There are few compassionate people in the world

Dear Editor,

His name was Aylan Kurdi, and he was the three-year-old Syrian who drowned fleeing Syria, bringing the refugee crisis into focus when he was found dead on a beach. His parents left Syria because they wanted to find new opportunity, safety and hope.

Mr Kurdi was forced to make a difficult choice: stay in Syria and die or take the boat and hope they would live. Some smugglers had promised Abdullah Kurdi (Aylan’s father) a motorboat for the trip from Turkey to Greece, a step on the way to a new life in Canada. Instead, they showed up with a 15-foot rubber raft that flipped in high waves, dumping Mr Kurdi, his wife and their two small sons into the sea. Only Mr Kurdi, 40, survived.

Editor, today, there’s a debate around the globe and in Guyana as to what should be done with the Syrian refugees. I heard some American Christians saying that they didn’t want “those people” in their country because they are terrorists.

Some Guyanese got involved in the debate too. I read Mr Claimont Lye’s letter to your newspaper (November 15) in which he proposed that we submit an offer to the United Nations and the European Union to resettle a number of refugees here in Guyana. The writer says that he was moved by compassion when he saw Aylan dead on the beach, and hoped that others too would be moved by compassion. But maybe he did not know that there are only a few people like him who are compassionate and caring in Guyana and the world. Very few people have compassion for a child that is not theirs. And fewer people still care about refugee children, judging from the response to his letter from the bloggers on Stabroek News. Almost all of the bloggers strongly opposed and condemned his proposals.

The bloggers, ironically, many of them immigrants themselves living in the diaspora, have a plethora of excuses why Guyana couldn’t take any refugees. Some of the reasons were that fleeing refugees need immediate lodging, food, and healthcare services, and Guyana does not have that; or that Guyana is a country of polarising politics and you want to add European refugees to that mix? Then there was someone who wrote that Mr Lye should ask himself first why not one Arab country had stepped up to take on the refugees, after which they pointed to what had taken place in France, and that a couple of the terrorists had gone there as refugees. Editor, almost all the bloggers opposed Guyana taking the refugees.

Regarding Syrian refugees one US Congressman writes: “I believe we must be vigilant in defending our shores and will continue to oppose any attempt to relocate Syrian refugees to this country.”

Today, the refugees are saying to the world, please help us. Our children are dying. They need help; we know that you don’t like us but we need you. Please don’t turn us away. Please don’t run. We’re human too.

I close with these words from Matthew, Chapter 25: “And Jesus will answer, I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.”

Yours faithfully,

Anthony Pantlitz