May, 2006
Church Leaders visit Welcome Centre
On 1st June 2006, leaders of the four largest churches in Northern Ireland visited a day centre which provides basic support to migrant workers who are sleeping rough. They were invited by members of churches and voluntary organisations seeking to raise awareness of this escalating issue.
Northern Ireland is benefiting greatly from the many migrant workers who are coming into the province. The vast majority are employed in a wide range of industries and services and provide a very valuable contribution to our society and economy. Their tax and national insurance contributions are also significant.
However a small number are unable to find work or keep their jobs and become destitute. Factors contributing to this include employer exploitation, poor language skills, and work related accidents. Once unemployed, and not entitled to welfare payments, these workers struggle to maintain payments for rented accommodation and within a relatively short period of time can find themselves on the streets.
There have been a number of well publicised incidents regarding migrant workers sleeping rough on park benches and parked cars over the past few months. The most graphic example of the situation was that of Oksana Sukhanova, who lost both her legs following frostbite which had resulted from having to live on the streets during the winter of 04/05. Despite the outcry then, the reality is that the situation is far worse now, with many, many more migrant workers destitute.
The only safety net is provided by hostels for the homeless. However the hostel providers receive no support from the Department of Social Development for the places they provide and therefore they have to bear the cost themselves.
The Simon Community and the Welcome Centre are two organisations at the forefront of providing support for migrant workers who are sleeping rough. The Welcome Centre is a day centre, which provides hot food and shelter.
Mandy Jones from the Simon Community, spoke of the support they were providing for migrant workers. She highlighted several success stories where migrant workers who were homeless had been reintegrated into the workplace through the intervention of the Simon Community.
Rev Richard Kerr, who coordinated the visit, spoke of the need for action by Government, statutory bodies, businesses, voluntary agencies and Churches. “We cannot accept a situation where people, who are making such a significant contribution to our society, are being treated as second class citizens and have no access to a basic safety net in times of hardship.”
Change of Government policy on Immigration Detention Immigration detainees will no longer be held in Northern Ireland following a change in UK Government policy. Detainees will now be sent to removal centres in Scotland and England, separating them from family, community and legal support here. See Immigration detention page for more information.
Belfast Church in Racist Attack
On 9th March St Columcille’s in Ballyhackamore, East Belfast, was desecrated with graffiti, including racist, sectarian and sexual slogans. Many of its parishoners are Polish and Filipino workers from nearby Ulster Hospital. BBC report
Money raised by this fund has been used in a number of ways. Examples include assisting destitute foreign nationals who have needed to return home urgently, and sending on the belongings of people who have been removed to their own country following detention at the end of their asylum cases. Others have been helped off the streets by the payment of a few nights hostel fees where no other funds were available. See EMBRACE Funding for more information or contact us for further details.
A summary of how the fund was used in the year 08 - 09 can be viewed here.
Used with permission.
The Refugee Action Group
(RAG)
The Refugee Action Group is an umbrella group of interested groups, including EMBRACE. It seeks to be an independent voice advocating on asylum and refugee issues, and supporting the refugee and asylum-seeking community in Northern Ireland.
Much of its information used to be gained from the first hand experiences of RAG volunteers, who visited detainees each week.
This image was drawn by Mohamed Khan while he was detained in Maghaberry Prison in 2001. It is the logo of the Refugee Action Group.
Detainee Figures
A RAG report on detention, published in February 2006, showed that the number of immigration detainees held in Northern Ireland continued to rise in 2005/2006.
RAG report on detention in 2005 [pdf]
- 120 people were held in detention in Northern Ireland at the orders of the Immigration Service during 2005, a 20% increase on a previous 12-month period (Mar 2004 – Feb 2005).
- Of this number, about one-third (37 people) were seeking asylum and over a quarter (33 people) were women.
- In 2005, immigration detainees came from 25 different countries but the majority (57%) were from various African countries, most notably Nigeria, where 45 of the detainees originated. China (8%), South Africa (7%) and Romania (7%) were the other most common countries of origin.
- About one-third of detainees (41 people) were subsequently deported to their country of origin, one-fifth (27 people) were transferred to detention in Great Britain and a further one-fifth (25 people) were released or bailed.
- Most (91%) of detainees were arrested while entering Northern Ireland, with most being seized at airports and ferry terminals.
Patrick Corrigan, of Amnesty and RAG, speaking about the report said:
‘Our figures reveal a clear and troubling upward trend in the practice of locking up people, of whom many have fled to Northern Ireland in fear of their lives.’
End of Local Detention
In 2005 the Government ended immigration detention in Northern Ireland. Instead, people apprehended here are sent to removal centres in Great Britain, a development of what RAG had already seen as a worrying trend in 2005. Some of the anxieties about this are as follows:
- Concern that people may not receive timely legal advice and there will therefore be greater risk of deportation to countries where human rights are abused.
- There will be less scrutiny and the spotlight of social concern
- If detainees are removed from Northern Ireland against their will, they will lose contact with family, friends and support networks including solicitors who are familiar with their cases.
Since this change it has indeed proved much more difficult to monitor how many people have been taken from Northern Ireland to removal centres in GB, or whether the other anxieties are well founded. However it is clear that the increase in numbers has continued, with at least several hundred people apprehended during last year, and removed to GB. In some cases it has proved more difficult for people to communicate with families and solicitors. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is examining the situation currently and RAG also hopes to undertake research when NIHRC have completed their review.
Belfast Immigration Enforcement Unit
A unit is planned to open shortly which will house Home Office officials and members of the PSNI. Gardai officers will be present in order to ensure that there is prompt liaison with the southern authorities. There is frustration that this enforcement unit is being put in place while there is no government centre giving helpful advice on immigration, at a time when the Northern Ireland economy is benefitting from so many migrant workers.
In addition to the earlier concerns, immigration documentation infringements are now criminal offences and this means that some people may once more be remanded within the prison system. There are also fears that people may be allocated solicitors with experience of criminal offences who lack the specialist expertise to advise on immigration and asylum cases.
The God of Welcomes: St Patrick’s Day in Downpatrick, 17 March 2006
The address at the service in Down Cathedral was given by Rev. Roy Searle, leader of the Northumbria Community and President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. He spoke of St Patrick’s message:
‘The gospel that changed people’s hearts and minds from hatred to love, harmony to healing, mistrust and suspicion to kindred communities, where fate and helplessness gave way to a passion that burned for God and brought life. The gospel spoke of a God of compassion, a God who reached beyond the boundaries of any prescribed religion, church or civic boundary or protocol to touch the hearts of all. A God of benediction and blessing. A God who welcomed the stranger, the exile and the refugee. The God whose very nature is community – Father Son and Holy Spirit – unity in diversity. A God who created and celebrates diversity and challenges any notion that something different is deviant and therefore needing to be excluded. A message that transformed and informed Patrick’s mission and led him to crusade against injustice and the exploitation of the poor and marginalised.’ … ‘In the midst of the many changes facing Ireland there is the emergence of people coming from different nations. In the last 48 hours I’ve waited in a queue behind a young lady from Poland in a book shop, been served in a supermarket by a young Slovakian woman, and sat next to a Nigerian on the bus up the Saintfield Road. … ‘May the God of Welcomes be expressed through the people of God to strangers and exiles in our midst, for in doing so we reflect the mission of Patrick.’
Some quotations from speakers at the All Ireland Churches’ Consultative Meeting on Racism (AICCMR) conference, Challenged by Difference: Threat or Enrichment at Dromantine, November 2005.
Part of the opening remarks of Michael Jackson, Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher:
Our concern is … that it is vital for members of churches in Ireland today to develop what I might call a fresh theology of hospitality. This is something generous, something practical and something for others. We exist for those whom we do not know every bit as much as for those whom we do know. The church of God has never been only for those on the inside. That attitude is and remains a scandal and an affront to God and neighbour alike. I say this for Biblical reasons. The direct question which Jesus answered in the life He lived, which became the Gospel, was the following very open question: And who, then, is my neighbour? Not only is the question open but so is the answer. The only person not to pass by on the other side is the noble but despised Samaritan. It is our conviction – and we have indeed been given every encouragement to think so – that what we are embarking on today is not just another thing which the church is picking up from what others are doing round about but is, in fact, part of its core identity. And it is just that because it is for all of us a journey of self-understanding and of a new self-definition in those three virtues: faith, hope, love.
All Ireland Churches ’ Consulatative Meeting on Racism (AICCMR) conference, Challenged by Difference: Threat or Enrichment [pdf] at Dromantine, November 2005.
Rev. Dr Sahr Yambasu, Methodist, keynote speaker from Galway whose talk was entitled ‘Challenged by Ignorance: Responding to the Strangers in our Midst’:
Part of a longer analysis of the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collecter:
In the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jesus put his finger on what I believe is the perennial issue at the heart of human responses to other humans beings as different: the uncritical acceptance of our own particularities as normal and essential while we seek to deny or ignore or even label other people ’s boundaries as abnormal, and wish, consciously or otherwise, that their own differences should give way to our own. …
Jesus recommended the self-view of the Tax Collector not, I would suggest, because he was better or worse than the Pharisee in actual fact; but because he had the attitude of mind and heart that in the end, mattered most.
His disposition characterised him as a man open towards new ways of seeing and being. In this man reposed the humble recognition that he is nowhere near being what he could be as a human being created in the image of God. In this man was real hope for change for the better. You see, we never begin to be good till we can feel and say that we are bad.
The Pharisee, on the other hand, no longer saw anything good in different others to emulate; at least not in the Tax Collector whom he perceived as being below him; perhaps not even in God because he sounded totally self-liberated and self-dependent. He had arrived so to speak. His standard was himself, and no other. The Pharisee saw himself as the master exemplar that everyone else must imitate. Such a person would find no reason to learn from others, or change for the better.
This Pharisee, I would say, had the stuff from which ethnic, national, religious, gender, age, economic, cultural, political, and skin colour discriminations, exclusions, and conflicts are made. The stuff is called ‘superiority complex’. It is the ‘I am better than you’ syndrome that has always plagued this world and continues to do so. It is the attitude that says unless you are like me, or until you become like me, I am not prepared to value you as a human being like me, nor the way of life you represent. …
All Ireland Churches’ Consulatative Meeting on Racism (AICCMR) conference, AICCMR conference Challenged by Ignorance [pdf] at Dromantine, November 2005.
Rev. Arlington Trotman Churches’ Commission for Racial Justice spoke on ‘Being, Identity and Belief: A Christian Basis for Pursuing Racial Justice’.
The challenge for any society divided along the lines of ethnicity or people group (race), religion, sexual orientation, gender and culture, is the recognition that politically, economically, socially and spiritually, that society becomes and remains poorer. Yet, these are essential differences which make up the identity of each person.
As Christians, whose existence is fixed by faith in a loving God, we battle against the overt and hidden causes and forms of racism. If this endeavour is to be redemptive and sustainable, two principles are vital: One, it is imperative that we resist the mild form of ‘neo-colonialism’ of merely ‘doing-on-behalf-of’ marginalized people, despite its importance, and harness the strength of our oneness in Christ as the basis for ‘identifying-with’ them in all our work to defeat racism. You see, the victim and the perpetrator of racism are fellow human beings. …
All forms of racism are ultimately unsustainable because they are not only evil, but racism tries to subvert the essential identity of all human beings. We as Christians must embrace difference and be ‘richer’ by undergoing a measure of cultural integration, recognise our human interdependence, promote social and economic redistribution, and pursue ethnic harmony, so that our Being is being-in-love-for-one-another’. This does not entail ‘giving up our identity’, which … is impossible.
All Ireland Churches ’ Consulatative Meeting on Racism (AICCMR) conference, Challenged by Difference: Threat or Enrichment at Dromantine, November 2005. Being, Identity and Belief - A Trotman [pdf]
Rev. Philip T Sumner, Oldham, England, whose talk was entitled ‘Affirming Identity to Create Community’.
For a person to enter into healthy relationships requires the ability to believe that he is loveable. If a person’s self-esteem is significantly low then he either avoids entering into a relationship or he tries to control the relationship so that he believes he cannot be hurt. The same applies to cultural communities. For there to be good relations between communities, each community has to believe that it is highly estimable. Then, as bridges are built, there have to be good foundations on each side. People from both cultures need to know who they are and be proud of who they are. Sometimes, in multicultural settings, one community can become too fearful of expressing its own identity for fear of upsetting other communities. Again, people do not build good relationships by hiding their real personalities …
Stereotyping takes place when someone thinks he knows the particular needs of a community but has failed to check his ideas in this regard with the community itself. We all have a responsibility to engage, as soon as possible, with people of other cultural identities entering into our localities. Real engagement helps to dispel any myths and to discover the particular needs of those communities. This takes time and there are no short cuts! We have to learn how to communicate in a way that demonstrates our esteem for those with whom we engage. In this process, we may discover that some of our language with regard to other communities may be inappropriate. We may make mistakes and have to seek forgiveness. …
Each cultural grouping has to feel that it is somehow part of the very fabric of the wider community and not an exotic decoration that can easily be discarded at whim. …
All Ireland Churches ’ Consulatative Meeting on Racism (AICCMR) conference, Challenged by Difference: Threat or Enrichment at Dromantine, November 2005. AICCMR conference: Affirming Identity [pdf]
Rt Rev. Ken Newell’s talk ‘Racism in Belfast: Up-front and Ugly’
Some months ago a friend who had just got out of hospital was reading the papers about the upsurge of racist attacks in South Belfast. He felt so angry, ‘It’s only a matter of time, Ken,’ he said, “before somebody gets killed. Some of the Filipino nurses who looked after me in the Royal were the ones chased down the Donegall Road by a pack of thugs’. It was this kind of incident that led The Guardian to label Belfast ‘The Race-Hate Capital of Europe’. Sadly, there are chilling statistics to back that up. While racial attacks in England and Wales were running at 12.6 per 1000 of the ethnic population, in Northern Ireland the figure for the same period was 16.4.
All Ireland Churches ’ Consulatative Meeting on Racism (AICCMR) conference, Challenged by Difference: Threat or Enrichment at Dromantine, November 2005. AICCMR conference: Racism - Up Front and Ugly in Belfast [pdf]
Renewing Hope: Christians taking Responsibility 22 May 2005
A group of Christians from across the denominations in Northern Ireland has come together to focus on bringing about a society where everyone can enjoy freedom, politicians and people take responsibility and healthy relationships flourish. One facet of this is recognising the challenges of diversity:
“To build good relations in a diverse society, we must continue to confront sectarianism and racism where they manifest themselves, and stand alongside those who feel threatened by bigotry. This includes a realistic recognition of difference, tolerance in place of hostility, inclusive celebration of our varied cultural heritages, where possible, and an honest engagement regarding aspects of other cultures and ideologies that we find threatening or disturbing. Within this land there is increasing ethnic diversity, to add to the long-standing cultural, political and religious division. This raises new kinds of fear, resentment and intolerance.
Such diversity, however, can contribute to our economic and cultural vitality, and should be a measure of our openness to new ideas, perspectives and people. It offers us a foretaste of the heavenly Kingdom, which will include people from every earthly nationality. (Revelation 7:9) Minority ethnic communities are vulnerable fellow citizens, often literally strangers in a foreign land, and as such God’s people are commanded in scripture to protect and support them. (Leviticus 19:34)’ …
Churches have a crucial role to play, creating spaces that foster hope and imagination. In the negotiating of difference and living together we must acknowledge both our rights and our responsibilities, and that we can claim no rights or privileges for ourselves which we are not prepared to share with our fellow citizens of other traditions. In doing so we live out Paul’s advice to the Philippians, ‘Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.’ (Philippians 2:4)”
More of this reflection and the statement on which it is based can be found at www.renewing-hope.org.
A Christian Response to Asylum in Britain in given in the CTBI paper Asylum in Britain, A Question Of Conscience by Anthony Harvey.
A view from the South: General Synod of the Church of Ireland May 2005
Rev. Katherine Poulton. (Dublin Diocese) ‘spoke of the “boost” to inner city parishes of the arrival of immigrants. Congregations, she said, had “stepped outside their own comfort zones to embrace new arrivals from many different cultures and backgrounds.’ Church of Ireland Gazette 20 May 2005.
Canon Desmond Sinnamon (Dublin Diocese) reflecting on the numbers of refugees and people seeking asylum in the south, said that in the past 10 years:
‘Ireland has been enriched, and … our church life in certain areas has been revitalised by increasing numbers from other church cultures. … Canon Sinnamon called on local churches to be places of welcome and hospitality and “to be a bridge to help and support our newcomers.”’Church of Ireland Gazette 20 May 2005.
Archbishop Sean Brady speaks out on Racism in Northern Ireland
“The number of incidents against people from other countries is shameful. Of course it is linked to our reluctance to welcome difference whether it is different religion, different race or different colour of skin. Racism is a disgrace wherever it happens, especially when followers of Christ do it, but it is part of this fear of people who are different and a lack of appreciation of their dignity in the sight of God. … We have to try and change attitudes and improve our appreciation of the value of every human being. In God’s eyes we are equal. We are not the same – or else the world would be very boring – but we are equal in dignity.”
From an interview with Anna Rankin, editor of Lion & Lamb and EMBRACE committee member, Lion & Lamb, Spring 2005. Article in full
‘Silent Racism’ in the Church
Former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr Ken Newell wrote :
“It would be wrong to exaggerate the overt racism in our community … but there is a silent racism just under the surface. Recently some Indian friends phoned me in distress. They had gone to live in one of our neatly-kept villages. They told me that in the previous 18 months nobody had knocked their door to welcome them to the neighbourhood. I had encouraged them to visit local churches, naively convinced that they would receive a warm welcome. ‘We tried that, Ken.’ They said. ‘We visited the Presbyterian church, the Church of Ireland, the Catholic church and a few others, but nobody said hello or asked us how we were. Even the ministers were disinterested, except for one.’ Eventually they asked a man in a local shop why people were distant. ‘I don’t like to say this to your face,’ he replied, ‘but you’re black and people round here don’t like black people.’ Their final question still haunts me, ‘Why are church people here so cold towards my wife and me? They’re our brothers and sisters. Aren’t they?’ Lion & Lamb, Autumn 2004. Article in full
Ministry for a Multicultural Church
It is important that the issue of the many cultures in one Church never be addressed as a problem to be solved that, once solved, will go away forever. The many cultures in the one Church is a potential blessing, an enrichment of our communities and our humanities. It is an invitation to expand our horizons and nurture new relationships. Keeping that in mind will keep us from seeking technical solutions that get us no farther than reducing conflict (as valuable as that may be), and help move us along a pathway that will bring us closer to respecting the right to culture and the development of culture, about which Pope John Paul II has spoken so eloquently. It is in that vein that we can turn to some of the striking biblical images of cultures coming together: the event of Pentecost, the coming together of every tribe and tongue, people and nation in the Book of Revelation. Ministry in a multicultural Church must be such that it does knit the members of the body, diverse as they may be, closer together and loser to the Head of the Body, Jesus Christ. It is these bold visions which we must hold before us as we struggle to become more faithful to call to ministry in a Church so varied and so rich.
Robert Schreiter, CPPS Ministry for a Multicultural Church
For the full text see www.sedos.org/english/schreiter.htm
Sectarianism and Racism in Tandem
Bishop Michael Jackson, Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher, said, “members of other world faiths and ethnicities are our neighbours. … “There is evidence that active sectarianism and active racism are running in tandem in Ireland.” He went on to speak about the need to: “dig deep within the spirit of the Gospel to ensure that the words and the actions of Jesus Christ live today, in the daily lives of Christian people in Ireland, in simple and practical ways which are consistent with the radical compassion of Jesus Christ. ’ 16 August 2004
Fortress Europe
Archbishop Sean Brady, in a speech to an Irish group in Manchester, spoke of the dangers of a ‘fortress Europe’ attitude: In the words of His Holiness, Pope John Paul, “How can we say we welcome Christ if we close the door to the stranger in our midst? The presence among us of people from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds is a gift for us, in that it enables us to broaden our experience of Church, to see that God calls all of mankind into one family, and to realise that the earth is given for all.” October 2003
Exile
Paul Surlis - People deprived of familiar rootedness in family, culture, tradition and geography deserve the next best thing, which is welcome, hospitality and compassionate concern in their new environment. ‘Exile’, Furrow, April 2000
About
EMBRACE is a group of Christians working together to promote a positive response to people seeking asylum, refugees, migrant workers and minority ethnic people in Northern Ireland.
