Persecution Parallels
by Vince Rockston
Puzzle pieces fit together. Sometimes. As I researched my mother’s ancestry, I discovered some of her forefathers were Huguenots who fled from France to the British island of Jersey after King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. One of these was Pierre d’Allain, born in 1653 in the tiny village of Cerisy-la-Forêt, near Saint-Lô in Normandy. He settled in Jersey and raised a family, of which I am a tenth-generation descendant.
So: religious persecution by one branch of the Christian Church against another caused major migrations, of which I am a fruit. After studying in London and taking up a research position at CERN in Geneva, I married a Finn and raised my children in Switzerland.
New waves of asylum seekers began, often because of racial or religious discrimination, or ideological conflict. I volunteered as a carer and, over the years, have assisted more than a dozen such refugee families to find their feet in this beautiful, rich, but rather bureaucratic country. This involved everything from buying sports shoes to attending interrogations to verify the asylum seekers’ assertions.
With the father’s permission, I’d like to tell the story of one such family.
Basser’s story
Baseer, his wife and two children lived comfortably in Kabul, Afghanistan. They had work, a house, and a car. However, the resurgent Taliban targeted him, viewing him as a traitor because he had worked as an interpreter for US troops. The breaking point arrived when they shot his parents dead right before his eyes. It was time to escape.
‘Our flight through Iran, Turkey and Greece was physically and psychologically very difficult,’ Baseer writes. ‘We had great difficulty with our feet. Some of our toenails fell out. We also had to endure extreme cold and faced difficult situations in which we feared for our lives.’
The journey was to take three years. Three years! In Turkey, a third child was born. After a pushback across a border river – illegal under international law! – the family paid foreign truck drivers to smuggle them to Europe. Mother and baby daughter got through, reached Switzerland, and applied for asylum. Baseer and his two older children were not so lucky. They were again caught at the border and sent back. It took a further six months before the family could get together again.
After being shuffled from one asylum shelter to another, they arrived in my village. It was my task to help them settle in, introduce the children to the school, and organise German classes. After intensive interviews with each parent, the migration authorities granted them residence permits, in view of the persecution they faced back home. But that meant they had to look for a new apartment, which proved extremely difficult, as their financial support was very limited. What they finally found was far from comfortable.
But Baseer ends: ‘I have learnt German and reached level B2, passed my driving test and now have my own car. I have a job, and my children go to school. My family enjoys a new and secure life in Switzerland, for which we are very grateful.’ This successful outcome encourages me greatly.
My historical fiction
In my mind, such present-day examples of ideological persecution show parallels to the religious persecution of the seventeenth century.
My book Greet Suzon for me tells the story of a family from Normandy. Persecuted by Louis XIV’s dragoons, sixteen-year-old Gédéon finds himself responsible for leading the remaining members of his torn family to safety. On the dangerous journey, involving a shipwreck on a remote islet, Gédéon wrestles with profound questions of faith, justice, and the brokenness of the world. You can find more information about the book here, and purchase it from Amazon or your local bookshop.
Vince Rockston is a retired physicist, who has recently ventured into writing historical fiction, under the conviction that storytelling is the best way to communicate deep truths. A Christian believer since teenage, he has a deep desire to challenge today’s young people to reflect on the purpose of life and come to know their loving heavenly Father, who has revealed Himself in Jesus.