This study examines the attitudes of the religious organizations' approach to the refugee crisis that began in 2015 and is still ongoing. Get to the point, that if the religion of the incoming refugees matters so that the religious organization can help them.
Personal Interest
Research Question
Literature Review
After his visit they ask O`Keefe if these Syrian refugees would like to turn to Syria after the end of the war and the result is; 'When I traveled to Jordan and Lebanon two years ago, all the refugees I met told me they want to return to Syria after everything is over, but those I met in Europe didn't quite feel the same way. According to estimated church sources, there are still more than 20,000 shelters in Germany, hosted by religious orders and parishes with the help of 10,000 Catholic volunteers. The church's 27 dioceses have paid out more than 300 million euros for refugee aid since 2014. (Luxmoore, 2017).
Outline of Thesis
Interviews are conducted in order to gain a better understanding of the topic through the experiences of the interviewees. The interview participants are presented in the background section in detail, but I would also like to provide brief information about them according to the interview agenda.
Interviews
The third part goes into more detail and questions are related to the role of the church towards refugees. I actually called four interviewees by phone and contacted two interviewees by email.
Analysis
We mutually agreed on a date and time, and with all six interviewees we decided to meet in their offices, which were either in the mosque, the church or in Kirkens Hus (Kirkens Hus). While conducting the interviews, I introduced myself to the interviewees by telling about my background, what and where I studied and asked a few simple questions about where they came from or what they have studied.
Rationale of interviewees choice
Where in Rabita mosque it was the same issue and I have an interview with chairman (chairman) instead of the imam. This national and general perspective contributed to broaden the scope of the thesis and brought an added value to the local perspective shared by the other interviews.
Limitations
Hopefully, with their help and their connections, I eventually managed to find all six interviewees and interview them. The third limitation I faced was that one of the interviewees wanted to speak in Norwegian and answer the questions, which afterwards took a lot of time to transcribe and translate from Norwegian to English.
Ethical Considerations
Where three of these jobs are the position of ministers working in the Tonsen church. To see the Imam's point of view will be to look at the answers of Imam Shahid's interview in the Ahmadiyya mosque.
Why this job?
It puts more emphasis on things like saying that, "here at the ICC mosque things are not perfect and the image outside in the market for Muslims is not good, so someone had to do something" and that is one of the main reasons why he ran and choose this job. As time went on, Øyvind said that he never really decided what to do and that he was going to be a teacher or something, and maybe go into business.
Ordinary week in the Church & Mosque
The biggest stay here in the church is on Wednesdays, which they call 'open church'. At the end of this chapter, Arshad will talk about a typical week at the ICC Mosque.
Tonsen Church
The number of members they have, when the church or mosque was built. Finally, in this part of the chapter we will see if there are refugee families who visit the church or mosque and if they seek help from religious organizations. A little story he came across with a refugee family who came and asked for help from the church;.
Islamic Cultural Centre Norway (ICC Mosque)
For Arshad and his children he says that it is a Norwegian mosque and therefore the official language in the mosque is also Norwegian. The administration is more or less 80%, 90% Pakistani based, but in the younger generation we have a different ethnicity. In the youth organization there are for example different ethnicities which are; Somalis, Bosnians, Turks and etc.
Ahmadiyya Mosque
Physically in the mosque we have a table tennis and a PlayStation that young people get together once a month and just have fun in the mosque. He says that last time this activity happened, we cleaned six different places in the country, he also adds that the Ahmadi people around the world start the year with cleaning. There are refugees who visit the mosque from time to time and ask for things to participate in the events and come to talk to us.
Rabita Mosque (Det Islamske Forbund)
While talking to Basim about some of the ongoing activities towards the people of Rabita Mosque, he listed the following activities to us. E.g; Basim says that in the previous weeks, when we interviewed, there was a demonstration for Syria. They asked for people as support to be in the demonstration not for money.
Sinsen Church
Kjersti and the lady thought and agreed that it was better to do it in the Refstad transit mottak than to do it in the church, and they just did it there. Second, the church had a Norwegian language course taught by a woman in the church and three to four women participated in the Norwegian language course. In the transit mottak, Kjersti briefly explains the ongoing activities in the church and the activities that were undertaken towards the refugees within the church and outside the church.
Tanum Church
While we were talking about the role of the religious organizations in the refugee crisis, during the. From the church part, I did interview two ministers who were Øyvind and Kjersti who did talk about the role and approach of their congregations and I did an interview with Sigrid who did talk nationally about the role and approach of Den Norske Kirke ( Church of Norway). When we got to the mosque part, I interviewed two chairmen (board leader) who were Arshad and Basim who talked about the role and approach of their organizations the mosque from a chairman (board leader) perspective and finally, I interviewed Shahid who did speak from the Imam's perspective about the role and approach of the mosque in which he worked.
Activities and Support for Refugees
Activities
Furthermore, when we continued talking about the activities and events made in the ICC mosque towards the refugees, Arshad continues by adding points from the past. When they arrived at the center, they met the refugees and all those refugee children who spend time in the center. Further to the question about the events that the church did towards the refugees, Kjersti adds that there was our language course that the church did this directly towards the refugees.
Charity
Arshad answered my question here when I asked him what kind of charity was done in the mosque towards the refugees. Øyving states that, on the spontaneous side, we see a lot of charity that takes place in the church. There was also an inquiry from the workers in the center whether the church could help them come to play football.
Involving the members
The last incident with the refugee families was that me and my wife were invited to one of the family's houses. After speaking with members at the mosque, she learned that several members of the mosque had invited refugee families to their homes for dinner. Whether the mosque and the mosque members organized any event that facilitated the refugees' adjustment period, his answer was, to be quite honest, no.
Perception of Civic Duty, Obstacles and Motivation
Opinions
Due to language barriers and not knowing the procedures and the city, they asked for help and I tried my best to help them. If the mosque and the members of the mosque were making some kind of case that made the adjustment period of the refugees easier, his answer was, to be quite honest no. he also said he doesn't know why not. At the same time, most refugees and immigrants themselves are believers of some kind of religion.
Motivation
He then went on to talk about the ongoing things in the mosque with people motivating and encouraging each other. This was one of our topics that we talked about in the board meetings and there was a kind of campaign, says Basimi. When we come to the motivation Shahid says that the mosque is the house of God and people also believe in God and God shows us the importance of humanity, that's why I am encouraged and motivated to do good things to the refugees.
Obstacles
When we continue further, we will see one of the reasons why Nes municipality rejected this offer. As the second obstacle, I want to talk about the part of the interview I had with the ICC mosque. The headline of the news was 'Oslo mosque refused asylum accommodation (Oslo mosque refused asylum accommodation)' The news was about the formal request that the ICC mosque is temporarily available for accommodation of refugees.
Strategy and Priorities
Cooperation
Imam Hamid was also invited to another city on the west coast of the country to speak to refugee children in one of the refugee homes. One of the collaborative charity events I found during the interviews was a charity fundraiser that NRK was doing. One of the cases happened in a municipality where they had some difficulties with a refugee family, says Basimi.
Sensitivity
In the sensitivity question, the question I asked the interviewees was, when the refugee families have children, do you do anything special so as not to make the children and parents not feel different or discriminated against the local population. Two more issues that are taking place in the Sinsen church with the sensitivity issue is that there is an immigrant Romanian girl in the church that the churches have helped her a lot this year when she first started. Where Sigrid adds that it costs money to join the choir, but there is always someone who doesn't, and that's okay with us.
Religious Background: A Matter of Issue
In the first way, the volunteers will become aware of the crisis and take actions to help combat the crises. The cooperation of religious organizations could be the next step by helping them. Is the religion of the refugee important, so that you as a minister or the church can help the refugees?
In a strong welfare system like in Norway, the involvement of the religious organizations in the migration crisis matters. Make the religion of the refugee matter so that you as the imam or the mosque can help the refugees.
