In many ways, language, words, slogans direct our thoughts and actions. One big part of being able to resolve issues and the difficulty of understanding and solving a problem is with the vocabulary one uses.
The Matter of Concern is Human Migration
For ample reasons, human migration has existed since humanity existed. Humanity’s history documents this phenomenon well. The difference today is that it has a magnitude that has never been experienced before.
It is of political concern because it is creating a worrisome worldwide socio-economic disorder.
The job of politicians is to manage the states they serve and not beyond it. This, of course, is not a negative. To keep order in their societies as they grow, is one of the main functions of good politicians.
Hence, politicians should not be judged in ethical terms so long as they function within the parameters of their profession and their lawful job description. Their profession is framed by law and law is derived from philosophical thoughts which, in turn, is partly affected by economic principles.
All politicians must be viewed in these terms.
Political organizations are not moral communities because their concern is primarily with society, the nation, rather than the individual.
Moral Communities – the Force Politicians Face
A “moral community” is a faith-based or professional organization that exists to help others, i.e., medicine is a moral community, because theoretically the medical profession exists to help others, not to enrich the doctor, the insurance company, or others involved in this profession.
The term “moral community,” is used because it includes organizations that are not necessarily religious but are concerned about the well-being of the individual.
Today, the coalition of moral communities, concerned about the well-being of every single individual, is led by OZ, focused on the suffering, despair, anxiety, and future of the migrant.
OZ understands that nobody leaves their home, their country, puts their children in an unsafe raft to cross an ocean, walks for weeks and even months without food and water, unless he or she has no other choice.
These people may be forcefully displaced people, or, as the legal-political term goes, refugees.
These people are “forced” by a cluster of circumstances including the failure of their governments to redress the adversity of the circumstances that force people to choose between leaving or staying and suffer to the point of even dying.
Because the government’s – politicians’ – obligation is to protect their society, their concern is not the forcefully displaced rather, how to prevent them from entering their society and possibly creating disorder.
As an example, look at the country Colombia. Colombia recently granted citizenship to 24,000 children born to Venezuelan mothers.
The practical effect is that those 24,000 children will now have to be accepted into the next school year, something for which the Colombian school system has not been able to prepare, vis-a-vis teachers, classrooms and the like. This issue creates some social disorder. The same thing goes for medical attention, jobs for the parents, etc. It is an immediate burden on Colombian society.
Colombia, a country that already has one of the largest internal displaced populations in the world, has, in two years, received an influx of over 1.5 million Venezuelans for which it had no readiness nor time to prepare.
Video of photos taken while visiting displaced people shelters in Tijuana, Mexico.
Continuing with the Colombian example, the country is receiving assistance from the international community. For example, Food For The Poor issued a national call: “Venezuelans urgently need your help,” as have the Organization of American States, the UNHCR, the European Union, and the United States. The reason countries are helping is because they are “outsourcing” to other countries, such as Colombia, and NGOs, that take care of “the problem” far away from their borders.
While countries and governments are taking care of their societies first, they are also going beyond their duties by providing ad-hoc resources to international bodies so they can deal with the forcefully displaced, refugee problem.
It is worth noting that the refugee stations-shelters in Tijuana, Mexico, on the border with the United States, are the result of the Mexican government’s negotiations with NGOs to be able to operate forcefully displaced people camps in their territory.
This is a “Band-Aid,” the first-responder humanitarian aid, the rope to hang on to so people do not drown. But it is not the problem-solver or its cure.
Historically, these first-respondent humanitarian aid organizations have also shown difficulties in being “developmental aid organizations.”
But for the OZ Coalition, the key activity is development.
In the 1950’s the state of Israel had a presence in Africa where it provided developmental aid; that is OZ’s model.
Israel made arid geographical areas fertile ground to develop communities. It provided technical education for people to be able to sustain themselves.
Today, this model will be much easier for OZ to apply and develop further.
First: there are faith-based organizations all over the areas in need for help that can provide structure.
Second: there is a huge worldwide pool of volunteers in every area – health, education, engineering, organizational, etc. – who can participate with short term program stints, organized and managed by the OZ Coalition.
Third: the OZ Coalition has the ability to talk with the private sector all over the world to create a range of jobs in the different development areas.
In this form we do not “bring the horse to the waterhole,” rather, we “bring the waterhole to the horse.”
What it really means is that instead of bringing the forcefully displaced persons to countries and cities that have health services, educational institutions and jobs, we bring those vital institutions to where the people are and they can start to rebuild communities.
Who Benefits From OZ Coalition Action?
The forcefully displaced persons are able to live in communities in peace and security far away from the violence they have run away from. They will receive the medical services they could no longer get. Their children will join an educational system, perhaps even more advanced than the one their country was able to provide; any educational system would be better than the one that exists in El Salvador, Nicaragua, the isolated farming or mining areas in Venezuela, Guatemala, etc. And there are better job opportunities. Any job would be better than selling in the streets Arepa, a type of food, made of ground maize dough, originating from pre-Columbian northern region of South America, or pens made in China.
More so, development of the new communities will also help the country that hosts the forcefully displaced people. The reason being, in the end, the forcefully displaced will not only be consumers of goods, expanding the hosting country’s economy, they will increase the work force and hopefully be better educated.
Eventually, hopefully, some of the forcefully displaced, or their children, will go back to their country of origin and help rebuild it bringing along with them what they have learned while away.
For the churches, so caringly providing the basic needs of the displaced people, this platform is a great opportunity for them to bring new members to their congregations and thus not only “save more lives” but enlarge their community of parishioners, their institutions and their income.
This is the OZ Coalition project.
Since the OZ Coalition is neither a political, nor a legal, nor a scientific organization but a coalition of moral communities, it has the humane strength like no other organization has.
OZ political neutrality and objectivity is the key to success in helping numerous forcefully displaced people.
