Castles Built on Greed, Not Grace

I want to reflect on the beautiful communities I've worked with in the refugee space during this Refugee Week. These are communities of vibrant colours, of life, of laughter, of joy. Of love, of food, of music, of embrace. 

They are people full of pride for where they come from. Carriers of stories of aunties, of sons, of childhood friends and old recipes, of strength passed down. They give, rather than take. They show up.

They have endured profound displacement and unimaginable hardship.  Still, they move through the world with grace. With dignity. With resilience. With patience. With humility.

Grace in the face of systems that deny, demean, and strategically delay. Grace in the face of suspicion, rejection, bureaucratic cruelty, and systemic discrimination. And still, they show up with grace. So much grace, in fact, that it almost makes me forget how much there is to be angry about.

Angry at the comments I read online. At the headlines. At the dinner-table conversations that reduce whole cultures to burdens, threats, statistics. That ask, “But what do they contribute?” as if humanity has ever needed to be earned. 

But more than anger, I feel sadness. 

Sadness for those who are blind, not because they’re shielded, but because they’ve denied. Denied themselves access to the brilliance, the warmth, the joy. To the laughter that survives even after war. To the family recipes cooked on one gas hob in a shared small studio flat. To the music, the prayer, the language, the colour, the invitation. The welcome, offered even to those who are unfamiliar, afraid, or ignorant. 

These communities open their arms wide. And I feel grief that so many people will never experience that kind of love.

Those that refuse this gift of human connection.

Those that won’t see that this isn’t about “taking”, that it’s about survival.  No mother risks the open sea, the desert, the border fences, unless staying is more dangerous than fleeing. No parent carries their child through the night unless every other option has already been stripped away. 

This is rarely a choice. It is a consequence. And often, the forces behind that consequence are the very systems that now slam their doors. 

It's tragic. It's deeply ironic. And it’s callously and deliberately overlooked. 

Instead, the narrative we feed is one of poison;  hostility, fear, division. We accept cruelty in our name, for our comfort, in service of borders we didn’t draw and rights we didn’t earn. 

For what? 

I feel lucky, privileged, even, to have witnessed what I have. To have shared moments of tenderness, generosity, laughter. To be welcomed into cultures so vibrant, so resilient, so generous with what little they have. To be fed a six-course meal with strangers in their home, who are doing so to express their gratitude for the support I had provided their son in my paid job.  

It is a gift to be held in that kind of humanity. And I wish more people could experience it too. 

Because until you’ve stood in the presence of someone who has lost everything but still offers you a meal, a smile, a blessing; it’s hard to grasp the depth of what’s at stake. 

We live in a world of extreme contrasts. Sometimes, they feel unbearable. 

So I carry them with me. These quiet comparisons. These silent reckonings. 

I think of them in moments that seem ordinary, and realise just how extraordinary my life is, simply because it is safe. 

When I’m pulling weeds from my garden, 

 a child in Rafah is digging through rubble with bare hands- searching for her brother’s body. 

When I’m unpacking groceries from the boot of my car,  a woman in Gaza is rationing one stale piece of bread between five children. 

When I’m stretching after a long walk,  

a man in Sudan is dragging his mother through the dust, trying to reach a medical tent before sundown. 

When I’m sitting in traffic, watching the rain,  

a teenager in eastern Congo is praying her house hasn’t been torched by soldiers again. 

When I’m setting the table for dinner,  

a girl in Yemen is carrying a sack of flour alone across the hills, because her father didn’t come back. 

When I’m scrolling past headlines, another apartment block in Ukraine is reduced to dust. 

When I’m sitting at the table, sipping tea,  

a family in northern Syria is rationing bread, not sure when the next delivery will come. 

When I’m unpacking my groceries, a mother in Gaza is wrapping her child’s body in a scarf torn from the rubble. 

When I’m folding clean laundry,  a boy in a Greek refugee camp is still wearing the same shirt from the day he crossed the sea. 

When I’m boiling pasta on the stove,  a mother in Rafah is boiling weeds, because there’s nothing else left to feed her children. 

And still , we choose hatred.  We choose division.  We feed a narrative built on fear, on ignorance, on othering. For what? 

We have comfort.  We have luxuries.  We have rights, the kind others are still dying for. So why do we resist sharing them?  Why do we hoard dignity like it’s scarce?  Why do we gatekeep safety like it’s something we earned, and others haven’t? 

All because of a postcode lottery.  Because we were born on one side of a line,  and they on another. 

While many sit in their castles of comfort,  others are still trying to make up time. Time lost to systems rigged against them,  to histories rewritten by those same castles,  to disadvantages imposed not by failure, but by force. 

Castles built on greed, not grace.