Brookings pastor Carl Kline: As the threats of 2025 approach, we will discover the true ethics of the American people
This past summer we had the good fortune of a visit from our daughter and two of our grandsons. One grandson brought his work with him, as he edits material on his computer. He would take his work to a local coffee shop for hours at a time.
The other wanted to use his free time playing me games of chess. Initially, I gave as many excuses as I could think of, but eventually, with continuing pressure, I had to relent and we sat down to play. It went according to my expectations! After 15 or 20 minutes, my game was in disarray, and I was trying to escape the inevitable by constantly moving my king until I couldn’t do it anymore. (At least he didn’t bug me about playing again).
This same grandson, several weeks before my birthday, asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told him it was so far off I hadn’t even thought about it. Then, in jest, I told him “chocolates.” The box that arrived two weeks before my birthday was the size of a box of chocolates. So imagine my surprise when I opened it and found a book.
Perhaps I had hinted at a subject that concerned me when the grandsons were present during the summer visit. I don’t recall. But the subject of this book had been on my mind, ever since the presidential election. The novel focuses on a different country with a similar challenge as my own. The book title is “The Silence of the Choir.” The author is Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.
He writes about the influx of refugees into a small town in Sicily and the response of the citizens there. When I finished reading it, I thought perhaps it was prophetic of our own situation in the U.S. as we head into 2025.
Trump isn’t even in office yet, but already he is making threats! The undocumented in our country will be rounded up on day one! Millions will be deported! The borders will be closed! Neighboring countries will face economic consequences should they enable illegals to enter. Threats and more threats will be the governing mantra of the incoming administration. Forget the olive branch.
In the novel, in the little town of Altino in Sicily, 72 refugees arrive by boat from several different countries in Africa. They are without resources, tired and sick from a frightful journey, desperate for a livelihood in a new setting. They are met by an association with religious origins, dedicated to welcoming them and guiding them toward temporary asylum.
They are also met by hostility from those who see them taking community resources. Many of these foreigners don’t speak the language and they are the wrong color. The community is dangerously divided.
The division comes to a boiling point in the novel at an early-morning mayhem after a night of drinking and partying, where six people are killed and several others injured. As so often happens, this initial violence leads to the threat of even greater violence.
As both sides in the community mourn their losses and some escalate the hate, preparations begin for a final confrontation. The next-to-last scene in the novel has the refugees on one side, with the police force in front of them to protect them from the gathering mob, prepared to kill them all. And then there are some few townspeople still welcoming the refugees, who place themselves in harm’s way, with the refugees.
The novel makes clear that underneath the escalation of violence is political opportunism, jealousy, pride, racism and selfishness; all human tendencies happening all around us all the time. The novel suggests that a little bit of any of those human failings in the right person can be the spark that sets off a conflagration.
The novel has a surprise ending. It suggests there is something larger and greater at work in the world than ordinary human failings. I agree with the author!
In the meantime, in this country, we can all support the organizations that are working with refugees; helping them find and access their relatives, providing hospitality till they are settled in a community, supporting them as they seek asylum. And when the round-up begins, my hope is churches will open their doors in a new sanctuary movement. Let the Christian mandate to “welcome the stranger” and “love the neighbor” be our mantra as we extend an olive branch.
Since the arc of the universe bends toward justice, and God’s ways are not our ways, perhaps the end of our refugee story will be a surprise as well. There is something larger and greater at work in the world!
Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
