Lord Aton of Liv­er­pool, who has been spear­head­ing cross-bench de­bates on the chal­lenge of refugees leav­ing Africa and Asia in the British House of Lords, opened an­other di­a­logue on 6 Jan­u­ary 2022 on the is­sue of Mass Dis­place­ment of Refugees. The grav­ity of the prob­lem can be gauged from the fact that the United Na­tions High Com­mis­sioner for Refugees’ es­ti­mate is that 82.4 mil­lion peo­ple are dis­placed world­wide, 42 per cent of whom are chil­dren, and 32 per cent of whom are refugees, and there is an ur­gent in­ter­na­tional re­sponse to ad­dress the root causes of mass dis­place­ment. Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don -In­dar­jit Singh joined the de­bate made a poignant com­men­tary from the Sikh point of view and pre­sented a hu­man­i­tar­ian an­gle so badly missed by de­vel­op­ing and de­vel­oped coun­tries of the world. WSN proudly pre­sents the text and video of the speech, which has in its wake an agenda for Sikh so­cial, hu­man­i­tar­ian and po­lit­i­cal groups to fol­low.

MY LORDS, I TOO, CON­GRAT­U­LATE THE NO­BLE LORD, LORD AL­TON,  on se­cur­ing this im­por­tant de­bate on the root causes—I em­pha­sise “root causes”—of con­flicts that lead to the dis­place­ment of mil­lions of peo­ple around the world.

The dev­as­ta­tion of the Sec­ond World War and the Holo­caust against the Jews and oth­ers led to the es­tab­lish­ment of the United Na­tions and the Se­cu­rity Coun­cil, with the vic­tor na­tions as per­ma­nent mem­bers. It was re­alised that con­flicts re­sult when one group or na­tion sees it­self as su­pe­rior or tries to im­pose its will on oth­ers. This led to the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights, which recog­nises that we are all free and, im­por­tantly, equal. Sikh teach­ings re­mind us that this equal­ity must also ex­tend to women.

Sadly, these lofty ideals for uni­ver­sal peace were in­stantly ig­nored by mem­bers of the Se­cu­rity Coun­cil. If they were em­ploy­ees in a busi­ness, they would have been sacked long ago, not only for ne­glect­ing their re­spon­si­bil­ity but for us­ing their priv­i­lege and po­si­tion to fur­ther their own in­ter­ests.

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— Net­work of Sikh Orgs (@SikhMes­sen­ger) Jan­u­ary 6, 2022

The sober­ing re­al­ity is that mem­bers of the so-called Se­cu­rity Coun­cil now pro­vide more than 80% of the arms and so­phis­ti­cated weaponry that fuel hor­ren­dous con­flict through­out the world, the con­flict that leaves some 80 mil­lion peo­ple des­ti­tute and home­less. Worse, peo­ple in more af­flu­ent coun­tries see des­per­ate asy­lum seek­ers as a prob­lem rather than as de­serv­ing mem­bers of one hu­man fam­ily.

We should re­mem­ber that in sup­pos­edly less civilised times, Je­sus and his par­ents were them­selves wel­com­ing asy­lum seek­ers in the land of Egypt. 

We should re­mem­ber that in sup­pos­edly less civilised times, Je­sus and his par­ents were them­selves wel­com­ing asy­lum seek­ers in the land of Egypt. Wars and suf­fer­ing of in­no­cents will con­tinue un­til we see what Je­sus Christ, Guru Nanak and oth­ers saw: that we are all equal mem­bers of one in­ter­de­pen­dent hu­man fam­ily.

The World Sikh News in­vites read­ers to read the con­tri­bu­tions of all par­tic­i­pants in this ex­tremely im­por­tant de­bate.  Click this: REFUGEES: MASS DIS­PLACE­MENT, DE­BATED ON THURS­DAY 6 JAN­U­ARY 2022

Trag­i­cally, what passes for re­li­gion to­day, with claims of su­pe­ri­or­ity and ex­clu­sive links to God, a God who al­lows the killing of in­no­cents in his name, has led to re­li­gion it­self be­com­ing a ma­jor cause of con­flict. The words of a Chris­t­ian hymn re­mind us:

“New oc­ca­sions teach new du­ties; Time makes an­cient good un­couth.”

Wars and suf­fer­ing of in­no­cents will con­tinue un­til we see what Je­sus Christ, Guru Nanak and oth­ers saw: that we are all equal mem­bers of one in­ter­de­pen­dent hu­man fam­ily.

We can­not use the mind­set of the 20th cen­tury to tackle the prob­lems of to­day. To­day, dif­fi­cult, frank and open de­bate is ur­gently needed to make re­li­gion what it was in­tended to be: a cure rather than a cause of con­flict. We need to re­move dated cul­tural norms and prac­tices, which of­ten over­ride un­der­ly­ing eth­i­cal teach­ings. We need to recog­nise that no one re­li­gion has a mo­nop­oly of truth and that those not of our faith or of a dif­fer­ent com­plex­ion are not lesser be­ings.

We need to recog­nise that no one re­li­gion has a mo­nop­oly of truth and that those not of our faith or of a dif­fer­ent com­plex­ion are not lesser be­ings.

Speak­ing from a Sikh per­spec­tive, I be­lieve that the un­der­ly­ing eth­i­cal teach­ings of the re­li­gion of con­cern and com­pas­sion, and a re­al­i­sa­tion that our des­tinies are in­ex­tri­ca­bly en­twined, are the key to re­duc­ing mind­less vi­o­lence and the suf­fer­ing of in­no­cents that we see in the world to­day.