People Fleeing from Danger Are Our Brothers and Sisters: Please, empathize and sympathize with their conditions

One of the most difficult life experiences any human being can ever face is fleeing one’s home, town, or country because of acute poverty, war, physical violence, violence against women, and children. Fleeing for life safety is one of the most traumatic experiences for any human being especially, children.

Util you find yourself fleeing from danger to save your life and your family’s, it is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of life difficulty and trauma people who do experience. Empathy, compassion, and extending helping hands would be the only positions from where one can views those fleeing from danger.

When I was a child growing up, I, as well as my siblings often, would come home from school and there would be a family of strangers in our house including, kids. We would ask my mom who the strangers were. My mom always responded, “these people are not strangers. They are your family.” They ate with us and interacted with us as if they were families. My mother would make sure we made those families feel welcomed, at home, and peaceful.

In many cases, my mother enrolled the kids in school with us. In some cases, she took some of their parents under her wings as apprentices in her business. In many other cases, mom arranged an apprenticeship for some of those parents with her business associates.

We did not comprehend the magnitude of the dividends of my mother’s love and kindness for strangers until civil war broke out in my country of origin. One beautiful afternoon suddenly, our city was under military assault. The schools immediately dismissed classes and sent all students home in a frantic crisis. The sky in my city was covered with war jet fighters. Bombs were raining down my city.

I grabbed my two younger brothers. We managed to make it home from school. My mother was already waiting for us. Each of us frantically grabbed a small suitcase my mother had already packed for us. We fled our home and began a dangerous journey of uncertain destination for our safety.

We walked hundreds of miles on legs seeking safety. We ducked and hide under any sheltering covers throughout the journey, avoiding detection of jet bombers in the sky. We ran out of drinking water and food. But water and food were not a priority for us. Making it safe to any town that was not under assault was our priority. The traveling condition was horrible and traumatic. I remember I had a heavy heart about my two younger brothers crying. They were experiencing body aches, hunger, and the difficulties of the traveling terrain. On top of all, were bombing assaults from the sky.  We endured all adversity to safety. How? I do not know, even today.

Think about this, in a twinkle of an eye, my family were refugees and homeless. We had nothing. Just the shirts on our backs. We became those families my mom brought home, sheltered, and fed. Suddenly, nothing mattered. We had no thoughts beyond the cry for safety and staying alive. We were far away from home. I was twelve years old. My two younger brothers were ten and eight. My big sister was fifteen.

I remember mom telling me and my siblings all would be fine the moment we arrived in a safe town. She was right. Mom knew she had sowed the seeds of kindness and love all her life. Mom felt confident the fruits of those seeds of kindness and love would nourish us in our new destination.

A few days later, we made it to a safe town. Everyone my family encountered as we came into safe towns was kind and loving to us, just as mom predicted. They all extended the same level of kindness and love my family extended to those families who came into our lives in their life challenging times. My mom always thought us that the kindness and love you extend to one are gifts you gave to others to hold for you. That was a powerful lesson of life I experienced all my life.

In today’s vicious world, acts of kindness and love are perceived as weaknesses. Feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, and loving a stranger are condemned acts. Acts of kindness are denigrated by those who spread hate, incite harm on others, and want us to hate each other. We must fight the impulses of hatred with the mighty power of love, human decency, and kindness to others.

We cannot allow those who incite hate for others to use immigration politics to continue poisoning our souls for those fleeing from wars, poverty, all kinds of physical violence on children, women, and families. Please, understand that all of these issues at the crisis level are existential assaults on humanity. These are not just the crises for the countries people are fleeing from, these are crises for all humanity.  We cannot turn our backs on our fellow human beings asking for safety in our country and, a chance for a better life.

Please, think about this, the earth we live in does not belong to one group of people. It belongs to all humanity regardless of where you live. When we all leave this earth, the earth will remain here. None of us can take it with us or anything we accumulate while renting it. We simply rent it for the time we are here.

Until you face the crises these people experience, or the violence chasing them, it is difficult to put yourself in their shoes. I have been hungry, homeless, and fleeing for my life from war violence. It is one of the most traumatic life experiences anyone can face. I pray, those of you who have never experience such trauma never find yourselves in such a horrifying traumatic situation.

But the truth is, the love and kindness you extend to one today is a gift of love and kindness you gave to others to hold for you in one form or another. Please resist the politics of hate for those fleeing for their lives from violence. Join all loving hearts in prayers for peace and love in the world. Humanity faces a very challenging time.  

Hold your government accountable for helping your neighboring citizens fleeing from violence and other existential crises. Think about this, the same political party and politicians who perpetrated, as well as, condoned all sorts of atrocities in the past four years while pretending nothing was happening. These politicians and their party suddenly found criticizing voices on Presidential leadership. Are you kidding me?

Think about this, this is the same political party and politicians who enabled a failed President in spreading the big lie. The big lie, telling the American people the election was stolen from them. That big lie, which incited and brought violent terrorist insurrectionists to the American Capitol to overthrow the government of the United States.

These same politicians suddenly woke up. They woke up not with moral voices to offer solutions and solve any problems. No. They woke up with the same intellectual emptiness, vile, and void of problem-solving solutions. These people take all of us for fools. They think we are all morally bankrupt as they are.

Do not buy into their politics of fear of others and hatred for others.  Every moral government must have a humane policy for helping those who arrive at its shore because they are fleeing from danger. Hold your government accountable for morality and ethics in governance. Citizens must stand behind such a moral government. Helping those Politicians must not use those fleeing from danger as a platform for winning an election. That is morally unacceptable. We, the people must reject those harlots of power and money with every constitutional right available to us in the ballot box. Helping those fleeing from danger is a moral obligation all of us owe to one other. Think about this, it could be you tomorrow seeking other’s humanity.

Citizens must reject and vote out heartless politicians who incite fear tactics against a moral government helping human beings in crises. We must vote out of office those politicians using human crises as a political platform for maintaining power in the office, without offering any humane solution.