An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dr. Balkenende

By Samuel  Lee

October 28, 2008

Dear Mr. Balkenende,

I am writing this letter to you in the hope that the undocumented migrants who reside in our beautiful country, the Netherlands, will be taken into serious account.

My name is Samuel Lee, a citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a Christian leader, a sociologist, and someone who stands for the rights of the margins of the society—the poor and oppressed. For the past 12 years, I have been working with the migrants in the Netherlands. I have been dealing with men and women from Ghana, Nigeria, the Philippines, and other migrants, which is quite a unique combination in and of itself.

During my work as a Christian leader, I came in contact with many of these men and women who live invisible lives under very rough and heartbreaking circumstances. According to the law, these men and women are so-called “illegal,” a term which I am not so willing to use.

These defenseless and hopeless people are often doing domestic work such as washing, ironing, cleaning, and babysitting for the middle class and upper class society in the Netherlands. They are being used as domestic workers without any recognition or any rights, and since they have no visa or document to stay in the Netherlands, they are vulnerable to all kinds of injustices and maltreatment from the environment in which they live.

They are invisible because the jurisdictional structures have defined them as “illegal” or “undocumented.” At the same time, they are indispensable because the citizens of the Netherlands and those that make the laws and rules need these immigrants to do the hard and rough work which they themselves have no time or are unwilling to do.

Our capital-oriented economy created a system that has caused both parents to work whereby less and less time is left for parents to have quality fellowship with their children and even with each other. Therefore, a labor force such as these “undocumented” migrants is being used in these households. These people are indispensable in the Dutch society for the necessary work they perform here.

These invisible people, the unrecognized citizens of the Netherlands, are working so hard that they have no time and energy to be the “criminals,” the law has defined them as – yet, in Amsterdam, we have often experienced unfair police campaigns arresting these innocent men and women in the streets, at the metro stations, in parks, or at parties. I have met many of these invisible men and women who have been rudely treated and psychologically threatened by police and other citizens so that now they do not even dare to come out for shopping, visiting friends, etc. They hardly dare to go to work because of the fear that if they come out of their so-called house (room) in order to go to work they will get in trouble. Some are being robbed in the streets by young men who now know that many foreigners may not have a resident permit, so they cannot have a bank account or any other services. These real-life criminals rob these men and women in the streets presuming that they have cash money with them. Or, they are often robbed at home where these immigrants live!

Often, I have heard from these immigrants that they live so much in fear that they compare themselves with Anne Frank. Once, a woman told me: “Reverend, Anne Frank is a reality today! We still have many Anne Franks in the Netherlands and in Europe,” she said. Some are so much in fear that they throw themselves under the metros or from balconies and die. I still remember a Ghanaian fellow who fell down from a balcony and died while he was trying to escape.

Honorable Prime Minister, why do you think these invisible people are living in the Netherlands? I strongly believe they are the result of an unjust and inhumane global trade, which is not a matter only for today, but a matter that started centuries ago, with colonization, slave trade, and slavery. The Western European nations, including the Netherlands, have drastically influenced the formation over past few hundred years of social, economical, and political developments in the world scenario. Centuries ago, not far from our current century, a group of Western European countries began to expand their territories by literally dividing the world among themselves, and beginning to colonize the nations, exploit their natural and human resources to the max, take slaves, and sell slaves in the name of God, Church, and Christianity. They justified their actions by their faith in God and strongly believed that they had the mandate to rule the world and take over regions and peoples for their own personal economic advantage. Today, if Europe has diamonds, it is because of Africa; today, if Europe has chocolate it is because of Africa! I want to remind you, honorable Prime Minister, that the Dutch who colonized so many parts of the world, were also immigrants. Nobody was waiting for them, nobody invited them in – yet these aggressive immigrants abused the local indigenous people, abused their resources, made them slaves, and sold them to others. This is more than criminality this is a crime against humanity!

I am sure many will tell me to stop telling these things and making a link to our modern-day situation. Many will tell me: “that is the past! We have to forgive and forget!” Forgive we can, forget we cannot! It is not as simple as forgetting the past and moving on. The socio-economic and political developments of the past have created an imbalanced world, a world of injustice, a world where the 20 percent who are rich and wealthy own 80 percent of the world’s resources, a world in which every seven seconds a child dies of malnutrition, a world where the majority of its citizens are living in poverty and only a small group enjoy the luxuries which have been built upon the blood and sweat of many so-called third-world countries. Today, the sons and daughters of the ex-slaves and ex-colonized people are coming to Europe.  They are here because they want to survive and it is their universal right to be here with us in the Netherlands. It is unjust that a certain Royal Dutch oil company – whose name I don’t even need to mention–is now pumping out the oil from the soil of Nigeria and leaving their inhabitants to their own destiny and leaving a polluted soil, a destroyed ecology, a messed-up social structure, and poverty as its only legacy. It is appropriate to be conscious in remembering that every time you and I are filling our cars with petrol  that this petrol comes from a developing nation, in our case from Nigeria. We love the Nigerian oil! We have no respect whatsoever for an innocent Nigerian who lives without becoming a resident in the Netherlands. We love the low labor rates in the Philippines and the decently working Filipina cleaning our houses but we have less respect for them when it comes to visas, permits, and documents.

Our so-called prominent multinational companies from the West, including from the Netherlands, illegally dump their old electronic gadgets in Ghana, polluting the rivers, the sea, and the land under the emblem of development aid, leaving the kids behind poisoned by the chemicals coming out of this old electronic junk.

An undocumented person is not a criminal, rather those who use Africa as a dustbin are the real criminals, not an undocumented Ghanaian who cleans hotels and cleans up bed sheets in order to send money back home for her kids to survive the poverty caused by the greed of the multinationals.

Is it not natural that people try to survive, to live, and to help their family members to live as well? That is why these innocent people are here!

Honorable Prime Minister, you represent a party which contains the name “Christian”! Therefore, I appeal to you as a Christian brother to make an end to this miserable situation by helping these invisible fellow human beings to openly be a part of this society by legalizing them. This is our Christian duty. God has His own statement about immigrants. He loves them. He cares for them and asks you to do the same. God’s desire for immigrants can be summarized in five major points from the Bible:

1. God has a special love for immigrants (Deut. 10:18).

2. Immigrants should not be oppressed (Exod. 22:21; 23:9, Lev. 19:33–34).

3. Immigrants should enjoy equal protection (Lev. 24:22; 25:35, Deut. 1:16–17; 24:17–21).

4. Immigrants should have the chance to share equal responsibilities (Exod. 20:8–10; Num. 15:14–16). 

5. God condemns nations whenever they oppress immigrants (Ps. 94:6, Ezek. 22:7, 29).

In Deuteronomy, God explicitly shows His love for immigrants, “Yet the Lord set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien (migrants), giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name” (Deut. 10:15–20). God spoke to the Israelites telling them not to be stiff-necked, and that they have to remember where they have come from—that they once had been immigrants in Egypt. God’s love of immigrants exists regardless of who the immigrants are, what they believe, or what ethnic background they come from. God loves immigrants, and He hears their hearts when they pray to Him.

Therefore I am appealing to you for the following:

1.That every undocumented immigrant may have access to insurance by paying for it themselves

2.That their children will not be denied education until they are “legalized”

3.That we stop arresting these immigrants and offer them a solution instead.

4.That you make the General Pardon be applicable to all, not just the Refugees.

Lastly, I have enclosed a book which I have recently published called: Blessed Migrants, which will give more insight into the Biblical theology of Immigrants and the role of Immigrants in the Kingdom of God as well as in the nations in which they are residing. The God of the Bible will eventually judge every nation which mistreats immigrants and does not offer them room to live and survive. I hope the Netherlands will not be among these nations!

Respectfully yours,

Rev. Dr. Samuel Lee

PS

sometimes my “add a comment” link does not work, in that case feel free to send me an email at samuel.slwe@mac.com