SIHMA | Scalabrini Institute For Human Mobility In Africa
17
DEC
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SIHMA Christmas Message for 2024

Dear readers,

We wish all who celebrate Christmas, whose faith opens them to embracing vulnerability - through this vulnerable Baby - we wish you blessings for this season. For those whose faith has different contours and those of no faith at all - we wish you a time of profound reflection, new hope and deep courage as you ponder with Christians the unsettling message of Christmas.

Each year, the Christmas story finds deeper relevance in our polarised, fragile and increasingly unjust world. The abuse of power, the echoes of genocide and the forced displacement of millions continues to both demonise ‘the other’ and normalise a spirit of exclusion. Christmas speaks directly into the world's harsh realities as a counter narrative. For Luke, the Christmas story is preceded by the 144km forced journey of pregnant Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem to comply with the census. The census was a political tool for ensuring a steady flow of tax to finance Rome’s imperial expansion and the luxurious lifestyle of its elite. Bible scholars note that it was mostly the poor who bore the brunt of these displacements and through their tax, supported the structures of power which largely excluded them. Mary and Joseph were among that demographic.

Many of those on the move today are displaced for similar reasons and themselves often find that for a very long time there is no room at the inn for them too. That very haunting phrase ‘no room at the inn’ speaks directly to the very prevalent politics of exclusion. This with each passing year translates into heightened anti-immigrant sentiments echoed in political rhetoric and policies and xenophobic behaviour. It is worth noting in the past year how many national elections - the US, the UK, Ireland, Hungary, South Africa and others - were dominated by anti-foreigner discourse. Even more worrying is how such sentiments translated into electoral gain. All of these shifts seem to be carried by popular sentiment, by thoughtless slogans and unverified opinions.

As always SIHMA plays a huge part in countering such careless narratives, such baseless populism by engaging in profound analysis, intellectual rigour and careful research so as to create a more defensible set of arguments, to endorse a human rights approach to the realities of displaced persons - and in the Christmas spirit - protection for the vulnerable. We recall Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words: ‘Do not raise your voice, enhance your arguments.’

The opposite image in the Nativity story to the roomless inn, is the welcoming manger. The place of encounter where no one is turned away, neither scruffy shepherds nor foreigners, nor angels. All find a place and in encountering what is different, open a new chapter of living together in a reimagined world for the good of all and following the precepts of justice. We are grateful at this Christmas time that SIHMA helps us and others navigate what that reimagined world, those kindred relationships can look like and what we need to do to achieve it. That is for us an enduring Christmas gift.

Every blessing as we allow this Christmas topen our hearts to new ways of living together in the spirit of the angel s song: ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all.’

 

African nativity. Image by Freepik

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