By Professor Stephan de Beer
Cameroonian philosopher, Achilles Mbembe, describes global migration today not as a crisis to be managed through exclusion and criminalisation, but as the organic re-organisation of the world, challenging colonial borders and the nature of the nation-state. Yet, anti-migrant sentiments are rising world-over, and populist leaders gain favour based upon xenophobic rhetoric promising illusions of better futures for the local populace, would migration be curbed. This is the case, violently so, in Trump’s America, but also in Europe, and, ironically, in post-apartheid South Africa.
Recent events where babies and their mothers would be prevented from accessing public hospitals or health facilities in South Africa, are a case in point. Policies of the Gauteng Department of Social Development cutting funds for organisations serving migrants, is another case in point. The Mayor of Tshwane’s resolve to guarantee spaza shops for only Tshwane-citizens and no foreign nationals, even if documented and rightfully in the country, rubs this in further.
Tonight, across South Africa, migrants and South Africans, look for accommodation, to prevent themselves from being homeless. They often find themselves precarious, to start with, because of violence and absolute poverty in the places they come from. Like the baby Jesus who faced the threat of King Herod’s killing of Hebrew baby boys under the age of 2, so too are children from Gaza to Khartoum, and from Hanover Park to Mamelodi, at-risk of premature deaths.
In the case of baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph rushed him across the border to Egypt, a migrant refugee in north Africa, purportedly the son of God, but running for his life.
If Jesus had to be born today, where would it be? How safe would he be? Would he and his family be forced to pack up and run? Would he survive the missiles, ICE agents, and Dudula-operatives? Chances are, the son of God might either die a premature death, or be extradited with his family to a far-away place. Chances are, the religious and theologians would be silent in the face of this, even condoning it, or being complicit in their neutrality. Chances are too, that we won’t even know the fate of Jesus, as we are too far removed from where Herod’s men did their nightly deeds; too preoccupied with the status quo; too disinterested and dismissive to hear the cry of Mary.
In Matthew 2:13, after a visit from the angel, Joseph took the child and his mother at night, and fled to Egypt, where they remained until the death of Herod. But Herod, so angry with being tricked, sent his officers to kill off all the male children in Bethlehem who were two years and younger. This was what Jeremiah forewarned: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children; refusing to be comforted, as they were not more’. The Herods are out to do their thing. The religious are in cahoots. Joseph and Mary are on the run. The baby Jesus, in solidarity with children the world over, is at risk. The prophet calls us to hear.
As we become silent during Advent, awaiting the birth of Jesus among us, will we have ears to hear; hearts to feel; a conscience to be stirred; a consciousness to be evoked? Or, will the baby die, on our watch? If an angel appears as was the case with Joseph, may our intellectual reservations and religious sensibilities and spiritual platitudes be transformed – may we rise, to do what is right to do, in the moment. May the peace of Christmas disrupt our peace; may the joys and laments of the children, stir us to action.