Worldviews: Refugee, Immigrant, Ethnic National

by Jon Gresham
civilsociety.Seedwiki

3-Worldviews in Conflict in The Netherlands

Worldview assessment thoughts to provide guidance to how to live and do right things.

Answers are composites of : Dutch nationals, Middle Eastern refugees, Middle Eastern immigrants. (adaptation from Charles Colson's _How Now Shall We Live_):

1. How and why are we here?

2. What went wrong? (Why is there pain and discomfort?)

3. What is the solution? (How do I live to minimize pain, discomfort and difficulty in my daily life?)

Answers may include cultural observations, but are more meant to address motivations than actions.

There are "right answers" based on education and tradition and there are answers based on experience.

1. How and Why are We Here?

Nationals. The creation/evolution combination is such that we can't know it and it doesn't affect us anyway.

Immigrants & Refugees. We are here without purpose or meaning other than to take care of our own families and friends and not cause hurt without reason.

2. What went Wrong? Why is There Pain and Discomfort?

A National's Response: My taxes go to drug addicts and immigrants and others who do not contribute to the overall benefit of society to me and my family. Life was good until foreigners came and disturbed the well-structured society where everyone was equal and knew their place. There are about 20% foreign people in my area now, with most of them from Muslim nations. They are bad people in general. My country increases by about 1000 immigrant people each month, after turning back most of the refugee seekers. The immigrants, especially Muslims, do not want to join our society and work together with us for the betterment of all of us; they want to stay to themselves and say bad things against us Dutch people.

A Refugee's Response: Those outsiders with power took my education, family, security, significance and reduced me to helplessness here with no hope unless this state gives it to me. I had to lose all of my money and possessions to escape from my country and come here. Yes, it was illegal, but it was for the best for me and my family. I made the best choice that I could and even living here in this prison-life is better than the fear and hiding from the police in my home country.

But these Dutch people do not like us and talk about us in mean ways. They do not help us to get out of this prison of refugee life into a normal life. They keep us here like animals--eat, sleep and stay out of our way. They let us stay here, but they won't let us do anything except sit around and wait for them to decide what they will do with us. We have no choice in our future. We cannot go back home and we cannot be normal people with jobs and nice houses like those in the community. All of my memories of happy times and even the thoughts of people who love me and care for me are all back in my former life and community. I live in two places: here in the dark present land, and in the memories of what used to be.

An Immigrant's Response: Many of my village in the old country have come here to make a better life for themselves, and now I have followed and have found it as they said. I make more money here in a week, when I am working, than I would have in my village in a year. And, by living with many people in a small place, I can send some of my income back to my family there. I don't trust banks, and so I keep my cash earned in my room or in my pocket, but have been robbed and lost several months' savings that I wanted to send to my family. But, I feel bad much of the time because I cannot be as free as I want. I only had a very low education, so I cannot even apply for better jobs here. I do not speak the national language, so I cannot even take more school to get a higher diploma and then training for a better job. Most good jobs are awarded because of tests or skills, and I cannot learn the skills without more education. And in this country, reading and writing are essential to advancing anywhere. And, with my job level, I will be forced to take unemployment payment or disability payment earlier in life than those who have more education. There is little security for me, and little enjoyment in my work compared with others, when I have work, and I spend much more time waiting for day-labor jobs and many days where there is no work. The sad thing is that I can make almost as much being on welfare than I can with my usual work.

Because of my low income, I have to live in socialized housing, where rents are cheap. This means that we have leaky roofs and pipes and noise and landlords who don't care because they know that we will not go to the police to complain. The thin walls make me hear all the fights and problems in the next apartments, and to be near the tram and train and cheap groceries, I have to be in bad housing so that I don't have to spend even more of my time walking long distances. It would be so nice to live in a better place, but money makes that impossible.

I spend most of my time with a few friends with a similar background to mine. I go once in a while to the Mosque, but it has little benefit to me other than occasional food and clothes distributions. It is a cool place to sleep in the summer and you can hear news from the home country and about government actions or work opportunities. I don't have any national friends, but do have a few acquaintances through a few work sites but I don't speak enough of their language to communicate much, so there is no use in being with them. Some of my former friends from my country did learn the language and moved up in job skills to where they spend more of their time nationals with us. It seems that they can live either as a national or as we from the old country do, not mixing the two. As an immigrant, I think that I could actually make more money as an educated worker in my own cultural system here than I could as an educated worker in the national system because I cannot compete with a national for a better-paying jobs with nationals, but I can make my own business serving those in our my communities.

My children are doing well in school and learning how national children live and get jobs and succeed. I push them very hard to do well in school since that is their only opportunity to do better for themselves and to take care of me when I am old or disabled. Unfortunately, their school is not in a good area and the quality of education that they get is not as good as the school where the richer children go and where there are better teachers. But, if they study hard, they can go to higher education and then get good jobs with paid vacations and pension. But, they see their friends leaving school early to work and make money and they do not see that by staying in school they will make more money later. Of course, if I am disabled in the next few years, they may have to quit school to work. In the meantime, I try to keep them away from some bad influences. It may be better for them if I could take them to museums and libraries, but it takes money to ride the bus and I'm not interested in those things, so they don't go. Even when they are educated and have good jobs, the nationals would not let them have certain jobs and special benefits and even housing options that they reserve for themselves.

3. I can only endure my daily life and hope that life will be better for my children.

National: I work as needed, enjoying the national holidays and my vacation days as much as I can.

If I am unemployed, I will enjoy as much as possible my time without work duties until I finish my vocational retraining and placement in a new job until I can retire and then do what I want to do with my time, even though I will not have enough money each month to do much. Middle-class people like me own our own homes, so at least we don't have to pay rent, only taxes. My children are pushed to excel academically since that is their only hope for job security. National boys are more motivated by academics and by sports; national girls are more motivated by acceptance based on appearance and social group memberships.

I used to go to church, but now it seems without reason or meaning to my needs and worries. There are few young people who attend. Sometimes there are foreigners who come, but they don't belong in our church and should go to their own place; even if they are 2nd or 3rd generation here, they still are different from us and that is why we call all of them aliens.

If there is God, why doesn't he or she help me?

Refugee: I'm not allowed to work legally. If I work "black," then I can make a more money than my allowance of Euro 25/week per adult, but if I am caught by the police, I will lose all of the unemployment monies, and maybe my free housing. So, I live frugally, buying only for the present alleviation of discomfort (cigarettes, alcohol, cheap entertainment). I stay in my room or go on long walks so that I don't have to interact with other refugees in my community who that are not kind or helpful to me. Riding the bus or train is expensive, so I walk or stay at home.

I have very limited contact with only a few others of my family in the home country, since I don't want to create problems for them or for me. My acquaintances here are mainly not from my country, since I don't trust those who may be here to spy on me from my country. I speak Dutch or English with local people since they don't speak my home language. My children speak mostly Dutch outside our room, and they are developing friendships through school with people not from my home country. My main motivation for my children is for academics to get a good job, but their main motivation is to have friends and to become an insider to the local community of Dutch children. Since we are refugees, the children can go to higher education, but the bus is expensive and they have to take a loan to go on to school. Paying back the loan will be impossible or very difficult, so why try for the better education? My hope is that somehow my children will become citizens and then care for me as their dependent since I have no where else to go.

Some of my friends have gone to the local church, but did not feel welcome there. Some of my friends were even very Christian people, but the local church people did not make them feel like they should go there. There are Christian people who give us things, but we don't need charity or pity, we want freedom. Well, some things are nice to receive anyway. Thank you to those who do give.

The mosque is a place to avoid as well, even though my family is Muslim. The mosque people sometimes have food and clothing and things to give away, but the talks are political or angry and they don't help me; if there is God, why doesn't He help me?

Article submitted Tuesday, October 13, 2009 & read 56 times.

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