The voiceless are forced to be still voiceless and the have-nots are squeezed into naught.
JOSEPH JOYSON OFM CAP
Season 1 Episode 8 of Dallas Jenkins’ The Chosen—I am He depicts the pharisaic rebuke on Jesus being with the cast-out. ‘It is the sick who needs a doctor’, was the response of Jesus embracing the marginalised.
A world of divisions takes resort to exclusiv- ism. Even as the 20th century witnessed to the fall of apartheid, the world is still not deprived of its avatar-variants like ongoing racism, neo-Nazi movements, religious fanaticism, and terrorism, atrocities against women and children and so forth. Religions seem to be the latest in the line to curry favour with exclusivism even as in the heart of heart almost all world religions hold values of inclusivity.
Living in a country that boasts about hosting a myriad populace from 184 odd countries, is
a unique experience of inclusivity. An afflu
ent country Belgium marked its outstanding and exemplary notch during the recent war between Ukraine and Russia with enormous influx of Ukrainians fleeing home for life. The Franciscan Capuchin international fraternity in Meersel-Dreef of which I am a member, sheltered three Ukrainian families including babies during this war. The Belgian government strided to the rehabilitation and peaceful settling of the refugees taking time while her citizens generously poured assistance to the refugees with their resources notwithstanding cultural and linguistic disparities. Villages in the neighbourhood opened up their reserves so as to help the Ukrainian war victims. As a result, our storerooms were filled up with food and other amenities for the refugees. On our part, all of us took turns to cook food and care for them while the villagers kept on visiting them and assisting them to feel at home—a positive surge of fraternal values gripped our being with them.
People in Europe generally, may not be so adherent to religious life and practices. At any rate, many of them seem to be upholding values of inclusivity. Hand in hand, they come across challenges which prompt them to respond. It was painful for many a Belgian national when they heard about their national team defeated by the Moroccans at the World Cup Football Tournament in Qatar. Interestingly, on 27 November several youngsters from an immigrant Moroccan community in Brussels, capital city of Belgium, unleashed rampage, vandalised public places and property in a frenzy of euphoria over a winning Morocco. This odd experience sparked widespread criticism on imbalanced social responses targeting an inclusive host land. Ironically, this incident has been missed and misinterpreted by the social media as the reaction of a desperate group of Belgian fans against the Moroccan immigrants. At any rate, it is evident that social media as an easily accessible and trending communication platform, is tending
to augment carnage of inclusivity. Now-a-days, the lingos adherent to the right wing religious groups who use social media extensively, are glaring examples of domineering over an overly humiliated inclusivity. One can easily admit that the amount of damage brought about by the social media is enormous. Right wing activism is gaining momentum at the expense of inclusivity. Division and hate are the latest equations set forth by the religious fanatics against inclusivity. Verbal abuses surpassing the limits of reciprocity have become order of the day. A peaceful and creative attempt towards building up inclusivity is often jeered upon and strangled by means of murderous satire iced with hate, pet named ‘troll’. Sadly, a number of people throw them- selves into such weird practices and kill their ingenuity in an odd peerfeeling which in effect, sound to be a collective exclusivism.
The ongoing fishermen’s strike at Vizhinjam in Kerala, entered its 100th day on 26 October 2022. A revitalised strike drew the attention
of many while the state government, leading political parties and the right wing activists turned a deaf ear to the humanitarian plea of the suffering fisher folk. The fishers’ families ousted from the Transshipment Terminal Project area in Vizhinjam, lost their homes and their livelihood. Despite warnings based on scientific studies, self-willed administrative bodies with vested interests pushed their way ahead without even keeping their word to rehabilitate the ousted fishers’ families duly and marring the equilibrium of nature. Shore erosion has been accelerated since the beginning of the developmental works at the project area, threatening the lives
of thousands along the coast. The fisher folks are pleading mercy while the government and allied agencies are adding further to their woes. Several fishers were brutally beaten up. Lately, many fishermen together with their Church leaders ended up facing false allegations and court cases. It is again a clear example of the age-old strife between the haves and the have-nots. Humanitarian concerns are often ignored. Those who are responsible hesitate to address problems which demand immediate attention and solution. Total negligence or recourse to violent suppression has become the manner of dealing on the part of the administration. The voiceless are forced to be still voiceless and the have-nots are squeezed into naught. The stampede is on and the value of inclusivity succumbs to grave injury. Is inclusivity a wild cry?
Pope Francis said that invoking inclusion does not guarantee a real correction of the tendency to marginalise society’s frailest members. ‘Certainly, the rhetoric of inclusion is the ritual formula of every politically correct discourse. But it still does not bring about a real correction of the practices of normal co-existence: a culture
of social tenderness struggles to grow,’ he added. (Pope Francis’ general audience at Vatican, 30 March 2022) The whole world witnessed to the Pontiff’s words and actions favouring inclusivity. This was very vivid when he welcomed in 2015, two migrant families from the war-torn near-eastern country, to live in the premises of Vatican. Inclusivity challenges us at our face. It
is a glaring gaze which demand a portion of our life and its cosy environs. The face of the other ‘order and ordains’ us, as the renowned French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas puts it around human sociality. Reciprocity is the positive out- put of inclusivity. It is a face-to-face encounter which reiterates that human beings are mutually responsible and that one cannot ignore the other. It invites us to a deliberate and positive action other than utterances. It is again a call to coexist. It reminds us that you and I are created in the likeness and image of God (Gen 1: 26–27).
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