Let's talk "integration"...so many perspectives!

I am participating in this year-long program, with Belgian and American (US) counterparts, and thus learning of each other's countries (US and Belgium) and their position on Migration, Immigration, and the many sub themes that come out of that. The program is hosted by CDS International and the King Baudouin Foundation, based in Brussels. There are approximately 42 of us, twelve US practitioners representing the cities of Atlanta, Denver and other Colorado cities, Detroit, and Seattle, while the 30 Belgian practitioners come primarily from Antwerp, Liege, and Brussels.

Ref: http://www.culturalcrossing.org/program/index.html

In this trip we will focus on Belgium's Common Basic Principles, a peek view of which we had in the days before making the trip over. It is my understanding now, as I write, that these make up a framework adopted by the Justice and Home Affairs Council (the European Commission) in Nov 19th, 2004, and these were there given the need for greater coordination of national integration policies and initiatives within the EU. These principles underline the importance of a holistic approach to integration. Ref: "A common framework for the integration of third country nationals", web site, European Commission > Justice and Home Affairs >...>Integration of Third Country Nationals, I) Latest Developments, The new impetus in The Hague Programme and the Common Basic Principles.

Before jumping into the reading and review of these principles, it is necessary to stop for a second and ask..."WHAT?!!!" Integration? Principles for countries to work toward, to have some sort of direction, and the 'north' of that is nothing but...integration? Wow! This is so novel, unheard of, advanced?, ...enlightened?, ...foolhardy? Are the EU-ropeans out of their rocker?

But, as I read further, the paragraph above the one I am quoting refers to "A new integration fund", and it reads: "...the Commission has proposed in 2005 to set up an Integration Fund within the new framework programme on Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows for the period 2007-2013... . The general objective of the Integration Fund will be to contribute to national efforts to provide a response to the multidimensional issue of integration of third-country nationals and to create a new form of solidarity in order to support the efforts of Member States in enabling third-country nationals of different cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds to settle and take actively part in all aspects of European societies. ...wow!...ehem...(swallow)...what?...ok, ok...ok!, let's read further...

So that there is even a fund provided to the EU States to assist them in settling all these strangers into their society? Wow!

Maybe this same model can be introduced in my own state in the US, Georgia, and I am thinking of an experience in Roswell, where once, long time ago, being one few Hispanics around Roswell (I think, for I did not see many...), as I was whispering to my wife in a movie house, before the movie had started, and while the ads were running, lights fully on, a voice behind me groaned "Why don't you speak English, and go back to wherever you came from?"

I do not have to suggest to you, the reader, that at that time, I would have welcomed some notion of these initiatives the EU is attempting to facilitate into its societies. To the person uttering such challenge, my persona must not have been "grata ". Obviously he did not know I had a passport, and that I was a citizen - by birth - and who paid taxes, served in the military (6 years, NG), etc., etc. That possibility did not matter to the person. I was just a heavy accent, non-southern (no 'traw - auck', no "Y'all" in the vocabulary he heard me speak), and maybe the sub cortex of his reptilian brain activated the site of all fears, the amygdala, where the response was 'don't-know-where-you-are-from-and-I-don't-care"...maybe... 'because-I-am-afraid-of-that-which-is-different'...so...'get-out-of-my vicinity' ...so that... I-do-not-have-to-wrestle-with-my-irrational-fears".

Imagine telling that person about "principles of integration"...Já! Or about Bishop Anthony Taylor's position on the human rights of immigrants as in "I was a stranger and you welcomed Me", his pastoral letter to the Diocese of Little Rock, AK. Or, the position of the United Nations, 60 years long on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Or General Assembly President (that is, the UN) Miguel D'Escoto's statement emphasizing that the world's 200 million migrants "must not only be protected...given every opportunity to integrate...(and) participate in the economic, social, and cultural lives of their adopted homes".

Of course, I didn't. Not at that time. Maybe now I am.

But I am also putting 'it' out there. This is all new for our psyche, for our individual and collective soul. The parable of the Good Samaritan was a nice story till now. Now, the "rubber meets the road": "love your neighbor"...proposes and has a new meaning.

Maybe the 'veil' will 'part', and we will 'see', and we will... 'well - come'.

Já!