Accepting asylum seekers strengthens our borders

Borders mark a differentiation between two things - the edges where two things that are definable as different meet. Our skin marks the personal border of our physical bodies; our fences mark the borders of our homes; and borders bound our nation - but they do not define it. For borders are more than just physical markers, borders exist also of the mind, the soul, the psyche, and, if we move beyond the individual, borders mark the meeting points of cultures, ways of living, and ways of being.

The struggle for human rights has been about far more than solely our physical integrity, it has also been about our emotional and mental integrity, and greatest of all, the integrity of our soul.

And just as our personal integrity and essence has borders, so too does the morality, integrity and essence of our nation - the nation we see as, or wish to see as, noble, or "great", or influential.

Those moral borders set us apart, we hope, and mark us as being better than the places that, sometimes through no fault of that place, people are fleeing - seeking safety or a better life for themselves probably, but more often for their family and loved ones.

That border exists on the premise that our nation, the collective "we", is better than elsewhere - more easy going perhaps, the land of a "fair go", and we often pride ourselves on being more respectful of the rule of law.

But, just as a judge will take mitigating circumstances into account when setting a sentence, so too should we treat those who came here in hope but without meeting the legal definition of refugee with some forbearance - if nothing else, for the compliment they give us in thinking our nation is a better place to be. And refugees have, by law, rights of access.

When we do not accept the lawfulness of being a refugee, when we deny and abuse, or allow others to do so, those who come here seeking asylum, we make a mockery of our commitment to the rule of law, we rob others of the fair go we espouse so blithely and hypocritically, and we sacrifice our generosity on the pyre of mean-spiritedness - the same sort of mean-spiritedness that quite possibly led to them leaving their distant shores.

When we make the error of closing the borders of our hearts and our nation, we weaken our moral borders: we show the image of our culture as "better" to be a facade - a shallow and superficial lie. We lessen the difference between our supposedly "good" place of being, and the "bad" places that drive their people away.

And when we do that, I weep for my nation and its peoples.

On the other hand, when we accept asylum seekers in, and treat them with decency and respect, that does not weaken our borders: it strengthens the borders that matter.


PS - To be clear about the sort of difference I am talking of: many, if not most, of our refugees are coming from Syria, a totalitarian regime, burma, a partial democracy currently actively committing genocide, or Afghanistan, a nation struggling t form a stable democracy and showing signs falling back into a misogynistic theocracy. To be a genuine small-l liberal democracy respecting freedom and human rights, as compared to a totalitarian regime, a genocidal regime, or a misogynistic theocracy, is a difference I consider we should be seeking to make.



 * For those who are unfamiliar with this word, look up the phrase "beating the bounds"