New JRS International Director and his dream of a shared future
By Linda Bordoni
Brother Michael Schöpf’s long ministry with refugees has honed his expertise and sensitivity and placed him in a unique position in which to make a difference in a time defined by migratory issues.
The new JRS International Director was only 26 years old when he started his work with refugees in Kenya. He has since travelled the world to touch, first-hand, the realities of our brothers and sisters on the move in all continents and is well qualified to oversee JRS projects and offices in 58 countries in nine regions around the world.
He comes to office at a time in which the need to agree on a common European migration policy or system is clearly evident. Although “populist” propaganda is clearly creating malaise and harming migrants and refugees arriving in Europe, Br Michael noted that it is also “fair to say that in the past two years, in a good number of European countries we have witnessed enormous humanitarian generosity.”
People and nations, he said, have welcomed and helped settle a good number of Ukrainian refugees since the Russian invasion in February 2022. “At the same time, especially in the past year or so, we have entered into a phase that I would call ‘political panic’.”
It seems, he explained “that everyone wants to do away with protection mechanisms because they feel refugees are a threat,” but they are actually “creating” this threat. The recent visit to Lampedusa of the Italian Prime Minister and of the President of the European Commission, he added, can be seen as one of those symbolic events that create anxiety and fuel a kind of 'panic' narrative.
The pictures we all saw of crowds of refugees and migrants in unsustainable situations inevitably provoked a negative narrative on migration and our capacity to deal with an influx of people, but the question to ask ourselves, Br Michael said, is: “In a difficult situation, what can we do?”
The need for one European system
What is important, he continued, is to agree on a system where the asylum procedure is truly a European procedure.
JRS, Schöpf said, has proposed in the past that “the European Asylum Support office should be the one that deals with all the asylum claims in the European countries and therefore it is a shared responsibility.”
JRS is also convinced that within such a system, the voice of the refugees must be heard.
“If there is somebody who comes to an administrative procedure and feels his history doesn't play any role in what is being said, or that the plans about his future don't play any role in the projection of where he needs to go, then, of course, that person cannot accept this decision,” Br Michael observed.
Cooperation is vital, he said, upholding the example of what is happening at the Mexican-US border where people first decided to wait and to see how they were going to be treated in the future, and when it became clear they were not going to be treated differently, they decided to try to make their way into the US anyway. “Obviously, this is not a good policy,” he said.
“We would advocate," he added, "for safe and monitored access to asylum within Europe. Asylum that is dealt with by a truly European office.”
Hope: the cornerstone of JRS’s mandate
Shortly after having been appointed new JRS International Director, Br Schöpf described this moment in time as a crucial one in which "we enter a transformative relationship“ with migrants, and he expressed his hope that together, as one human family, we will be able to build a better society for all. Asked whether he is truly hopeful this will happen, he said: “This [hope] is actually what motivates me to go to the office every day, and when I travel around those projects we have. This is the foundation of JRS.”
“We are not a specialized agency for medical or other services. We are a group of people who want to share the experiences of refugees, and this is in our ‘foundation gene’, so to speak.”
Br Michael recalled JRS founder, Fr Pedro Arrupe, who saw the dramatic situation of the Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s and said the only reaction to such a tragedy from a Christian point of view would be “to give everything we have.”
In order to do that, Schöpf continued, he wrote a letter to the whole Society of Jesus asking everyone to provide all the means they had: “We had educational institutes, we had medical institutes, we had pastors, and he asked the Society to enter into a relationship with refugees to see how this could help them in order to find a new future.”
A shared future
“This is what creates hope, not only for the refugees we meet but for us, because it is about a shared future,” he emphasized.
And this hope, he continued, is visible in many projects today – both in JRS and in projects run by other organizations – that are proving to be be extremely effective also in changing the ‘panic’ that we are living at the moment: “Panic is never a good advisor. Hope is a very good advisor.”
Regarding initiatives he plans to promote as JRS International Director, Br Michael Schöpf said that after a reflection on this initial moment that came from Father Arrupe, he asked himself: “ What does this mean for today? And I came to three answers, so to speak:”
JRS presence in refugee camps to provide education
“I think as Jesuit Refugee Service we need to be present in the very, very long-term refugee situations, like in Kakuma camp in Kenya, which is more than 40 years old.”
It is also a camp that has long surpassed its capacity and where refugees spend far too many years of their lives. Br Michael said, and JRS's presence there is needed because there are so many people who were born in the refugee camp and are in need of education – a right that is insufficiently respected – so they can hope to change their lives and their future.
Forgotten situations
Another priority for JRS, Br Michael said, is not to lose sight of forgotten situations such as that in Myanmar, a country where there is no, or very little geopolitical interest, and where the military junta has free rein. He recalled a photograph sent to him by the country director of one of JRS’s education programs there:
“It's a ditch, as you would dig it for protection against attacks by aeroplanes and other weapons. A plastic sheet is laid out in it so that children are protected from the earth: this is actually the classroom where they take lessons every day.”
Brother Schöpf said JRS needs to be in situations nobody wants to notice. “We have a special duty to go there and to accompany the people,” he said noting there are many other such situations in the world.
“I think of South Sudan with the arrivals from Sudan at the moment, or for example of the very dangerous passage of the Darién in Central America, a jungle where people need to go through and where it's very hard to survive,” he explained.
Assisting those on the move during their journey
The third situation Br Michael singled out was that concerning “the long journeys that people make, for example, to Venezuela and to Colombia through Central America, through a very violent Mexico.
JRS needs to be present in places along their path, “in terms of legal aid, in terms of emergency, in terms of social and psychosocial aid," he said and improve support programs and connections. These are realities that are already in place in Central America, but the Director adds, they can provide a model that could become important for people coming to Europe as well.
Open your hearts
I asked Brother Michael if he had a message for those listening or reading:
“I think the main message is: open your heart and trust what you find. Don't rely on what other people tell you.”
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