Does our 'favour' rest with asylum seekers and refugees?

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to write this column about a tooth extraction she put her eyes to heaven, smiled and assured me that readers are not interested in my dental health.

She’s a wise person. But on this occasion I am not taking her advice and am going to tell my tooth tale.

Over the Christmas period I had a bad toothache. It was sore and the terror of it all was made worse with the knowledge that dentists, like the rest of the country, were not in business over the holiday period.

Eventually, I had the tooth extracted. When the effects of the anaesthetic wore off the pain was intense. Stupidly I did not take pain killers.

It set me thinking, what must it be like for people living in abject poverty, people living in refugee centres but especially so when they experience physical and mental pain.

Two weeks ago in this column I wrote about Edith Eger’s book ‘The Choice’. The 16-year-old girl spent a year at Auschwitz, where her parents perished.

We’ve all seen on our television screens what the Germans did to millions of people in concentration camps. We have seen the emaciated bodies of the victims; we have seen skeletal survivors as the allies liberated the camps. But maybe some way or other we easily become anaesthetised to watching these pictures on our television screens.

Today we see the appalling conditions people have to endure as a result of war, poverty and hunger. But all we have to do is switch stations, watch something else and forget about it.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on his return from Ethiopia two weeks ago said his visit to the Mai Aini refugee camp close to the Ethiopian Eritrea border changed his perspective on migration.

And well it should.

Last Wednesday Jesuit priest Tony O’Riordan, who moved from Limerick to South Sudan two years ago, was on RTE’s Sean O’Rourke programme. He painted a graphic picture of what life is like where he is working. 

There are four refugee camps each the size of Limerick City. They are under the control of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). There are 60,000 school-aged children in the camps and there is a dire shortage of qualified teachers. Tony explained that he is working with a team of Jesuits offering intensive teacher training programmes to over 500 teachers.

How can we stand aside and allow so many people live in such horrendous conditions?

There has to be something wrong and ugly about a world system that allows so few to have so much and so many so little. The Baptism of Jesus was celebrated by the Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches on January 13. 

The Orthodox churches celebrated the feast on January 6. It is a celebration of Jesus becoming a member of the community. In the Gospel reading for the feast-day we read: “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my son, the Beloved; my favour rests with you.’”

I’m back thinking of the intolerable suffering endured by millions of displaced people.

Strange how we can get excited and upset about so many matters of faith, morals and dogma and yet treat in such a blasé manner the plight of millions.

We can’t begin to imagine their suffering and pain. And isn’t it always the children and women who suffer the most. Of course God’s favour rests with her/his daughters too.

Does our ‘favour’ really rest with migrants, refugees, asylum seekers?