REFLECTION 23 AUGUST 2026 

WHEN NEIGHBOURS TURN INTO THE ENEMY 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

A Reflection on Xenophobia, Exodus 1:8–2:10 

“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” 

 A change of government. A new generation. A new Pharaoh. But with those few words, the world changes for the Israelites.  Joseph is forgotten.  The famine is forgotten.   The contribution of Joseph to Egypt is forgotten.  The story of how these foreigners came to live among the Egyptians is forgotten.  And when memory disappears, fear is given room to grow. 

The Israelites had originally come to Egypt as migrants escaping famine. They came looking for food, security and life. Because of Joseph, they were welcomed. They settled in the land, raised their children and grandchildren, worked, contributed, and became part of the landscape of Egypt. 

In the 1950’s to the 1970’s Pacific Island migrants were invited here to Aotearoa NZ as a cheap labour force to carry out the factory jobs that no one else wanted to do.  My mother came as a nurse in the early 1950’s although her nurses registration was not initially recognised here.  My dad came as a labourer a few years later.  They eventually met and married and had their six children of which I am number three.   

Many of you are familiar with Dawn Raids that happened in the 1970’s where people were awakened at early dawn by house raids by police dogs and policeman, many were deported.  Unfortunately, it was predominantly Pacific Islanders who were targeted in these dawn raids even though there were actually more British overstayers in New Zealand at the time, they targeted the Pacific.  As many of you know I was involved in the Dawn Raid apology giving the prayer of forgiveneness and reconciliation and I continue to be involved with Ministry of Pacific Peoples on the Steering Committee which continues to look at reparation and redress and remembering not to forget.  With every government “there is a new king in town” and history is often conveniently forgotten or deliberately ignored.   

The need for labourers is forgotten.  The Treaty of friendship between Samoan and Aotearoa NZ was forgotten, the fact that Pacific Islanders were not the only overstayers is completely ignored.  A blind eye is turned to Racism and New Zealand’s own system of Apartheid was allowed to happen right before our eyes.   

Generations pass.  And then comes a Pharaoh who does not know Joseph. 

Suddenly these neighbours are no longer neighbours. They are foreigners. 

They are outsiders. They are them. And that is where xenophobia begins. 

The word xenophobia comes from two Greek words: xenos, meaning stranger or foreigner, and phobos, meaning fear. At its heart, xenophobia is fear of the stranger. 

Pharaoh looks at the Israelites and says to his people.  “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.”  Then he imagines what they might do.  What if war comes?  What if they join our enemies?  What if they fight against us?  

All this fear mongering and yet the Israelites have done nothing.  There is no uprising.  There is no conspiracy.  There is no evidence that they are planning to overthrow Egypt.  Pharaoh’s fear mongering is based upon imagined possibilities.  

Across history, minority communities, migrants, refugees, indigenous peoples, religious minorities and ethnic communities have heard versions of Pharaoh’s words.  There are too many of them. 

Once that sentence takes hold, human beings cease to be seen as individuals with names, families, hopes and stories. They become a category.  A problem.  A statistic.  A threat. 

And then Pharaoh says:  “Come, let us deal shrewdly with them.” When Muldoon said that the Dawn Raids began.   

Oppression rarely introduces itself by saying, “We are going to be cruel.”  It calls itself sensible.  Necessary. Protective.  Responsible.  It speaks the language of national security. 

Pharaoh convinces Egypt that oppression is necessary for Egypt’s protection.  And so the Israelites are enslaved.  Their bodies become instruments of the Egyptian economy. They build cities. They make bricks. Their labour strengthens the very empire that fears them. 

Forced labour becomes slavery.  Slavery becomes reproductive control.  Reproductive control becomes murder.  Eventually Pharaoh summons two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah. 

Amazing how these women’s names are remembered.    Perhaps Scripture is quietly telling us something about where true power lies.  Pharaoh gives them an appalling instruction:  When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, if the child is a boy, kill him.  If it is a girl, let her live. 

The violence of xenophobia has now reached childbirth.   The state wants to enter the sacred space of childbirth and decide which children deserve to live.  The midwife whose vocation is to bring life safely into the world is commanded to become an agent of death.  But thankfully, Shiphrah and Puah refuse. 

These two midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.”  This may be one of the earliest biblical stories of civil disobedience: ordinary people refusing an unjust command because obedience to conscience and the protection of life matter more than obedience to power.  T 

When Pharaoh demands an explanation, they cleverly use his own prejudice against him. They tell him that Hebrew women are different from Egyptian women; they are so vigorous that they give birth before the midwives arrive. 

The most powerful man in Egypt is outwitted by two midwives.  Unfortunately, Pharaoh does not give up.  His private instruction becomes public policy:  “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile.”  Now everyone is being invited to participate.  That is another stage in the development of xenophobia.  First the leader identifies the enemy.  Then the government creates the policy. Eventually ordinary citizens are expected to participate.  And when hatred becomes normalised, terrible things become possible. 

Into this world a child is born.  Moses.   Pharaoh sees a Hebrew male child a threat.  Here is the twist in this story, Pharoah’s daughter goes down to the Nile River and finds a baby in  a basket and she,  “She took pity on him.”  That is the moment when Pharaoh’s entire xenophobic system begins to crumble.    Because Pharaoh’s daughter does something her father has forgotten how to do.  She sees a human being.  She knows he is a Hebrew child.  She knows what her father’s law demands.  But she sees him.  She hears him cry.  And compassion becomes stronger than ideology. 

Moses is then returned to his own mother to be nursed before eventually being raised in Pharaoh’s household. And so Pharaoh, who tried to eliminate Hebrew boys, ends up providing a home for the Hebrew boy who will one day confront him.  Such irony.   

Women are everywhere in this story.  Shiphrah. Puah. Moses’ mother. Moses’ sister Miriam.  Pharaoh’s daughter.  The powerful men create systems of death.  The women create networks of life.  They cross ethnic boundaries.  Hebrew women and an Egyptian woman become part of the same resistance. 

Xenophobia wants us to ask:  Who belongs here?  Who is taking too much?  Who is threatening us?  Who is really one of us?  But faith asks different questions:  Who is my neighbour?  Whose humanity am I failing to see?  Whose voice have I dismissed because they are different from me?  Who is being turned into a threat for somebody else’s political advantage? 

And where am I being called to stand on the side of life?   

The dividing line is therefore is between those who surrender to fear and those who choose humanity.  Between those who dehumanise and those who recognise the human face.  Between those who protect power and those who protect life. 

And that makes this story uncomfortable for every generation.  Because Pharaoh is not simply an ancient Egyptian ruler.  Pharaoh is a possibility within every society. 

Whenever politicians discover that fear of foreigners wins votes, there is Pharaoh.  Whenever newspapers portray migrants as invaders, there is Pharaoh.  Whenever people say, “There are too many of them,” there is Pharoah.  Whenever one ethnic or religious community is blamed for complicated social problems, there is Pharoah.  Whenever children become collateral damage in the pursuit of political power, there is Pharoah.  But thank God, Pharaoh is never the only voice.  Shiphrah is still here.  Puah is still here. 

We may not be able to dismantle every system of xenophobia by ourselves.  But we can refuse to participate in it.  We can challenge the language that turns neighbours into enemies.  We can remember histories that others would prefer us to forget.  We can listen to migrant and refugee communities rather than speaking about them. 

We can recognise fear when it is being deliberately manufactured.  We can refuse to believe that another person’s flourishing requires our diminishment.  And sometimes resistance may be as simple  and as courageous  as reaching into the water and lifting out the child whom everyone else has been told to fear. 

Whenever we choose compassion over suspicion, courage over prejudice, and solidarity over xenophobia, we join Shiphrah and Puah, Moses’ mother and sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter beside the river Nile. 

We choose life.  And perhaps God is still there among the reeds in every small act of courage,  every refusal to hate, every stranger welcomed, every child protected, and every human being who looks upon someone the world has called other  and says: You are not a threat. You are my neighbour.  You are one of us. Amen. 

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