BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
WHILE Ukrainians are welcomed to Britain, dark-skinned asylum seekers are deported, like 160,000 Irish.
Colonial crimes and atrocities are always with us. Colonial rulers have stamped their cruel laws and vices on the occupied and exploited nations. The victims have suffered a loss of identity, and cultural and moral values and have been corrupted by the vices of the former colonial rulers and occupiers.
In the Philippines, a massive sex industry was created by the American colonial occupation around military bases with corrupt Filipino collaborators that exploited their own people.
King Philippe of Belgium, on a recent tour of atonement to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the Belgium Congo), expressed regrets for the brutal colonial history where millions of Congolese died in slavery in their own land. Continual violence and exploitation of the people by armed groups fighting over mineral wealth is the colonial legacy there.
The King made a special visit to a humble gynecologist, Nobel Laureate Doctor Denis Mukwege, awarded the famous prize for his campaign to stop sexual violence and rape as a weapon of war. The DRC and Doctor Mukwege accused Rwanda of backing the rebel group M23.
Rwanda has denied the allegations. Rwanda’s human rights record is questionable. King Philippe expressed regret for the colonial “paternalism, discrimination and racism. “It led to abuse and humiliation,” Philippe said. He fell short of offering a full apology, however.
Over a million people have fled violence and war and live as refugees in camps in Turkey and Jordan. They fled Syria with their wives and children to escape the indiscriminate bombing and chemical attacks by the tyrant Assad backed by Russia. Others flee assassins, execution squads, extortioners, and criminal gangs.
Western nations have to take responsibility for their involvement in causing or aiding some of these conflicts like arming Saudi Arabia and others to attack Yemen and the invasion of Iraq by Western nations including Britain.
Britain is the destination of many refugees fleeing the war and escaping threats of death from tyrants that Britain supported. The government of Boris Johnson wants to stop them and more coming as do Belgium, France, Italy, and The Netherlands. These nations have influential right-wing, racist groups opposed to dark-skinned, Muslim asylum-seekers and refugees.
Britain led by bumbling Boris Johnson, having stupidly left the European Union to get rid of European citizens and asylum seekers is floundering in economic meltdown. Johnson is trying to unilaterally change the EU-Brexit agreement over Northern Ireland which will violate international law and surely lead to the cancellation of the vital trade agreement with the EU. If possible, he would rid Britain of Filipino health care workers but Johnson dares not. Britain has too few of its own. In a few years, the Scots could be barred from Britain if Scotland succeeds in winning its independence from Britain, ending a thousand years of colonial rule and an independent Scotland joining the European Union, as eventually will Northern Ireland join the Republic of Ireland since it is under the EU single market already. They will realize that must leave the sinking ship of broken and racist British governments.
However, Britain has opened its welcoming arms to more than 60,000 Ukrainian refugees in the past few months. They are fleeing the Russian bombing and have been given immediate privileged refugee status and welcomed into British family homes. They are white, Christian, and Western-educated, “just like us,” say the welcoming British politicians and officials. (To be continued)/PN
