The theme of this year’s Refugee Week (19-25 June) is ‘compassion’ – to ‘celebrate what compassion looks like in action’.
A question of humanity
Compassion is derived from the Latin com (with) and pati (to suffer) – ‘to suffer with’. It’s a feeling, of distress or discomfort at the suffering of another. But it is more than pity, sympathy or empathy; it is a driver for action to reduce the suffering.
Compassion requires connecting with the person suffering, identifying with them, and taking action to alleviate their suffering. The pain experienced on seeing another human being (or animal) suffer and the desire to respond is innate but the extent to which compassion is triggered or the quality of response can be learned or suppressed. Most religions – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, have compassion as a core practice for adherents. They teach followers to look out for those suffering and to respond as best they can.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans, while recognising its potency, were more sceptical of compassion’s merits. As its trigger, pity, arose from instinct rather than through rational thought, it was understood as a weakness to be resisted. Compassion risked undermining personal and collective power and had no place in justice or policy making. This fear of compassion as a weakness or its potentially ‘de-masculinising’ effect permeated child development in Ancient Rome and Greece but particularly in Sparta where both boys and girls were trained to suffer and to cause suffering without an emotional response. The modern equivalent is the Bullingdon Club initiation ceremony of burning a £50 note in the face of a homeless person.
Compassion does not occur without pity, though altruism might, and pity can still result in indifference or even cruelty, as the Bullingdon club antics show. People can become more compassionate through practicing or become less compassionate, perhaps when the need for compassion feels too overwhelming, by avoiding situations that will trigger pity, turning the television news off, for example during disasters.
The erosion of compassion
It is very rare for people to be totally lacking in compassion although it may only be very narrowly applied; even Hitler was compassionate towards animals and introduced stringent laws to protect them, but our capacity is variable and can be dependent on the circumstances in which it is called for.
In September 2015 the photo of two-year old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi lying dead, face down in the outgoing Mediterranean tide was met with compassion across Europe. Yet, only eight years later, children such as Alan risk detention and deportation to Rwanda should they arrive on the UK’s shores – if the illegal immigration bill is allowed to pass. (The home secretary has said unaccompanied children will not be detained and deported but has made no provision to exclude them from the legislation, and has said children will be deported when part of a family group).
What happened in those eight short years to so radically shrink our compassion as a nation? The number of those seeking asylum has more than doubled from 32,733 in 2015 to 74,521 at the end of 2022 and, in addition, there have been over 150,000 Ukrainians that have come to the UK. The government’s capacity to manage the situation has reduced considerably with the backlog of asylum decisions having risen five-fold from 26,409 to over 160,000 today. There is no doubt that the country is struggling to be compassionate – to give effect to its pity.
The terms ‘compassion fatigue’ (a condition marked by a temporary exhaustion of empathy) or ‘compassion fade’ (when large numbers of people suffering impair our ability to identify it) are sometimes cited as reasons for our, seeming, indifference. Research in health care indicates that compassion fatigue is not a product of too much caring but a product of organisational practices that fail to value compassion sufficiently and so the weight of compassion rests solely with face-to-face professionals. To remain compassionate workers and volunteers need others to be compassionate towards them and to work in an environment in which compassion is valued.
Why would a government delegitimise compassion?
But something else is also at play with respect to refugees. The turn against compassion began at a time when asylum numbers were historically low and accelerated as we emerged from Covid when the numbers were particularly low. Even two years ago asylum seekers arriving by boat were pitied for their circumstances, and the journeys they had to undertake to get here. There was then no question that they were deserving of compassion as human beings and the blame for their predicament was placed on people traffickers or smugglers who were exploiting them.
In the intervening period, refugees have been re-designated as ‘terrorists’, ‘illegals’, ‘rapists’ and ‘threats’, or people who are intent on destroying the British way of life. Even when Rwanda was first mooted, the government argued that it was a compassionate solution, as those fleeing violence deserved. Now, it is merely a means of disposing of ‘illegal immigrants’.
Not only has the government ceased to understand compassion as merit worthy, but it has delegitimised it as supporting illegality, politically motivated or contrary to the ‘will of the people’. This deliberate attempt to dehumanise refugees and so negate any humanity shown towards them was a tactic used in Australia when implementing the policies on which recent UK legislation is based. The Australia defence ministry was explicit in its directions that no ‘personalising or humanising images’ were to be allowed when discussing refugees in boats. The government fears that if refugees continue to be understood as human beings, the proposed cruelties may not pass into law.
Imagine then, being a Home Office ‘decision maker’ being tasked with drawing conclusions about asylum claims on just a few weeks training with almost no preparation for, or support after, interviews and file reading that enumerate beatings, rape and death seen or experienced by the asylum seeker. About a third of decision makers leave each year and few last longer than two years. Despite doubling the staff, the rate of decision making has reduced to 10.2% of applications within twelve months. When compassion is delegitimised by an employer and targets are set to disallow it, the strain of managing the psychological conflict sits with the employee.
The renewal of civilised values
Compassion on a national scale – understanding the suffering in society and, collectively alleviating it – is a characteristic of a mature democracy. The weight of society’s compassion is not left solely to the individuals prepared to exercise it. Because individual compassion is so hard to maintain, religions, governments and the international community have all attempted to institutionalise it and codify it.
The Bible commands us to “love thy neighbour” in case there are some who might not. Nations have developed collective responsibility in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and in local and national government elections electors choose that all of us will be inconvenienced to a degree to ensure those who deserve our compassion receive it. Refugee Week is a time to renew a commitment to and exercise greater compassion and urge those in power to do likewise.
