Friday, May 13, 2016

DICKINS’ SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT AND RUTLAND (VT) REFUGEES

Excerpt from “The Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and April 2016 news reports.

NOTE: Of the four million refugees fleeing Syria, only 2,192 came to the U.S. in 2015. A firestorm of vocal anti-refugee criticism was fueled by fear following the bombings in Europe. In April 2016, Rutland, VT Mayor Louras announced his plan that by Christmas 2016, he hopes that 25 to 30 Syrian refugee families will be re-settled in Rutland. Some citizens have applauded Mayor Louras compassion. Lawmakers and others have strongly criticized the announcement because no resources or plan was to be seen. Perhaps Charles Dickins’ “Ghost of Christmas Present” has some advice for us.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present: said the Spirit. “Look upon me.”
“Scrooge did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles..”
            Christmas in Vermont will no doubt be frozen. Refugee families will come wearing and carrying whatever they have from camps in which they have been sleeping in tents. Speaking no English, they will be dropped here in the care of big hearted, generous Rutland who is expected to provide housing, food, fuel, furniture, bedding, clothing, transportation, ESL, friendship and jobs.
“...it was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared  to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. ...”
“Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.
“My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends tonight.”
            Time is of the essence for the refugees. A young mother, scared, malnourished, faces the immense prospect of learning a new language, finding a job, paying rent and keeping the family warm. They must “make it” or, and what happens if, they “break it”?
            The only support the refugees have, really, are what the few who care in the local community will make available. Whether this resettlement works or not is now up to Rutland. In the same way that Rutland has, more or less, taken up Project Vision and tackled joblessness, housing, poverty and addiction; Rutland now has new citizens.
 “Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from under your skirts. Is it a foot or claw?”
“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it.” Was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”
“From the foldings of its robe, it brought forth two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
“Oh, Man, look here. Look, look down here,” exclaimed the Ghost.
Other than Native Americans who were here first, the ancestors of all Americans were once newcomers to this land. Have we become less eager to put out the welcome mat for refugees or immigrants? Is the idea of a “welcoming community” to be scuttled by acrimony? What will it cost Rutland if it is?
“They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have fulfilled their features out, and touched them with it s freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled the into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.”
            The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) has addressed the needs of those who have fled around the world for more than100 years and is organizing in Rutland. Stacie Blake of USCRI wrote: “The young children who have never lived anywhere but a tent in a dusty, impoverished refugee camp retain their optimism, and readiness to learn and soon laugh in school with friends and a world of opportunities.”
“Scrooge startled back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.”
“Spirit, are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it,” cried the Spirit, stretching out his hand towards the city.”
What option does anyone really have who has lost everything to intolerance, war, or famine besides to flee and throw themselves at the mercy of a community? Hopefully one with a big enough, generous Spirit. Otherwise, it’s Scrooge’s option which remains when time runs out in this next, frigid, bleak Vermont winter.
“Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end.”
“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.
“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ...
The bell struck twelve.”

© Copyright 2016, Jean W. Yeager
All Rights Reserved
Revised by the author from "WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM? - THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESENT VISITS EBENEZER SCROOGE” a chapter in “Th3Simple
Questions: Slice Open Everyday Life”, Westbow Press, 2014  ISBN 978-1-4908-7124-0

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