How could countries that see themselves as Christian close their doors to needy foreigners?

‘THIS is one of the biggest challenges in the history of the European Union.’

So said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s minister of foreign affairs of Europe’s refugee crisis. 

He was speaking at a meeting with colleagues from countries of the Visegrad Group, which includes the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, on 11 September this year.

‘We do not want to say Yes to refugee quotas [decided by the European Commission, which assigns fixed numbers of refugees to each EU country] and thus lie to our EU friends,’ said Miroslav Lajčák, Slovakia’s foreign minister, at the same meeting.

‘Because as we all know, almost all of those refugees would leave the Visegrad Group countries as soon as possible and go to Germany, Austria or Scandinavia.’

Meanwhile, the motorway between Budapest and Vienna was temporarily closed, with hundreds of refugees walking towards Austria’s borders, and the Keleti train station in Budapest only partially open.

Local trains are arriving and leaving on schedule, and trains to Vienna leave irregularly.

About two hundred miles south of Budapest in the temporary refugee camp near a village of Röszke the situation is very tense. Several thousand men, women and children are trying to find shelter from the rain in large tents.

The camp is surrounded by muddy fields, and night-time temperatures will soon fall to freezing point.

There is not enough water and food and only a few doctors and paramedics. If not for volunteers and several non-profit organizations, there would be no medical care at all.

Refugees entered Hungary in spite of the high barbed-wire fences built on Hungarian-Serbian borders a few weeks ago.

The pressure of the crowds trying to get in was so great that the Hungarians were forced to open the fence and let the refugees in. The police tried to keep them in the camp, but it was impossible. Refugees regularly break out of the camp in large numbers and walk towards Budapest.

A fleet of cars waits for them at the nearest gas station. And for around two hundred dollars per person they drive them to the Hungarian capital, or even – for much more money – on to Austria.

Chaos

People have migrated from country to country since the beginning of history, and will do so till the end. The two main reasons for migration are always the same: war and poverty.

In modern history, international migrants or refugees usually leave their home country and then either form long queues at the crossing points to their desired countries, or try to get in illegally.

In the case of this massive wave of refugees to Europe, it is more complicated. People from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Eritrea and Sudan are sailing in overcrowded boats to Italy or Greece. Their aim is to reach Europe, specifically the European Union. For those travelling to Italy, their target is the Schengen zone, which is the core of the EU, where internal borders have only symbolic meaning.

According to international treaties, those who apply for asylum should either be granted this status (after due process, which can take days or sometimes weeks) or returned to the country from which they came. In the case of those who are saved at sea and brought to safe havens at Lampedusa or Sicily, that would mean returning to Libya, which – depending where you look – is either governed by ISIL or not governed at all.

In the case of those who reach one of the Greek islands, it means returning to Turkey, which is a European and American ally and NATO member.

But the ‘returning’ never takes place. This is because, due to the massive numbers of refugees, asylum procedures are limited to a perfunctory ‘registration’.

The problems arise immediately upon arrival. While in Italy they are treated with dignity, in some of the Greek islands (Kos is the most visible example) there are not the administrative and technical resources to deal with thousands of migrants. They – often families with small children – are treated like prisoners with limited access to water, food and hygienic facilities. Refugees are forced to wait for administrative procedures in the blazing sun.

‘Yesterday our doctors and paramedics treated 28 people for panic attacks after police used tear gas and smoke grenades. Another thirty people were treated for injuries and collapses caused by dehydration,’ Lucia Brinzanik of NGO Medicins sans Frontiers told Tyzden weekly on 12 August.

As soon as refugees are registered, another problem emerges: the refugees do not want to stay in Greece. Many of them do not even want to be in Italy. They hope to reach Germany, Sweden or Austria. What does it mean that they are not satisfied with sunny Greece and Italy? Are they trying to escape war, or are they in fact pursuing a better life in the country of their choice?

Be that as it may, when they are first registered at Kos, Lesbos, Lampedusa or Sicily, it raises the question of which country will accept them. Greeks, Italians and Hungarians say that the EU has accepted them, and it is the EU’s responsibility to protect its borders.

But then the refugees pass through countries like Macedonia and Serbia, which are not members of the European Union. What is the legal framework under which the refugees pass here, often without passports? Many of them refuse even to register in these countries.

And when they reach the Schengen Area on the Hungarian border, should they be allowed simply to enter Hungary, and thus the borderless Schengen Area and so be helped to reach Austria?

The answer is probably, No.

But what if the refugees simply break through the barbed wire fence and ignore police? Should police use their authority and power? Officially police should respond, but in reality they do not want to beat mothers with children or desperate, tired men. So sometimes they use some force, and at other times, they step back and let the refugees pass.

Now the Chairman of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel are saying that the EU should be open to these people and help them settle in Europe. They suggest a system of quotas. Each EU country will be given a number of refugees by the Brussels administration.

Slovakia, for example, should receive about three thousand refugees, while Hungary and the Czech Republic should receive about twice as many.

The refugees supposedly registered in Slovakia, for example, would have to stay in Slovakia. But how might this be enforced? Slovakia’s only ‘real’ border is with Ukraine. Its other neighbouring countries belong to the Schengen Area, and anyone – including the refugees – can cross the internal borders without passports.

Slovakia has in the past offered asylum to several thousand applicants seeking protection. Almost ninety per cent of those asylum seekers left Slovakia before the procedure was abandoned. They left illegally since they did not have valid documents and visas, and they left easily because no one checked them.

It is likely that Europe's institutions will come up with a solution to these administrative and legal problems. The external borders of the European Union will be closed and guarded. ‘Hot spots’, i.e. refugee camps, will be set up in Serbia, and not all asylum seekers will be accepted. But right now the situation is chaotic, which fuels bigger and bigger waves of refugees and migrants.

Fear

Differences in attitude and practice between Western and Eastern EU members abound.  With the exception of Hungary, there are practically no refugees in Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia). And even Hungary is only a transit country now.

In spite of this, there is a deep fear of refugees among the Eastern population. This fear is cleverly used and encouraged by the populist governments of these countries. Mr Orbán and Mr Fico, Prime Ministers of Hungary and Slovakia, are saying that refugees from Syria or Afghanistan should be seen as a serious danger to their ‘Christian’ culture. Both of them say that if the worst comes to the worst, they might accept a few hundred refugees, but only Christians.

But even that is easier said than done. For example, the Roman Catholic order of St Vincent de Paul, which has been working with homeless people in Slovakia for many years, offered their old, unused, but fully functioning monastery building the Slovak village of Ladce.

Their plan was temporarily to house about twenty Christian families from Syria there. As soon as people in the village learned about this plan, they signed a petition against it. The plan was dropped. This village is officially almost a hundred-per-cent Roman Catholic. When an older lady from the village was asked by a TV reporter why she was against this plan since those people were Christians, she said, ‘They are different from us’ and added that she was afraid of them.

Former communist EU countries have a deeply ingrained fear of foreigners, migrants, and refugees.  Although full members of the EU and NATO, Hungarian, Czech or Slovak politicians always refer to the EU or NATO as ‘them.’‘They’ fought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ‘They’ mishandled the situation in Libya. ‘They’ have to do something with the refugees. ‘We’ will share the glory of eventual victories, but never any responsibility for failures.

Barbed

Hungarian officials do all in their power to make the refugees’ journey through their country as miserable as possible. First they erected barbed wire fences to keep them out. When that did not work, they treated them as prisoners at best, and at worst as animals. They failed to provide water and food, toilets, medical care, or even blankets.

Only when compassionate Hungarian volunteers and the international press shamed them did their behavior change. Slovak Prime Minister Mr Fico repeatedly claimed that nearly all the refugees were ‘economic migrants', with many potential Islamic terrorists among them.

Czech president Mr Zeman suggested that Europe should ‘simply close its borders.’ All of them say in a rare moment of unison that, since their countries did not cause the problems in Syria and Afghanistan, they have no responsibility for accepting any refugees.

Hope

If the lives of the refugees on the move from the Mediterranean Sea to Germany are not comfortable, then at least they are bearable because of the help of volunteers at every stage of their journey.

Medicins sans Frontiers and other international agencies – including People In Peril, a Czecho-Slovak NGO set up during the Balkan wars by Czech and Slovak journalists, assist the refugees from the moment they land in Greece till they reach the Austrian border.

But the heroes of compassion are the thousands of people who come to refugees sleeping in fields in southern Hungary or at the train station in Budapest, bringing food, clothes and other necessities. One group of young Budapestians brought a computer and projector to show fairy tales for children. Others organized football tournaments for boys.

Before refugees cross into the European Union, they are bound to meet reformed pastor Tibor Varga, his family and friends. They cook warm soup for refugees every day, get bread, water or warmer clothes for them. When asked by a reporter of Týždeň where he gets the money, he replies that ‘when you help the needy, God will pay you back with his goodness.’ Varga adds that he never begs. People know him and his work and help him as much as they can.

When thousands of refugees left Budapest Keleti train station and started to walk down the motorway to Vienna (two hundred miles), hundreds of Austrians drove towards Budapest on their cars, picked up refugees and drove them to the Austrian border, and from there buses took them to Vienna. Hungarian police first threatened the Austrians but then changed their attitude and provided buses, which drove refugees from Budapest to Vienna.

Bearded hipsters from bigger cities joined churches, media, artists, musicians and other ordinary citizens to handle international logistics, get help to those in need and thus demonstrate a more beautiful face of post-communist Central Europe.

Change

The refugees are probably not aware that they are bringing huge changes to Europe, especially to the post-communist region. The time of being comfortably self-centred is over. We, who 26 years ago defeated communism by singing songs on city squares, and in the years that followed joined the international elite clubs without much trying, are now called upon to show compassion and openness.

The wars in Syria and Libya are not likely to end in the foreseeable future. Whatever diplomatic or military steps the international community will take, and however tightly the European Union guards its borders, refugees and migrants will keep coming in high numbers. Some will settle in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, enriching our countries, helping us understand other cultures, and opening up our insular world.

Some of the newcomers will cause problems. There might be some who are dangerous. But how could countries that see themselves as Christian close their doors to needy foreigners? 

In the summer of 1989, communism in our part of the world seemed as solid and unchanging as a mountain. Then cracks started to appear, and by the end of that great year everything was different. It is similar now. Europe is still quite stable, prosperous and powerful. Yet with aggressive Putin’s Russia in the east, an unstable Greece in the south, and hundreds of thousands of refugees marching from the Balkans to Germany and Scandinavia, new cracks are starting to appear.

These times will put Christian convictions to the test. 

‘This is the battle for the heart of our country,’ said Slovak president Andrej Kiska, one of the very few top Central European politicians showing compassion to the refugees and encouraging his fellow citizens to do the same.

Kiska is right. Times they are indeed a changin’.