Who Is My Neighbour?

According to a recent UNHCR survey, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon now exceeds 568,000 and is likely to reach one million by the end of the year. Lebanon’s own internal affairs just about hold together and it is only comparatively recently that its people have begun to experience something like what we would think of as normal life. The Lebanese are by nature hospitable, hospitality being integral to Arab culture in the widest sense, so it is very much part of their own day to day life. For this reason, Syrian refugees are seen to be brothers and sisters in need. They are to be treated as guests. But this prevailing spirit of kindness comes at great cost. It could lead to a massive demographic and sectarian imbalance sufficiently volatile to ignite yet another war in Lebanon, a war in which all would ultimately be losers.

Interdependence and risk are built in to neighbourliness, so what goes on next door sooner or later becomes our problem. We will be drawn into it through the ordinary day to day encounters and exchanges which make us part of that neighbourhood.  Through these exchanges, we are involved in each other’s lives. Neighbourhoods are therefore mini societies composed of people who take responsibility for each other and for the overall good of that particular community.

Lebanon is a neighbourhood whose members are doing all they can for the people next door. Lebanon is therefore our responsibility because, as a nation, it is our neighbour and what happens there concerns us every bit as much as whatever is being experienced, for better or worse, by those who live on our street or down our lane. In the wider neighbourhood of the world, the people down are lane are the Lebanese, Syrian, Sunni, Shiite, Druze, Hezbollah and Palestinian, with whom, if we met them in our shop or supermarket, we might exchange a few words or share a joke or confidence.  I do not think it is possible for any person of faith to pray for peace in a vacuum. So if we are to pray for Lebanon, we need to see in our heart’s mind, the faces of the people caught up in the tragedy of Syria and in what could easily become a tragedy for its neighbour. We need to see their faces and hear their voices. 

We could practise this, as a kind of preliminary exercise, by first holding our immediate neighbours here at home in this ‘heart-mind’ place, seeing their faces and hearing their voices, remembering their kindness, the funny moments we have had in passing – the teasing and joking that is safe because of the trust which underpins the friendship. Then we might imagine how, together with them, we would deal with the kind of situation which many Lebanese people of good will are facing at the moment, the overcrowding, the strain on infrastructure and resources, especially with regard to the needs of the most vulnerable. Fifty per cent of Syrian refugees, including those in camps hosted by Syria’s other neighbour, Jordan, are children.

The basic love and trust that exists between neighbours makes the mercy of God, and his righteousness, visible in the world. All people of faith are called to be channels of that mercy, directing it to the people of Lebanon and to the Syrian refugees within their borders, willing them to experience it and to know his peace.