MIGRATIONS

A POYETIC[1]  REPORT ON A MIGRANT COSMOS

 

by ANTONIETA POTENTE[2]

 

SUMMARY

 

 

  • Reflection on a question which many times accompanied the biblical people (Is 49,22b). A question born from a historical vision; irruption of diversity transforming our ire.
  • Introduction by the following song:

 

Picture of Jesus

by Ben Harper

 

It hangs above my altar
as they hung him from a cross
I keep one in my wallet
for the times I feel lost.
In a wooden frame with splinters
where my family kneels to pray
And if you listen close
you'll hear the words he used to say
I've got a picture of Jesus
in his arms so many prayers rest
We've got a picture of Jesus
and with him we shall be forever blessed.


Now it has been spoken
he would come again
but would we recognize
this king among men.
there was a man in our time
his words shine bright like the sun
he tried to lift the masses
and was crucified by gun
he was a picture of Jesus.
With him so many prayers rest.
He is a picture of Jesus
In his arms so many prayers rest
With him we shall be forever blessed.


Some days have no beginning
and some days have no end
Some roads are straight and narrow
and some roads only bend
So let us say a prayer
for every living thing
walking towards a light
from the cross of a king.
We long to be a picture of Jesus.
In his arms so many prayers rest
I long to be a picture of Jesus
With him we shall be forever blessed.

 

 

  • This song reminds stories based on myth, symbols, dreams;  search for a right of existence; that life be blessed; a song of rebellion and resistance; secret sentiments which probably we do not fully understand.
  • Biblical question remains:  “and these, who are they and where do they come from?”
  • Question that comes from an ancestral desire of survival; some moved by thirst, other by dreams, others by feelings of pride and dignity.
  • There is a long list of names and circumstances within this context; each migration has an age, a gender, a social cultural condition, a creed and above all, a right.
  • If today I were to describe our times with a biblical theological language  would describe it with a letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, litany of names, situations daring attempts for life; constant search to yet outstand.
  • To each history of faith, a cause corresponds: disparity in income, labor and migratory policies in country of origin and destination; social and political conflicts compel migration; degradation of the environment…and so on.
  • How to read this?  And how to walk in the midst of these mass of people in search? Organize precarious welcomes?  Study and invent fair laws? Close the borders? Build diplomatic and legal walls? Pray to God to convert the thinking of emigrants and of those who feel themselves invaded? Reroute the migratory flux of wars?
  • Possible levels of action are many and different.
  • First I agree that this is an irreversible phenomenon yet obscure and confusing, a challenge to humankind.  “A ghost shows itself over the world and that is the ghost of migration…the movement is irresistible…legal movements are insignificant when compared with the waves of clandestine migration…economists have difficulty in explaining these uncontrollable movements of freedom…desertion  and exodus are a powerful form of class struggle…” (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, 2005).
  • I personally sustain a positive vision of contemporary history and I  read the same vision in the title of this Assembly.

 

 

ARCHEOLOGY OF MIGRATION:

A HISTORY OF HUMAN – COSMIC SURVIVAL.

 

·        To understand this phenomenon we have to look at history:

·        First question:  “Were Adam and Eve black?  Africa is where the human journey started, from there our grand parents started to conquer the planet, a diversity of paths founded a diversity of fates…and the sun took care of distributing the colors…we have more colors that the rainbow…but we are all migrant Africans” (Eduardo Galeano, Caminos de Alta Fiesta, 2008).

·        Life is not uniformity; its very dynamic and belongs to everyone; when born it had no prejudices, only colors: it was original and we do not know how this originality was lost, but we know that today we have to discover again, we have to re write this history.

·        Migration is a phenomenon, which is part of the nomadic nature of humanity and of the cosmos, this is an archeology of migrations as a process of displacement of people, disarrayed refugees, economic and labor migrants.

·        This phenomenon is not new; seems to be a part of human history; transformations of geographies and biodiversity followed by transformations of people, cultures, Cosmo visions and religious believes.

·        Movements,  not only of human beings, but of continents; metamorphosis of life and of the planet… an instinctive conduct, a biological clock together with external factors.

·        Socio genetic evolution but also evolution of the mind and of the physique; awareness to foresee other possibilities of construction  history, search beyond the limits of human survival…search to find spaces of socioeconomic dignity; exodus escaping war and hunger; self sacrifice to save your own clan or family.

·        Dreams and more dreams or just myths; if myths are the dreams of cultures (Carl Jung) then these migratory movements are attempts for human realization and creative energies that peoples put in place in order to survive.

·        Again a renewal. (Edgar Morin, El Paradigma Perdido, 2005).

·        This is what happens now arising from everyday life. Perhaps the difficulty today is to face this problem from an economic and social perspective, but without soul.  Our concerns are around market problems, the wealth of some nations; our laws are not sufficient, our social actions are not sufficient…

 

So, I search a key to understand history. I find two aspects, one hermeneutical, and the other one historical evidence: nomadism and diversity, both connected.

 

TWO ALCHEMICAL ELEMENTS OF POSTMODERN HISTORY

 

·        In postmodern history: nomadism, spatial, social and intellectual mobility (Gilles Deleuze)…; interactive process which originates from an intercultural and inter religious direction. A history sustained by secret dreams of dignity and identity beyond ideologies or creeds.

·        Nomadism…a social, political, economical and existential phenomenon; new alternative and change of mentality of the classic human citizenship; historical efforts of psychological – social survivorship.

·        It is not only mobility but also enculturation, learning interactive processes and collective relationships; historical adventures interacting in shearing, competing and or collaborating, a real Diaspora, a dissemination which goes beyond borders and which engenders new possibilities, recovering energies to recreate a different kind of society.

·        Tension between being on the move and search of a domicile; possibility of having a space of your own of any culture creed or vision to build a family space where initiatives are cultivated, where existential creativity, affection, individual and social capacities, are taken care of; a movement of search; a subtle game of opportunities day after day so that life continues to be life.

·        Underlying migration there are other threads that can change it so we must learn to read again and write again our history with not only sociological information but also existential information.

·        It’s not only an issue of what to do with this massive movement, but ask who these contemporary nomads are. Moreover, here we find diversity and identity.

·        Struggle for survival is the starting point of a much more intense and profound search: re discovering of identities and de- colonizing a world built around paradigms of power conquest, mono culture and mono religion.  Our world has been built on parameters of imposition of paradigms.

·        This movement without control is challenging ethnicity, wisdom and the formation of the world.

·        The process is irreversible, directions can change but you cannot stop the progressive increase of conscience by individuals and groups.

·        What is to be seen is the process of recognition of identities.  We have to ask who the other is.

·        The old, and long ago rejected, question of the right to conques, asked by empires in history: “do they have soul?” is unfortunately a question today.

·        Unfortunately we do not any longer understand by “soul” the absolute right to be recognized as persons with creativity for a life.

·        Through fair laws, proposals for an alternative international law, reactivation of a more just economic system we will probably find the space for the other to live. This is not enough.  The problem is deeper and  the search for a different kind of humanity,  not only, economic and social matter is an issue today;  that is only the initial point for an alternative dream.

 

 

NOTES FOR THE FUTURE

 

 

·        From an ethical and theological perspective I offer ideas born from a constant contemplation of reality and from historical experience and as a migrant theology having learned about Diaspora and exodus of ideas and thoughts.

·        From these and other perspectives its normal for me to consider that this times of migrations and of immigrants, of nomads and sedentary people is in the path of biblical history.

·        Today’s historical rhythm is not only dictated by emperors, kings, leaders, priests of prophets but also by the exodus of human desire; a history full of invitations to exodus, invitations to peregrinations, a human action of searching for life.

·        Stories of searching; stories of searching for a place to have a city to live in (Psalm 107); exodus to be able to find water or simply asylum; exodus to be freed of the condition of slaves, and then return to oneself….existential return to owns identity and dignity.

·        It’s not a dream or only illusions of future visions, it’s a fundamental issue of today. This dream does not have as a goal a promised land but a city to live in.

·        That is why foreigners will claim to me ….(Ex.22,21-23; 23.9) says God. It is a cry for help, a cry to reach out for the helpless, and the people is asked to remember the same condition it once held…You know what it means to be a foreigner.

·        Foreigner in Hebrew ZAR, alien to the clan, but also GHERIM, foreigner inserted in the political and social structures of the country…

·        The law intends to take care of them (Nm 35, 14-15), but under precarious conditions.

·        However, the person who lives this situation cries to God and tries to get out of this fate of exiled, which becomes exclusion, poverty, to be left alone, and it also means lack of dignity.

·        Its like a condition of exploitation, of being left alone… of being  a foreigner.

·        Israel has this experience because it has been a foreigner many times and its dream is simply to go back, to return, and to turn back.  The biblical people were always in between this two coordinates, leaving and returning. To leave was its history of liberation, but returning was the joy of a party.

·        What does today mean to return? It’s not just returning to a land, it’s more than that. It is returning home, to a familiar way of living.

·        Returning home today does not mean returning to our own motherland, but rather to emigrate; emigrate today is de pedagogical road we would want to learn:  emigrate to a multi faced, interdisciplinary and trans disciplinary way of thinking; to learn that our life organizes and reorganizes itself constantly, just like all living beings do when they grow up; it is to discover the most secret dimensions which build history and to recreate a new one.

·        We cannot trust the solution only to political or legal art; neither to economy. It is not a matter of development because the myth that pushes a human being from inside out is not a quantifiable development. “Development ignores that which is not measurable, such as  life, suffering, happiness, love…its only measure of satisfaction is growth conceived only in qualitative terms; it ignores the qualities of existence, the qualities of solidarity, the qualities of the environment, the qualities of life: Of human worth which cannot be calculated; it ignores donation, magnanimity, honor, conscience” (Edgar Morin). From there, Morin concludes that it is a matter of creating a new point of departure.

·        Returning is the road of human beings towards themselves…home is our interior psyche, our wisdom, it’s the place where everything can start again and has its new beginning; its  freedom as a quality of being able to take initiatives in face of the world. The problem is how we can provoke, in this complex world, this kind of return home.

·        Today we are all called to emigrate. That is the challenge. We cannot just stop to look because we think nothing  can be done with laws; we must enter this road of human and historical nomadism; mobility of our internal life (ethical and psychological); mobility of thought; mobility of social and political structures.

·        One last question: What about religions? Where are the different Christian confessions? Honestly we do not know, we must sincerely say that we do not see them, or that we do not feel that present.  Maybe they are too concerned about the future…or by the latest statistics about long list of people absent, empty seats in churches; temples and monasteries which shall become museums; constitutional privileges at risk; social groups not very obedient.

·        Some are concerned by the mythical time of indigenous peoples coming back little by little, free as the wind, occupying today and discovering other features of the unknown mystery; others are concerned by civilization, which progresses, science and the autonomy of civil laws…

·        Why are religions still afraid?  Afraid of what?  This already happened in the past when because of fear they confronted each other…why religions are still worried about their power just like the old parties of oligarchic dictatorships nowadays democratic?  Why do they still want security when humanity walks in a slippery road in which to hold a foot does not mean to acquire certainties but rather precariousness and indecision?

·        Nomadism then, not only seen as a social phenomenon but also as a religious one, we are talking of mystical – politics, new form of mission by religions, a new religious universalism.

·        Within this nomadism religions will be able to free themselves of their own fears and also of their own powers.  If they would recognize that, faith would not longer be a power, or a deposit or a treasure in the hands of few, but a gift that they themselves would give to the world. Faith will play a role with the wisdom of men and women which act with creativity, thus restoring oxygen to religions.

·        Nostalgia and resistance. Fidelity and resistance. Life. Thirst for life. Nakedness of faith which shines in the nomadism of men and woman who do not wish anything else than life, living water as the Gospel of John says (Cf John 4, 21.23).

·        Consequently, religions also migrate when they accompany the hidden life of people. Religions also migrate with those, like the Samaritan, and get their prophetic voices back.

·        We ask religions, then, to have a new option: to chose once again, where to walk and look for the features of God; to religions we ask to recognize who the real actor are, and maintain them alive because the problem of migration is not just legal but also an anthropological and theological one, a vision of the other, a question about God.

·        To religions we would want to dedicate one of the images of the Apocalypses:  After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Ap 7,9)

·        This biblical text reminds us of another echo which accompanies the restless peregrination of humanity: “I will return and we’ll be millions…”. We almost forget who said that as a true intuition, it is thought to belong to many outstanding characters…to Spartacus when surrounded by Romans, to Tupac Katari facing the conquerors, to Bartolina Sisa, facing the Spaniards, and to millions of people in different continents… It’s a dream, physical and metaphysical, humane and divine still searching for history, migrating from here to there with human beings who, despite of all, continue to be searching for Him.

 

Thank you

 

 


[1] From the Greek  Póiesis, production.  Sometimes translated as creation or poetry, the same sway that poietés is translated as crator or poet.

[2] Dr. In Moral theology. Italian. Living in Bolivia the last 14 years. Professor of the Catholic University in Bolivia. Writer. Engaged with self determination of peoples, women, and for peace.