeks I travelled around in Europe. First Denmark, Germany, Holland and then Spain. In a car with the radio on.

Every hour, every news-break the word was pronounced over and over again. “Refugees need this, refugees claim that, refugees at the border, refugees on the beach, refugees in the streets.” It just gets into your head and takes over your brain like a viral mantra threatening you and your family’s future.

When will it stop. When will the tide turn, I was thinking over and over again. Is this really God’s will? Refugees come from war and persecution, we always assumed. I cannot refrain to think, does this happen because we have lost our faith? That we don’t worship enough? Is this a punishment from God? A triple punishment then. Punishing the refugees fleeing, secondly, those who are not able to flee (I will get back to that later) and finally us who live under relative good conditions and now have to pay the bill. A bill, whose size we do not have any idea about – either economically or socially.

Why I am reflecting over this just now

Already last autumn we heard that UNHCR had run out of funds. The many journeys Sister Hatune has made to the Middle East have confirmed the fact, that many of the people there have been trying to tell the world: that only 15% of the genuine refugees in the area live under the protection of the UNHCR in the well-organized camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The majority of the people fleeing from the Islamic barbarians live in provisional “camps” raised around old factories or other demolished buildings, where they use all kinds of left over materials to keep themselves out of the rain or the sun.

They all are more or less dependent on help from private NGO’s. There are so many people on the run in the area, so many that need help – and it has been going on for such a long time, that the bottom has been reached in the international money box since long! The persecuted people all around the world, who ought to receive help from the international community through UNHCR, are left in vain!

You all know that Christians are persecuted in many countries. Nine out of ten of those countries are all Islamic or have a Muslim majority. One of the worst countries, when it comes to chasing and persecuting Christians, is Pakistan.

As I have told you many times before, lots of Pakistani Christian families live under harsh conditions, illegal and hidden in Thailand. Thailand is the only country close to Pakistan, that allows Pakistanis to travel there without anything else than a tourist visa. As soon as the visa expires, they are considered illegal immigrants and rounded up by the authorities and jailed!

Although they are under protection of the UNHCR, this organization has no jurisdiction in Thailand, and now the UNHCR in Thailand has stated, that they do not have resources to help the “stranded” Christians, and that they probably will not be able to help the refugees with resettlement for many years to come. All that because of the hopeless situation in the Middle East, that has two damaging side effects: it swallows all global resources and it damages the good will of western countries to open up their borders for refugees to resettle!

Who is to blame?

Lots of people from all over the world have something to say about the situation. “It is America’s fault. The USA should stop bombing and stealing the Arabic oil!” “It is because of the crusades – we – westerners – owe “them” to take care of all their dysfunctional countries. It is our own fault!” “We have to pray more. It is God’s punishment!”

A couple of days ago I saw a picture on the Internet. Three young ladies from the Yazidi armed forces. They were holding a banner: “They kill us because of our religion!”

I changed the picture and wrote under it: “You are wrong girls. They kill you because of THEIR religion!”

Why don’t our leaders address the reason?

It is really pitiful that so many people, so many nations and their politicians refuse to mention the actual problem. After every new terror attack, leading politicians are raising their voices, screaming from their rostrums,“we have to stand together”.

Well, it is ok to stand together. But about what, for what, against what, against whom? And so on. They say and mean terror. But they do not mention where the terror comes from, who brings the terror along and what is legalizing the war and terror nowadays, generating millions of refugees with no future!

It is really a disgrace, that the only thing the rich Islamic oil states bring to the table are wows to supply the West with new and pompous mosques for the “refugees” now flooding Europe. Not one of those obscenely rich Islamic countries have helped the Muslim refugees with any food, clothes, healthcare or resettlement.

I often ask myself, how many Muslims are really refugees, and how many are sent out as a part of the obligatory Islamic “hijra” (migration), with its inbuilt “jihad” (struggle for Islam)?

How many of all the young male asylum seekers, who pour into Europe these days, have really been afflicted by the war in Iraq and Syria, have been persecuted and dislocated, in other words: are refugees? How many of these young men have even been involved in plundering the less lucky refugees left behind in the mud and using the Christians’, Alevites’ and Yazidis’ possessions to pay off the traffickers?

We don’t know. And because of our politician’s ignorance nobody inquires the newcomers – they just “look after them”. They see no danger here, and are praising themselves for their own humanity.

The genuine refugees are left to their own destiny

We, as Christians, have a huge responsibility for this situation. We have not spoken out. We have not been frank and have not been courageous enough in our efforts to mention the unmentionable: Islam!

Some of the oldest Christian communities of the world have been eradicated by the Islamic State, or they face their immediate extinction. But unfortunately, too many of our church leaders in Europe walk to the mosques and embrace the imams and call them brothers! Their biggest concern seems to be the fight against Islamophobia. They do this, instead of standing up for our Christian brothers and sisters, our Yazidi brothers and sisters and all the others, persecuted and hounded by Islamists around the world.

Many Christians treat the Muslims as the primary victims, while we turn our backs to our own fellow brothers and sisters. They are left alone in misery, and now our leaders are serving the “perpetrators”!

Does all that make sense? No not at all. But we all need to start using the right term on the world’s biggest problem for humanity today: Islam. And we need to come up with a clear strategy to solve the problem – if not for our own sake, then for the sake of our children and grandchildren!

Hans Erling Jensen
International Director