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On this episode of Nonviolence Radio philosophy professor, Jen Kling (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs), talks with Michael and Stephanie about refugees and the complex issue of resettling and caring for those who have had to leave their homes. Ensuring that people fleeing hardship at home can find a safe place to live, genuine opportunities to engage in school and meaningful work, to integrate and flourish in a new place is fraught with tensions, tensions which are often overlooked, avoided or simply ignored. Jen encourages us all to look closely at the problem and to deal with it, however imperfectly, head on:
… it’s insufficient to just say, “Okay, we’re just going to resettle folks,” right? And there are a number of different ways to resettle folks. Once folks are resettled or in the process, you also then have to be making sure that they have access to justice. That’s such a philosopher thing to say, but I think it’s true. And having access to justice is having somebody check up. Ii is understanding your rights, responsibilities, obligations, and opportunities; that there’s someone you can go to, that this is the kind of thing that shouldn’t be happening to you. And I think that’s why it’s so important to work through the details, to say, What does justice demand of us in this case? Because I think it actually demands a lot more than we would like to believe. I think it does. We owe it to folks, not as a matter of compassion or as a matter of mercy, but as a matter of justice because they’re people too, you know, and we owe it to them.
All of us in the global community have a responsibility to step up to the big work of taking care of each other, especially those who, like refugees, are vulnerable and without recourse to the rights and support they deserve. This is not a small endeavor, but it is an important one and a necessary one. In Jen’s words, “Sometimes we are responsible for fixing things we did not break.”
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Stephanie: Greetings friends, fellow advocates for peace and nonviolence and future advocates for peace and nonviolence, you’re tuned into Nonviolence Radio where we explore the power of nonviolence worldwide. I’m your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I’m here with my cohost and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler. We’re from the Metta Center for Nonviolence.
And today we have an insightful episode that delves into and crucial issue affecting vulnerable communities globally. We had the honor of speaking with Jen Kling, from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs to discuss the challenges faced by refugees and the stark inadequacies in our current global response.
This conversation is a testament to our commitment to understanding the struggles of those seeking refuge and why our collective response needs to evolve. It’s an essential dialog that aligns with the very essence of nonviolence, which is humanization.
So, get ready. We’re going to navigate through the complexities, share stories, and seek solutions. We’ll jump into our interview with Jen Kling and explore how we can contribute to a more compassionate and nonviolent world.
This is Nonviolence Radio, where every conversation is a step toward positive change. Stay with us.
I’m Jen Kling. I’m an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. And my research is on social and political philosophy. In particular, the philosophy of war and peace. And I focus on the people who tend to get ignored in traditional just war theory, in particular, civilians and refugees.
My research recently is on the moral imperative to resettle refugees because they’ve been harmed through no fault of their own. They’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they deserve a chance for a flourishing life. And so, my work is on how we understand that and how we make that happen in our world.
Stephanie: Thank you. And how did you get into this work? Who were some of your influences?
Jen: Honestly, one of my main influences – and I tell this story in the article – is Ami. So, Bat-Ami Bar On. She was my co-presenter at my very first professional conference, which was Concerned Philosophers for Peace.
I originally started working on sort of thinking through what it meant to be a refugee, the sort of refugee crisis – that’s the way it’s sometimes framed, although I think that’s an inaccurate framing for a number of reasons. I originally started working on it because I was actually working on philosophy of war for my dissertation.
And I was so annoyed with sort of classic philosophy of war, which I think talks about important issues, but didn’t talk about the issues that I thought were most important. Which is everybody who gets caught up in war who didn’t mean to get caught up in war.
And so, I sort of started working on thinking through refugees as a side project. And then I took it to Concerned Philosophers for Peace because I didn’t know if it was actually philosophy. So, I thought I’ll through it to the philosophers and they’ll tell me.
And then I met Ami because she was also presenting on refugees and the situation surrounding refugees. And what she sometimes calls the international refugee regime.
Michael: Wow.
Jen: Yeah. Which I think is just – I think she’s exactly right. Like that’s the right way to think about it; it’s a refugee regime. That’s what we have. And so, I presented it in the same sort of panel as her. She came up to me afterwards and said, “You know, this is philosophy and this is important. And you actually have two papers, not one.” And I said, “I do?” because I was a grad student.
And she said, “Yeah, you have two papers. And you email it to me, and I’ll work with you, and we’ll get it sorted out.” And she was just amazing, right? Because she didn’t have to do that. I was not one of her grad students. I was not at her university. But she, I think, just did it because she’s amazing.
And so we emailed back and forth and talked. And she actually sort of helped me get my very first article published, which was also on refugees. And helped convince me that I should write a book about it.
Stephanie: I was quite moved by your research because with all of our emphasis on peace and nonviolence, this topic of refugees, it just almost seems like it gets overlooked. And you’re putting the light on it. Like, wait a minute, like let’s talk about what it means to be a refugee, and refugee camps and why they’re insufficient. It seems like there’s almost like a lack of a conversation about refugees that is so extremely needed.
So, thank you. I don’t know how many people you encounter who think that refugee camps are probably a good thing. It never occurred to me that they might not be good.
Jen: Yeah. And – thank you. And just to be really clear, I’m certainly not the originator of this research, right? So, Ami worked on this for years and years. Serena Parekh has been working on this just so deeply. She’s also one of my philosophical heroes. And so, there are other folks who are working on this who are doing brilliant, brilliant work.
I think you’re exactly right. In many ways, I think the issue of refugees hasn’t been foregrounded, especially in discussions of philosophy of war and international relations because those conversations are dominated by white, Western, male powerful philosophers who’ve never been refugees. They’ve never had their country taken from them. They’ve never had their city or town overrun. They’ve never had their jobs just disappear, and their apartments disappear.
It is easy not to bring to the forefront something you don’t see, right? And something nobody you know has ever experienced.
Michael: Even worse, maybe something you don’t want to see.
Jen: Well, exactly, right? I mean to your point about refugee camps, it’s easy to see the nice pictures from the UNHCR. And the UNHCR is doing really brilliant work, and they have an incredibly difficult mission that they’re trying to do. But it’s easy to see that, and it’s really hard to see the reality because it’s uncomfortable. It’s a lot of uncomfortable truths about this international system that we’ve set up, right?
That just makes people refugees and makes them stateless and makes them vulnerable. And it’s easy to not see, so. Which is what I focus on. I like to look at the stuff that people don’t want me to talk about, and talk about it. That’s me.
Stephanie: In your article, you say, “It’s not enough to simply argue for the urgency of refugee settlement, although make no mistake, it is urgent. We must also make the case for what a good and just refugee resettlement scheme might look like in the actual world.” And that you’ll argue that “states of obligations to settle refugees equitably, with laws, policies, and procedures that ameliorate discriminatory treatment.”
So, yeah. Let’s jump into that.
Jen: Yeah. Absolutely.
Stephanie: Let’s get beyond the refugee resettlement. Let’s start discussing why, for example, refugee camps are, as you call them, morally and politically unacceptable.
Jen: Yeah. So, I can start there. This is an argument that I build from Ami’s work and from also Serena Parekh’s work. And I mention this is the article, but it’s important to recognize that refugee camps are entirely extralegal. There is no provision for their existence in international law.
They’re meant to be, for lack of a better word, a temporary holding situation, is what they are. That was their original impetus. But they’ve turned into permanent settlements. But because they’re entirely extralegal, the people who live in them have no political rights. So, if you’re a refugee in a refugee camp you have no what we sometimes call political standing, right?
So, like, I’m an American citizen. If something goes wrong in my life, or I think somebody’s abridging my political rights, I can go to the courts. Yes, I can get a lawyer, I can sue, I can call my representative. Now, how well any of those things will work, you know, that’s another question. We can talk about that.
But I have the standing to do that. The court has to recognize me as a person with standing to make a claim. Refugees don’t have that standing. They’re not recognized in our political regime. So, what court can they go to? Who can they appeal to as a matter of justice? They can appeal as a matter of mercy – and I talk about that.
They can appeal to the goodness of our hearts, but that makes them vulnerable, right? If you’re dependent on the mercy of others, you’re vulnerable. They have no political standing that they can demand. They can’t say, “Look, I’m a citizen. You owe me this.” And so, folks who are in refugee camps, their rights are just being ignored and abridged every day. Which is why I think they’re unacceptable.
And to be clear, this is, again, not my argument. I’m pulling from Parekh and Bar On here. But it’s easy to forget that because it seems like it’s better for folks to be in a refugee camp than to be in an active war zone. I agree. To be clear. I agree. I think it would be even better if we didn’t have active war zones, period. But of course, you know, you’ve got to deal with the problem in front of you.
And so, yes, refugee camps are – like they’re better in that sense, but they also are a massive problem. Because if we think that people deserve a chance for a flourishing life where their rights and opportunities are respected, they’re not getting that in refugee camps. And they can’t. Our political regime doesn’t allow for it. Even the best refugee camp, which – they don’t exist – is still violating rights left and right.
Michael: I’m having a big idea listening to you, Jen. Maybe, just maybe, this horrific situation is an opportunity to make a big breakthrough in human consciousness, in human destiny. That is, namely, when we think of a stateless person, if we could recognize that they’re a person first and foremost, and you do not get your – what shall I say? You do not get your legitimacy by belonging to a particular state, but rather by being a human being.
And if we could push things that far, maybe out of this chaos there would come some kind of breakthrough.
Jen: Yes. Yes. I agree. No, I mean I think – I think that’s just right. And that’s why I actually – I moved to the sort of egalitarian arguments in my article because egalitarianism, as an idea, starts with this, like, look we’re all people, right? And that’s what matters to us. Because we have, we have this weird system where if you’re a member of a state, you’re protected. And if you’re not, you’re not, right?
Michael Walzer talks about this sometimes. He says, “You know, everybody deserves a place to stand.” Now, ignoring the sort of ableist language, right? Everybody deserves a place to live. I mean he was writing at the, you know, it was back in the Vietnam War era, so I get it. But you can take his point, right? Like, everybody needs a space to live. And I think that’s a good starting point, but I think what we learn from the egalitarian move here that I try to make, is that you need more than just a space.
A space is a good starting point, but you can have a space to live and still not be able to live a good life if people are discriminating against you, if people are blocking you from opportunities. This is why I talk about the need for a good and just resettlement scheme. It’s easy to say, “Oh, yes, we’ll take 68,000 refugees,” which is how many refugees the US took last year, which by the way, is a drop in the bucket, right?
But then to say we’ll take those people, but then to pay no attention to whether they are learning the dominant languages, to whether they can get bank accounts, to whether they can find an apartment to rent, how are their kids going to get in school without a social security number, right? Are their kids going to be made fun of? Are there sports teams they can join? All of these things – if we don’t think through those aspects, my concern always is that we’re not actually solving the problem. We’re just moving it around.
Michael: Yeah, kicking it down the road.
Stephanie: But I know, you know, Justin Trudeau and giving out big coats to refugees as they arrived. Isn’t that sufficient?
Jen: I mean a coat is nice.
Stephanie: We see refugees when it’s politically advantageous to be seen caring for them, giving them coats, you know, bringing them in. But this point of, then what? Now, is it the case that – I’d assume it is – that at times of displacement, that xenophobia arises in communities? Can you speak to that?
Jen: Yeah, I can. So, this is actually something that Ami was drawing out in the work she was doing sort of at the end of her life, was this point. The psychological term for it is compassion fatigue, right? And it’s this point that when domestic – and it’s a broader point, right? When domestic societies are under stress, a common response is xenophobia because it’s a very good way to put the responsibility for the problem outward rather than inward.
So, think about the US here, which is the context I’m most familiar with. Economic inequality is skyrocketing. There’s a problem somewhere with our economic system, okay? Now, on the one hand, we could look domestically at ourselves and our own systems. That’s difficult. That’s uncomfortable, right? To say, “The problem might be with me.”
Or I could say, “Well, you know what the problem is? It’s those people who don’t look like me, and they don’t act like me, and they don’t talk like me, and they don’t have the same cultural setup as me. And by the way, they look like they’re doing pretty well, and I’m not doing well. Clearly, it’s them.” That’s a much easier move, right?
And so, xenophobia, globally, has been on the rise. And then it’s made worse in these times of massive displacement, as you mentioned, Stephanie, because – precisely because you see – and this is a media thing, right? You see waves of people. And that kicks up that tendency we already had to be like, “it’s somebody else that’s the problem.”
And then you get this fear of – oh, the way people talk about it is the fear of being “Overrun.” I struggle to make sense of that.
Because on the one hand, there’s the kind of xenophobia and the knee-jerk, “You won’t replace us,” kind of language and the like, “I don’t want them to change my culture,” kind of language, which leads you into a whole question about what is culture anyway? It’s my favorite question to ask my students because they get worried about their culture. And I say, “Okay, well, what is American culture?” And they’re like, “Don’t ask me that.” Cool. So, stop being worried. You don’t know what it is either, so calm down.
But on the one hand there’s this kind of move, which is a conservative move. I talk about this a little bit in the article. There’s a conservative strain here. But there’s also the other piece of it which is what I mentioned earlier, which is not conservative, but it is genuinely this kind of compassion fatigue where it’s really difficult, even if you think, “Look, I owe folks stuff. I’m going to give them big warm coats. We’re going to take them in. We’re going to try to do right.”
But it gets really hard to keep doing right over time when you start to realize that it’s not actually a matter of big coats, right? I love that you said that because it’s such a good example. Like a big coat is great. And then you need to make sure there are spaces in the daycares. And then you need to make sure there are spaces in the elementary schools. And then you need to make sure there are job trainings every six months. And then you need to make sure there are language classes every year. And then you need to make sure there are translators at the hospitals. And then you need to make sure there’s cultural sensitivity trainings at the city centers.
And you see how this builds and builds, and that’s very difficult because, especially in the West, we really like to be heroes. We’re really bad at being helpers. Right? It’s easy to be a hero. It’s easy to be Justin Trudeau handing out a coat, right? It’s much harder to be a helper, to say, “I’ll drive you to your pediatrician appointment, “I’ll babysit your kids when you go get your voting card.” That’s harder. That’s not glamorous.
Stephanie: I think what we saw with Ukraine, it brings out a lot of good examples, although there’s a lot of other images floating in my mind. I understand that the Ukraine situation is somewhat special and problematic, so we can get into that. I was thinking of the way that people in the UK, for example, were opening up their homes. There were websites, you know, “If you’re a Ukrainian refugee, come live with us.”
And then it was like – two months later you see reports coming out that those people coming to live in those houses were getting sexually exploited by the people in the houses. That raised a whole other conversation. Like, whoa – who is paying attention to this? Like, it’s not enough just to offer even a house to live in. You have to make sure that people aren’t going to get pulled into a sex-trafficking rings.
Jen: I mean that’s exactly right. That’s why it’s insufficient to just say, “Okay, we’re just going to resettle folks,” right? And there are a number of different ways to resettle folks. Once folks are resettled or in the process, you also then have to be making sure that they have access to justice. That’s such a philosopher thing to say, but I think it’s true. And having access to justice is having somebody check up. Ii is understanding your rights, responsibilities, obligations, and opportunities; that there’s someone you can go to, that this is the kind of thing that shouldn’t be happening to you.
And I think that’s why it’s so important to work through the details, to say, What does justice demand of us in this case? Because I think it actually demands a lot more than we would like to believe. I think it does. We owe it to folks, not as a matter of compassion or as a matter of mercy, but as a matter of justice because they’re people too, you know, and we owe it to them.
Stephanie: Well, as individuals, we owe something – and it’d be interesting to hear your perspective – but also, states. So, let’s talk about state obligations specifically. Is the state who caused the violence, or who’s responsible for the violence, responsible? Who’s responsible for resettling refugees?
Jen: Everyone. All states. Yeah, no, I know, that’s not a very fun answer, is it?
Stephanie: Well, let’s break it into why we would think it could be the states directly involved versus the states that are part of the state system. Lead us into that.
Jen: Okay. I can lead you there. There are two pathways. Let me give you the easier one first.
Ordinarily, we think about responsibility at the individual level. So, if I come to your house or your place of residence and I break your lamp, who should pay for that?
Stephanie: You.
Jen: See, the problem is you know I’m a philosopher, so you’re ready to be tricked. I’m not tricking you. Honest. I’m just asking you a basic question. It’s not a trick, I swear.
Stephanie: There are reasons why you might not be responsible for breaking my lamp.
Jen: Yeah. Let’s assume nothing weird is going on. It was an accident, but I did it, right? I’m responsible, yes? And I should apologize, and if I can, pay you back for the lamp or go with you and buy you a new lamp or whatever. That’s the ordinary course of things, yes?
So, we’re used to thinking of responsibility in that way. The person who causes the problem is responsible for solving the problem, right? So, that’s the line of thinking that gets you to the person who causes the violence is responsible for resettling the refugees, right?
And I think there’s definitely something to that. Russia definitely bears responsibility here in the Ukraine case, right? Let’s take that case.
Stephanie: Well, they are. They’re resettling them in Russia.
Jen: Yes. [inaudible] Okay, no, no. I take the point, right? But I think they’re not resettling them. This is slightly off-topic from the responsibility point, but I do think it’s really important. One of the real worries with the discussion of the international refugee regime, or as it’s sometimes called, the refugee crisis, is that refugees get treated like objects, not subjects, okay?
This happens all of the time. So, we talk about refugees as though they’re things to be moved around. That’s what Russia is doing. Russia is treating Ukrainians as an asset that they can acquire. There’s no discussion of whether the Ukrainians want this or how they feel about it or how they want their life to go. Russia is just saying like that’s an asset. I can acquire that. And then I have it.
That is failing to recognize that refugees are subjects. They’re people. And I think this happens very often. And so, I try to always be very careful about that. So, when I’m talking about resettlement, what I mean is taking account of what refugees themselves would like. And when you go talk to folks who are in refugee camps, most of them would like to go to what they see as their home.
Michael: Amen. Yeah.
Jen: Right? They want to go to their original place of residence. Some of them don’t, some of them say, “Look, I’ve lived through the destruction of…” I talked to a Lebanese refugee, you know and she said, “Look, I’ve lived through the entire destruction of my civil society twice. Could I please go live somewhere else where I can just be a third-grade teacher?” Like, that’s what she does.
And I’m, like, that is a completely reasonable ask. That strikes me as a reasonable ask. I’m going to go live somewhere else, I’m over it. Right? And so, when I talk about resettlement, I’m talking about it in that way. Sorry, that’s off from the responsibility, but maybe it helps.
So, to go back to the responsibility point. On the one hand, yes, the countries that are causing the violence are responsible. And they are not solely responsible because part of the reason that that violence is occurring is because we have set it up. And “we” here, “we” broadly, is the global community. That’s a really big “we,” but I’ll just use it because philosophers get to do that kind of thing.
We have set up an international regime of states where the power dynamics and structures are such that it is in a state’s interests to engage in a kind of violence that leads reliably to the production of refugees, to turning people into refugees.
And so, we are all implicated in that system. I think all states are. Because all states work to maintain that system. There are a couple of exceptions. But I can tell you what happens to those states on the world stage, right? Honestly, usually, the United States engages in a coup. It’s a historical reality. The states that have tried to go against this regime have been overthrown in a variety of not very nice ways.
And so, the global system operates in this way and I think all states are implicated in that. Here, I’m going to do a philosopher thing. I think there’s a difference between being implicated, between being complicit, being responsible, being accountable, and being to blame.
Because I think for a lot of states, they are not in a position to operate any differently. So, it’s exactly the same way that the three of us can’t actually do much different in our society. We all go to the grocery store, right? We all go buy food, yes? I like food. I like to eat.
Of course, when we do that, we are implicated in the ongoing exploitation of farmworkers. We’re contributing to oppression. Straight up, right? Now, we are implicated in that. I think we are accountable for that. I don’t think we’re to blame for that because I don’t think there’s anything we could do differently.
So, I think part of the problem is people move really quickly from the notion of accountability, like we should do better to I’m to be blamed for doing badly.
And so, when I’m talking about refugees, part of what I want to say is, yes, all states are responsible. All states are accountable, meaning we need to do this work. We need to figure out a resettlement scheme. Don’t waste time feeling bad about it, right? Don’t get all defensive. Just be like, look, we should do better. So, that’s kind of one line of argument.
And the other one is – my students really hate this, but I’ll say it anyway because I believe it. Sometimes we are responsible for fixing things we did not break.
Michael: Oh yeah.
Jen: Like that’s just how the world works.
Michael: Jen, there’s Roger Fisher who taught at Harvard. He tells a story about being involved in the test flight of, I think, a B-52 right after the war. And the pilot’s instructions were to go up and feather one of the four engines and see how the plane behaved. So, he feathered it. The plane was fine. So, the crew – you know, the pilot and the co-pilot said, “Hmm. I wonder how far we can go with this, you know?”
Long story short, they feathered all four engines. They said, “Terrific. Let’s restart them and go back.” And then they realized you need compressed air or something like that to start these engines. So, they’re all buckling on their parachutes, getting ready to bail. And the bombardier who’s down in the bomb bay, he says, “Hey, wait a minute, guys.” He remembered that there was an old 50cc Briggs and Stratton gasoline engine somewhere. He hauled it out, you know, fired it up, connected it to the gas lines, started it. Okay. So, then Fisher says, “Was he responsible for doing that? It wasn’t his fault.” Of course, he was responsible because he could.
Jen: Exactly. Because he could, right? And that is the other way responsibility works, right?
Michael: Yes. Love that.
Jen: The very classic – the example I give my students all the time is I didn’t invent sexism. I feel very confident about that claim. It’s one of the few claims I feel real confident in. Like, I didn’t invent it. I didn’t create it. That one is not on me, right? But I have an obligation to help fix it. Why? Because I can, and it’s very easy for me to look around and see all the people that are getting hurt by it who don’t need to be hurt by it.
Michael: Amen.
Jen: Right? Like I could help solve this. That’s how forward-looking responsibility works. We have an obligation to each other to try to make it better. And so do states. I think states [inaudible] and care.
Stephanie: Rabbi Abraham Heschel, he said nobody is to blame, but everybody is responsible.
Michael: Yeah.
Jen: Exactly. Exactly.
Stephanie: Now, because you can – so saying that we’re going to continue working within the state system, there are some states who cannot help or participate in the same way as wealthier more resourced states. Speak to how that is a problem.
Jen: Yeah. Yes, that is a problem. I think it’s of course correct to say that these claims about justice and about refugee resettlement have to be sensitive to facts about the world, right? And this actually why I go against what is sometimes called distributive egalitarianism.
Because distributive egalitarianism really focuses on – and I can completely understand this focus, it focuses on equity of material goods. But as you say, different states are different in terms of their resources, in terms of their economies, in terms of their ability to ensure goods and services.
And I think that’s right. But I think it also doesn’t make a lot of sense to talk about distributive egalitarianism in this context because what you’re after is to try to ensure people have opportunities to live a flourishing life. A baseline condition for that is sufficiency of material goods, but material goods aren’t all you need, right?
So, I do think that if we go for some kind of distributive egalitarianism, we run into a problem, which is precisely the problem you raised, which is that different states are situated very differently in terms of material resources.
And so, any resettlement scheme that attempts to do it that way is going to run into and create, sort of, more deep inequities. There again, I think, you’re not solving the problem, you’re moving it around, right? Now, of course, now you should ask me, “Okay, why, Jen, are states differently resourced and differently powerful?”
And I’ll say, “Well, let me tell you a story about settler colonialism and apartheid and racism and the history of the modern world.” And this goes back to the argument about responsibility, because we sometimes treat our world like things just exist. And I don’t know, the United States just is how it is. It’s a miracle. It’s a mystery.
And you’re like, no. Right? It’s utterly mysterious. And you’re like, actually, we really know our history pretty well. Why is the Dominican Republic the way it is? Well, I can tell you a story. And that story is steeped in the creation of the international settler colonial regime, right? There’s a reason.
And so, it all sort of ties back there. But if we don’t want to make worse the inequities that already exist, if we’re committed to solving the problem, not just moving it around, we do have to be sensitive to these differences. Because we can’t turn the world off and then on again. Sometimes my students say this. They’re like, “Have you tried turning it off and then on again?” I’m like, “The world doesn’t work like that.” It’d be nice if we could.
And that would make this whole thing a lot simpler, right? But unfortunately, you can’t do that. And so, you have to work within the existing spaces which are already inequitable. That’s just true. But because you’re exactly right that states are differently resourced, and it’s not mysterious as to why, going forward, we have to be sensitive to that. Because we really are after justice for all, I think.
It doesn’t do any good to get justice for some folks at the expense of other folks. You’ve just moved the problem around. I don’t know if that answers your question, but I tried.
Stephanie: I think it gets us a little bit further along. The next piece of that, I think, is developing in the human being a willingness not to feel threatened by difference. But I imagine too, you know, we need a greater emphasis on trauma healing. Because it will be the case that when people have experienced trauma they will carry it and that can come out in a lot of different ways. And so, a deeper understanding that that’s not just who they are. It’s not just who we are, but that it’s something that we’ve been hurt or harmed and can be healed.
I don’t know, it just seems like we need to have – when we’re reaching into compassion, we also need to have flexibility with each other as people.
Jen: Yeah. I think that’s exactly right. And again, I think it’s important to remember that there’s at least three different levels here. Let me back up a minute.
So, there’s the individual level. And that is how I interact vis-à-vis you, right? Vis-à-vis somebody who is a resettled refugee. Vis-à-vis somebody who’s an undocumented person. Vis-à-vis my students, right?
And that is where part of what you were saying comes into play. Because people are traumatized. People are hurt. People are harmed. People are not trained in conflict de-escalation. People are not trained in sensitivity. People are not trained in empathy, right? These are all at the interpersonal level.
The good news is that we’ve got some psychological data that says we can make movement at the interpersonal level. Turns out, you can train kids to be empathetic. The number one way to do it is to put a book in their hands. Honestly, children who read are more likely to develop empathy, and they’re more likely to develop respect for other points of view.
We can teach that. We can teach nonviolence. We can teach respect for trauma. We can do trauma-informed parenting, trauma-informed community building. These things are possible. And it does require flexibility, right? And it’s going to be hard. I’m not saying that the way to solve this is to make everybody sunshine and roses all the time because we’re all complex people, and we’re not going to be that way.
When I’m talking about egalitarian submissions to a refugee resettlement scheme, I’m actually talking more about the two other levels, which is the community level and then the state level, okay? And by states here, I mean countries.
But at the community and state level, what I’m talking about when I talk about these things are policies. Because one of the reasons we have laws, rules, policies, and procedures is because people often are not able to recognize the long-term implications of how they do and don’t act.
And this isn’t to say that people can’t be relied on. It’s just to say that, look, people have bad days. So, it’s good to have a policy in place to avoid the bad-day person. And I say this near the end of the article, right? And I promise this is related. It’s a quote from Martin Luther King Jr, which I really like, where he’s giving a speech, actually I think to Berkeley students.
And somebody asks him something along these lines, somebody was like, “Okay, Dr. King, but like have you met white people? How are we going to solve this, right? Because you can’t make everybody be compassionate to everybody else.”
Michael: Yeah. I know where you’re going with this.
Jen: You know where I’m going, right? And Dr. King says – and I think it’s just right. He says, “Look, the law can’t make a man love me. But the law can stop him from lynching me. And that’s pretty important also.” And that is why I want to talk about the community level and the state level.
Because the laws, policies and procedures, if we can get those right, you can stop some of the inequities and some of the badness. And I think that’s pretty important also. And then King actually goes on. The second half of that quote, he continues and he says, and here’s the thing, if the law can stop the bad actions of individuals, then those individuals get used to seeing me at their pools, at their community centers, in their places of business, in their courts.
He says, look, people’s hearts are changed by familiarity. And so, he says, the way change often happens is you just get familiar with it, and then it’s not different. And then it’s not scary. I mean I know bussing is very controversial, but that’s the thing that bussing did. It got kids used to being around kids of other different races, you know? And that helped. Did it solve the problem? No. Did it make it better? Yeah.
Stephanie: There’s a term for that, contact theory.
Jen: Yeah. Exactly, right?
You need community level stuff and state level stuff because to create community programs that are going to encourage folks to hang out together and make space, you’re going to need money. Anybody who says money doesn’t solve things has never had to search the couch cushions for change, you know? So, like, you’re going to need those things.
And then, of course, at the same time, you’re going to have to talk to individuals, to persons, and sort of say, “Now, look. You know, I know. We just had the holidays. I know they don’t celebrate the same, but I promise they each eat just as much bad food as you do. So, if you hang out, you know, you’ll learn about it.”
You have to tackle it in both directions. Do you know what I mean? I do think when we’re thinking through justice, it’s going to be these policies. That’s how you’re going to get relational egalitarianism.
Michael: You know, I might have thought that you and I had very different fields because I’m a recovering Homer scholar. And you’re –
Jen: Ah, yes.
Michael: You’re a political scientist.
Stephanie: Philosopher.
Michael: Philosopher, actually. But I’m realizing –
Stephanie: He just called you a political scientist.
Jen: It happens all the time. No worries.
Michael: You can wear that hat if you want it, Jen. What I actually studied at the apex of my career was the Odyssey. And what does Odysseus do? He goes around the whole world testing people’s response to strangers. In one extreme, there’s people who feed him, and the other extreme, there are people who eat him.
Jen: Yeah. Exactly.
Michael: And it’s just he becomes kind of a litmus test for the civilization – the level of civilization that all these different peoples have reached. So, it took me a while to realize that, but it’s an extremely real and agonizing question that must have existed for colonizing or colonizing Greeks at that time.
Jen: Yeah. Oh, I like that, I like that. It’s an interesting way to think about that, to think about Odysseus. I like it. It just reminds me – oh, gosh. This is from Bob Holmes, the pacifist, right? When he’s talking about civilization.
Michael: Robert Holmes?
Jen: Yes. Robert Holmes, right? He’s got this – I can’t remember where it’s from, but he’s got this lovely passage. And you made me think of it. You know, he says, “We should judge civilizations not by their power, but by how many people they make safe,” right?
Michael: Aw. That’s very good.
Jen: You made me think of it, and I think that’s kind of what I’m after in some really – how can we make more people safe? And safe in all senses of the word. Not just physical safety, but emotional safety, social safety. How many people can we make safe? Because right now, we’re not doing a good job.
Stephanie: I have a couple of questions, I think, that need to be asked at least as part of this. You cite in the article that UNHCR put out the number of a hundred million refugees in the world at the time of writing the article, which made it like 1 in 7.
Jen: Just to be very clear, that’s refugees and refugee-like persons.
Michael: So, IDPs?
Jen: Yep. These statistics are a matter of contention. And so, I like to be very clear. If you take the official definition – like the legal definition of refugee, there are fewer refugees officially in the world. But there are over a hundred million refugee and refugee-like persons.
So, I regard anybody who’s had to flee their place of residence because of actual persecution, military or non. I regard anybody like that as a refugee. According to international law, you don’t count as a refugee unless you’ve crossed a border and the persecution has been demonstrated with evidence. And also, military bombing doesn’t count as persecution, which is interesting.
So, war refugees are de facto refugees, but technically, by law, they’re not. Which I think is ridiculous, but that’s just – I get hot under the collar about that real quick.
Stephanie: And also, as we’re talking about global responsibility, we didn’t say anything about climate and the way that climate disruption is going to make that number much higher and continues to be something that we can’t, as a global community, just continue to sweep under the rug. People will continue to be displaced and will need to have spaces to go and rights to live under.
Jen: Yeah. And I think I would say – this is an argument from [Fenny Tulalo], in which he talks about this. As he says, “We already have climate change refugees.” Now, why is climate change hitting poorer and brown countries the hardest? Well, I’m going to tell the same story I just told you about the rise of the modern world and settler colonialism, right? It’s got the same causal origin story. And so, I think the same thing holds. But I mean, the future is here, it’s just distributed unevenly.
Stephanie: That’s a bumper sticker.
Michael: That’s a bumper sticker.
Jen: Yeah. That’s from William Gibson, the science fiction writer. As I said, my references are all over the map. I’m sorry. But he’s right, I think. And so, it’s not a question of climate change refugees, like coming. It’s a question of they already exist. The international regime just doesn’t recognize them as refugees, right?
Because the way the legal system works – or let me be clear. The way the legal system is supposed to work is once you are recognized by the UNHCR as a refugee, you do have certain rights under international law, okay? Which is, you have a right to claim asylum. You have a right to claim resettlement. You have those rights.
So, unfortunately, the definition of refugee, which I mentioned earlier, is very narrow. It’s persecution on the basis of a political identity. Which means that even though the global community treats war refugees as refugees, technically, the UNHCR doesn’t have to give them refugee status. Okay? So, that makes them vulnerable. And I argue that in other places.
But the same thing is currently happening in the international courts with climate change refugees. Because technically, they’re not having to leave because of persecution on the basis of their political identity. Now, there’s two ways you can go here, right?
So, one, you could argue that they are facing persecution on the basis of their political identity. Because their political identity is of a citizen of a country that is no longer a viable place to live because of the bad actions of other climate actors. Right? That looks like persecution. That’s an argument I’ve made in other texts, I like that argument. So, that’s one way to go.
The other way to go is to say we need to broaden the definition of refugee. It’s just anybody who’s forced to flee. Then you get into questions about the understanding of what it means to be forced to flee. But I think that’s a way a lot of other theorists have gone, and I think that’s also a really good argument.
But what’s happening right now – and to be clear, I don’t think this is what should be happening. This is just what is happening legally: climate change refugees are getting viewed as immigrants.
Michael: Oh, so they leave by choice?
Jen: Yeah. They did it by choice. Because there is that question, what does it mean to be forced to flee, right? So, if you’re doing it by choice because you’re seeking out better economic opportunities, then you fall into a different category, which is the category of immigrants. And then the law treats you very differently.
But I think you’re exactly right to say this is part of the discussion. And it’s actually why Ami talks about the international refugee regime, right? She says we have an economic, political, climate system that’s just reliably creating folks who are forced to run. As Ami would say, “That’s not okay. We can do something about that. It’s not okay”
Michael: We have to agree. We have to agree with that.
Stephanie: Where do we go from here? Three actions people can take right now to be better at understanding your research.
Jen: Okay. Well, the first action that people should take is a very practical one that I recommend to folks all the time. If you can, you should donate to the UNHCR. And the website is UNHCR.org. They are doing on the ground work to help refugees globally. They’re doing amazing work. Please donate.
You can also donate to the IRC, which is the International Rescue Commission. They’re also doing hands-on work with refugees globally. If you can donate once, donate once. If you can set up a recurring donation, that’s amazing. So, please do that. That’s action Number 1, that I think if you want to make a difference today, do that.
A second action that you can do is join local community groups in your town, city, or state. There are groups working locally with refugees around the United States. And you can join those groups. They are always looking for local guides, folks to sort of work on sort of cultural differences, to just hang out, to make friends, right? Go find one of your refugee centered organizations in your city and make a friend, you know?
Make a new friend. Take your kids. Invite them to make some new friends, right? Because strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet. So, I would say that would be my second action.
And I think the third action really is talk to other people about this. You know, don’t let this be a thing that fades into silence. It’s really easy to not talk about. And so, you know, if you have a neighbor, you invite them over for dinner. Talk about it, you know? Say, “Hey, what are we doing with that? What should we do?” Right? And so, those are three actions I think individuals can and should take. That would be really helpful.
Michael: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Nonviolence Report. Your quick dose of inspiration for a more harmonious world. I’m Michael Nagler. And today we’ve got a condensed but powerful segment for you.
In the next few minutes, we’ll be touching on key insights and stories that highlight the beauty of nonviolent actions in our communities and around the world. First off, I’d like to mention a senior Biden official has recently resigned over the US support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. His name is Tariq Habash and he was in the Department of Education. And he said that the administration’s support for Israel is “wholly out of line with democratic values.” And this is one of several resignations that are happening. Some 800 international officials have sent a letter to the president deploring this action in Gaza.
And in Israel itself, of course, we have some 200 refuseniks, as they call them. And a beautiful interview with one of them, a young fellow named Tal Mitnick, which I’d like to tell you more about later. But this is a very necessary first step when some kind of an atrocity has been launched. People of good conscience have got to step out of it, have got to say, “I will not take part in this.”
It’s especially effective if they really make a sacrifice in doing so. And Mr. Habash did that as well as Craig Mokhiber, who was the director of the New York office of UN’s high commissioner for human rights.
He accused the body of not being able to do anything in the face of “another textbook case of genocide.” I really resonated with that because it was exactly the thought that occurred to me when the atrocity started. And Mokhiber resigned after 40 plus years of human rights work. And he did so four days before he was scheduled to retire. So, I imagine he may have sacrificed a big financial package in order to make that statement.
So, violent episodes like this awaken people and they respond nonviolently. And that’s that nonviolence has always been. To awaken the heart, awaken the conscience of people everywhere.
Switching gears now, looking to some positive elements, we finally have little traction on gun control legislation. A case has been brought by Mexico against seven US manufacturers of the weapons that are killing Mexicans in deplorable numbers. And that case is actually heading to the Supreme Court of the US. And it’s a very unusual one. So, it’ll be interesting to watch from many points of view – legal, and nonviolent. I hope it succeeds.
I don’t have time for a full segment today, so here’s the deal. For more extensive exploration of nonviolence and to immerse yourself in the full broadcast, head over to NonviolenceRadio.org. Thanks for tuning in to this bite-size edition of the Nonviolence Report. Remember, a little peace goes a long way. Until next time, stay inspired, stay nonviolent, and keep spreading love.
This is Michael Nagler signing off for now.
Stephanie: As we wrap up this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we want to express our deepest gratitude. A huge shoutout to our mother station, KWMR for being the heartbeat of Nonviolence Radio. A special thanks to our insightful guest, Jen Kling whose wisdom has illuminated our discussion today.
We also want to acknowledge the incredible efforts of the Nonviolence Radio team who are working tirelessly behind the scenes. Your dedication makes this show possible. And a tip of the hat to our syndicators, including invaluable support from Waging Nonviolence and the Pacifica Network. Your collaboration amplifies our message of nonviolence and peace to a broader audience.
And of course, a heartfelt thank you to you, our cherished listeners. Your commitment to understanding, empathy, and positive change is what fuels the spirit of Nonviolence Radio. So, as we sign off, always remember to take care of one another. Let’s continue to build a world rooted in compassion and understanding.
If you’d like to know more about nonviolence or our work at the Metta Center, go to MettaCenter.org. You can also find the show at NonviolenceRadio.org. This is Stephanie Van Hook, along with Michael Nagler and the entire Nonviolence Radio team signing off.