Actuate Love For Justice To Africans

WHEREAS the world is into globalisation, which has evolved so much to the advantage of powerful
states, in its wake, it has left many injustices on Africans, particularly those trying to scale it for better life in countries with enhanced welfare. African migrants still face discrimination and persecution, for example, in countries not their own, even when inter-dependence is the catchword for today’s international relations.

During the African Synod of Bishops last year, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini held a meeting with the synodal fathers, who brought out some of these issues. They discussed the untold suffering from anti- Christian persecutions of Black Africans, particularly in Islamic countries. At the same time, there were rackets involved in the trafficking of human beings, drugs and weapons, which have become a regional concern.

Injustices from these human rights abuses were a result of the lack of actuation of policies that place the person (or should we say the African) at the centre of globalization. At the meeting, President Delegate of the Synod, Francis Cardinal Arize said more attention should be paid to Africans, “who for the majority are students,” so that when in foreign countries, they are treated fairly.

“Also the question of immigration; every country has the right to have their own laws, but there is so much suffering; he who does not die in the desert, dies in the Mediterranean. Then, development must be promoted, so that the temptation to migrate will diminish. The right to look for a more dignified life cannot be taken away,” Arinze said.

In response, Frattini revealed that Europe was anticipating some proposals on migration and formation. He restated his government’s commitment against religious persecution and affirmed that it was about time Europe took a firm and clear stand on the matter.

He stated; “I believe that the European Union must assert with force, its political will to act on all governments where these horrible episodes occur, to call their attention to them. Secondly, it should monitor the situation of religious freedom of Christians in many parts of the world.”

Frattini forecasted a project for a European agency to handle requests for asylum or refugee status in Europe. “It is a project, which provides for an agency with common procedures of asylum requests for non-Europeans, who arrive in any European country: that is, there will no longer be different criteria, which today exist, where each country has its own rules in judging and recognizing or not. Those who are accepted will have the right to travel throughout all of Europe.”

But, the new injustices highlighted in one of our main stories in this issue, shows that Europe has changed tactics in light of this. They are now having African governments blocking their own citizens’ exit to Europe. On top of that, many brutalize those who attempt to migrate.

In some countries, it is a ‘favour’ if government granted a citizen their passport. Whereas, a person facing state persecution and having no passport can approach the International Red Cross Committee for a special travel document, and indeed safe relocation, very few people have knowledge of such possibility.

On the occasion of Lent, this year, the Church is specially inviting us to review our lives in light of the teachings of the gospel – towards one another. Pope Benedict XVI in his Lent message, ‘The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ,’ is offering us reflections on the great theme of justice – love.

He says, ‘justice’, which in common usage implies “to render to every man his due,” according to the famous expression of the third century Roman jurist Ulpian, hardly specifies what ‘due’ is to be rendered to each person.

“What man needs most, cannot be guaranteed to him by law. In order to live life to the full, something more intimate is necessary that can be granted only as a gift: we could say that man lives by that love.” Benedict also points out to the Church “distributive justice,” which does not render to the human being, the totality of one’s ‘due’.

“That just as man needs bread, so does man have even more need of God!” the Pope adds. But, many modern ideologies have a presupposition that since injustice comes ‘from the outside’, in order for justice to reign, it is sufficient to remove the exterior causes that prevent it from being achieved. “This way of thinking – Jesus warns – is ingenuous and shortsighted.”

The Pope means that injustice [the fruit of evil, like of persecution of African migrants] does not have exclusively external roots. In effect, its origin lies in the human heart, where seeds are found of a mysterious cooperation with evil!

There is, therefore, need to exit that perception of self-sufficiency, so that we can see all people as important, be they those that do not belong to our race. That way, we will within each one of us, discover and accept the needs of others and of God. This requires total humility, which can help us accept that we need others to free us from the bondage of “what is mine!”

How can we achieve that? To Pope Benedict, through the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist – in a special way – this Lenten season. “Thanks to Christ’s action, we may enter into the ‘greatest’ justice, which is that of love.”