Wilders' Ignorance of Judeo-Christian Values

All the commotion in Libya the past weeks has given rise to a very particular concern among some of my fellow Dutchies: "Are all those refugees going to come here?!"

Geert Wilders recently stated that the Netherlands should not admit any refugees from any of the Arab countries now experiencing revolutions - even if those revolutions turn into civil wars. The reason Wilders gives is that West-Europe could not possibly handle the number of refugees who would want to come.

As is often the case, I disagree with Wilders. Firstly, at the moment, the number of refugees is definitely manageable. Secondly, and more interestingly, Wilders' proposal goes against the very Judeo-Christian heritage he claims to be such a fan of.

1. Europe can handle it

The most recent reports of refugees trying to leave Libya shown that between 100,000 and 180,000 refugees trying to leave the country.

Most of these refugees have fled into neighboring countries such as Egypt or Tunisia. It seems that a good portion of these are migrant workers in Libya whose countries are unable to help them escape the violence. Sky News has reported that up to 50,000 Egyptians, Tunisians and Nigerians fleeing into Tunisia.

So when it really comes to North African refugees who will “flood” Europe – we can likely detract the 50,000 migrant workers who will attempt to go back home and we are left with somewhere between 50,000 and 90,000 refugees. Since most of these will desire to stay in the region (yes, like all human beings, North African refugees also prefer to stay in familiar surroundings, close to friends and family). But even assuming 90,000 refugees would flee to Western Europe, this number would not be difficult to handle with a good EU asylum policy.

In fact, the Netherlands could welcome all 90,000 of those refugees without compensating for all the people who left the Netherlands in 2010. Yes, in 2010 118,000 people emigrated from the Netherlands. While it is true that approximately 150,000 people immigrated to the Netherlands in 2010, the decreasing birth rates and increased mortality means that without immigration, the population of the Netherlands would decrease in the long run. According to the CBS, birthrates in the Netherlands will be between 1.9 per woman and 1.6 per woman in 2050. Since a birthrate of at least 2.1 per woman is necessary for a population to be self-propagating, the projected birthrate for women in the Netherlands means a shrinking population unless immigration is allowed. The mortality rates will also increase as an increasingly larger portion of the Dutch population is elderly.

Moreover, while the Netherlands may be a small country it is not nearly “full.” In fact, many rural areas are shrinking dramatically. In the next 30 years, one-third of all Dutch counties are expected to shrink in size.

The projections show that the areas of Limburg and North-East Groningen will be the hardest hit by this shrinkage (see map, the lighter the color, the faster the decline in population). How ironic it is that Limburg, the province most afraid of immigrants and most full of Wilders voters is the province that will depend on immigrants most to keep the standard of living up to what inhabitants have gotten used to. It seems that a few extra Libyan refugees would not “crowd” the Netherlands too much. There is still plenty of room left. And worse come to worse, if people started getting too claustrophobic, there are always the large tracts of subsidized farmland to get rid of.

2. It is the Christian, not to mention decent, thing to do

Of course we all know the story of the Good Samaritan. What a nice guy, huh? Stopped in his busy day to help someone. What we rarely realize though is that this story is about more than being 'nice'. This story is about helping a half-dead, thus likely very impure, person in Biblical terms. The priest and Levite who had earlier passed by likely did not stop because to do so and come near this wounded person so close to death meant risking impurity. The priest and Levite decided showing compassion was not worth the damage it would do to them. The Samaritan (a very "impure" person himself) was not hung up by such concerns and was able to show compassion. This, Jesus says, is how a true follower should act. Who is your neighbor? The impure, half-dead guy who you have to go out of your way to help, risking great damage to your own livelihood. Who is your neighbor? Could it be the persecuted Libyans who flee to our country?

The Bible is full of indications that refugees and foreigners in general must be treated with compassion and seen as brothers [Robert has discussed this in more depth here]. Two Old Testament verses sum it up very well: "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:33-34) and "You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt (Exodus 22:1).

What is very interesting here is the appeal these verses are making to the ability of the Israelis to think about what it was like when they were the exiles and how they would have wanted to be treated. This is key to compassion: the realization that the person in need could be you. And, for the Dutch, it was only 60 years ago that it was them. After World War II the Netherlands was devastated. More than 100,000 Dutch immigrants arrived in Australia after the war. Many more left for Canada, the United States, New Zealand and South Africa.

It was also only 60 years ago that some brave Dutch families hid Jewish refugees from the Nazis. Families that had barely enough room and food for themselves took in the persecuted Jews - because it was the right thing to do. I wonder where this moral conviction has gone.

[The only piece of sky Anne Frank saw from the attic in which she hid during the German occupation of the Netherlands-->]

It seems like Wilders' ideas on what to do about these Libyan refugees does not fit in to the "Judeo-Christrian" tradition he is so fond of. We have seen that both Old and New Testament encourage - no mandate - the taking in and treating as natives refugees and immigrants. We have seen that the Dutch fled the Netherlands in the wake of World War Two, seeking and luckily finding countries to take them in. We have seen that the Netherlands has a history of treating refugees with compassion -- a history Geert Wilders is dramatically departing from. If we applied Wilders' philosophy to 1940s Netherlands it would mean that the Dutch families should not have hidden the Jews but left them to die at the hands of the Nazis.

And we have seen that Wilders' claims that Europe cannot deal with the influx of refugees is plain incorrect.

In conclusion, the Dutch and Europeans in general should not be worried about the damage the Libyan refugees will do to their countries but should rather be asking how would we want to be treated?