Shipwreck, by Théodore Géricault
Images in the media of migrants crossing the Channel in fragile boats, shivering and without any possessions, are deliberately designed to provoke fear and resentment, and encourage hostility in us.
A tsunami of mass unemployment is on the horizon, and our social fabric is under severe strain as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this backdrop, there has been a cynical recycling of myths about migration as a threat to our national prosperity and sense of identity. These are the myths that played out in the divisive 2016 Brexit vote, and they still cast a long shadow over our political discourse.
Despite this, amazingly, according to surveys, over half of us see past these images to fellow human beings in need of our help. And many of us in faith communities feel strongly, instinctively, that migrants are our siblings made in the image and likeness of God, and that we have an obligation to practically support them.
But what allows some to ignore the myths and downright lies, and respond with empathy and a praxis of solidarity where others do not? Why and how is the situation of migrants an opportunity for some to open our hearts, whilst for others it is to shut them?
The history of the political and social response to immigration into Britain over the last century has been equally varied. The Kindertransport before the second World War was a (limited) humanitarian response. But the expulsion of Belgian refugees after the end of the First World War, one of the largest movements of people to and from the UK in modern times, was not.
The response of Catholic communities to Irish immigration to Britain in the mid 20th century was characterised by those with few resources sharing with those who brought nothing with them. Parish communities, often only recently established themselves, gave support to immigrants with no home, no bed, no furniture. Those who gave generously were not the people who had most.
However, in his analysis of the response of established working-class communities in Britain to the mass West Indian immigration of the 1950’s and 60’s, Jeremy Seabrook observed a more mixed response from those who had little to those who had nothing.
The fear and hostility to the West Indian migrants was, he suggested, because their needs reflected the still very raw experiences of deprivation and exploitation of many working people living in the inner-cities. The vulnerability of those migrants was a painful reminder to many in working-class communities of their recent and continuing socio-economic insecurity, including experiences of their own uprootedness. (To make clear, this analysis is not in any way an excuse for prejudice and racism, but as an attempt to explain the context of negative responses.)
Principles based on Catholic Social Teaching inform a political-theological understanding of global immigration and operate on a political-economic level, recognising and balancing both the good of bounded communities (including nations) and the universal common good. But perhaps the source of our moral obligation to welcome migrants, refugees and asylum seekers goes far beyond practical commitment to social cohesion or inclusion.
Yes, we do live in the sixth largest economy in the world and yes, there is a clear egalitarian case for a more generous social and political welcome. And it is certainly the case that an improved political ‘trade off’ between our obligation to migrants as a prosperous first world nation and national sovereignty is entirely possible. But this is the ethics of conditionality when the visceral need of those arriving with literally nothing but hope seems to call us to something more.
There are political limitations in the debates on the practical parameters of immigration which means we can easily miss something. This something speaks positively to the complex and fragile ideas of belonging and un/rootedness we all have.
A deeper moral motivation may originate in unconditional empathy with the stranger, i.e. the one with no possessions and no previous connection with us, the one we meet anew. This motivation may arise from our understanding of our own bare existence as human beings, from a recognition that we are called to give from our poverty not from our abundance.
In short, to meet the stranger from another country in equality and in justice may require us to accept that we, who live in the ‘host’ country, are strangers too.
The 17th century English mystic Thomas Traherne said we are born into the world as little strangers open to the ‘innumerable joys’ of divine knowledge, as heirs of the whole World. This universalist vision has an added resonance in our century, ever more interconnected economically, culturally, and environmentally.
In his Christo-mysticism of the Cross, Traherne spoke of a space that is an “abyss of wonders” and a “place of sorrows”. This may help us develop an alternative ‘native’ way to understand our fraught and contentious contemporary responses to immigration. Traherne saw the Cross as an “Ensign lifted up for all nations”; a symbol of both our infinite value as human beings and our sin. It is a space where love and fear can meet.
Dr Maria Exall is PDRA in Catholic Social Thought and Practice in the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University.