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The Jordanian ambassador to the United States of America, Dina Kawar, is in Utah right now. \u00a0She lectured yesterday afternoon at BYU, and my wife and I enjoyed a dinner with her last night, hosted by Elder Larry Lawrence<\/a> of the Seventy and his wife in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) across from Temple Square. \u00a0There were twelve of us in total, including a counselor in the Primary general presidency and her spouse, as well as\u00a0a security person.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It was an interesting evening, for various reasons. \u00a0General Conference begins tomorrow, and the JSMB was full of General Authorities and assembled\u00a0Area Authorities. \u00a0The various quorums of the Seventy, most of which meet together only occasionally, had dinners throughout the building. \u00a0We met several General Authorities whom I know. \u00a0(I regret that I won\u2019t be seeing my longtime\u00a0friend Elder Bruce Porter<\/a>; we were planning to get together during this conference season.) \u00a0The very first person whom\u00a0my wife and I met (and chatted with) as we entered the building was Elder Patrick Kearon, whose remarkable April 2016 General Conference address on the refugee problem<\/a> still stands out as one of my\u00a0great\u00a0lifetime Conference\u00a0moments. \u00a0(See this moving YouTube excerpt from it.<\/a>)\u00a0Another of those great moments was President Dieter F. Uchtdorf\u2019s emotional response to Elder Kearon\u2019s address, which you can see here<\/a>, beginning at 2:20.\u00a0 He is a German, not given to great displays of public emotion, and he was clearly struggling not to lose control as he conducted that session of Conference, but his reaction becomes comprehensible when we realize that, as a child, he himself was a refugee, caught up in\u00a0the destruction of World War Two, fleeing before the advance of the Soviet army, escaping Communist oppression in East Germany. \u00a0This is explained, briefly, in the same video, starting at 4:25<\/a> following the excerpt from Elder Kearon\u2019s speech and his response.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Ambassador Kawar \u2014 a Greek Orthodox Christian, by the way \u2014 has had a stellar diplomatic career, including twelve years as Jordan\u2019s ambassador to France (during which time she also served as her nation\u2019s nonresident ambassador to Portugal and to the Holy See, the Vatican). \u00a0Subsequently, she was appointed ambassador to the United Nations, at a point\u00a0when Jordan was slated to be among the non-permanent members of the Security Council; she became the first Arab woman to preside over that highest of UN bodies. \u00a0She became Jordan\u2019s chief diplomat in Washington DC during September 2016, and she now finds herself living on the same paparazzi-infested block\u00a0as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Jared and Ivanka Trump, and Barack and Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Anyway, talking with Elder Kearson was entirely appropriate, since the refugee crisis in the Middle East was a significant theme, also, of Ambassador Kawar\u2019s remarks at BYU yesterday afternoon and in our conversation over dinner last night.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n According to one account<\/a>\u00a0(from Amnesty International), ten countries (out of the world\u2019s 193 countries) are hosting about 56% of the world\u2019s refugees, although those ten countries account for only about 2.5% of the world economy.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some people \u2014 including a number of fierce critics of Islam \u2014 have pointed out with some justification that oil-rich Arab Muslim nations\u00a0such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia seem to be contributing relatively little assistance to refugees. \u00a0The anti-Muslims see this as yet another indictment against Islam.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As always, however, the truth isn\u2019t quite that neat. \u00a0Jordan, a Muslim state that\u00a0has taken in over 2.7 million people, was named\u00a0the top refugee-hosting country by Amnesty International. \u00a0Its own native population stands at roughly 6.5 million. \u00a0Precise numbers are a bit hard to come by, and definitions vary. \u00a0By any standard, though, the problem is a huge one, and Jordan is carrying a disproportionately heavy load. \u00a0As Ambassador Kawar put it, using slightly different figures, it\u2019s as if the population of Canada were to double \u2014 and then to flee, without any possessions, southward to the United States.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jordan is straining to cope with the influx. \u00a0Ninety percent of the refugees have moved into Jordanian cities. \u00a0Ten percent are in camps. \u00a0Elder and Sister Lawrence had just visited a Jordanian refugee camp two weeks ago; it had 100,000 residents. \u00a0(He is a physician, so he paid\u00a0close attention, naturally, to the health situation there.) \u00a0In Jordan, the second most arid nation on Earth, managing the problem of adequate drinking water alone is a major challenge. \u00a0Schools and teachers are running double shifts, with class sizes of 45-50. \u00a0United Nations studies indicate that refugees tend to remain displaced, on average, for an average of\u00a0seventeen years. \u00a0The Syrian civil war is about seven years old; that suggests, if the average holds in this case, that Jordan still has something like a decade to go in dealing with this crisis.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jordan, says Amnesty International, is followed by the overwhelmingly Muslim state of Turkey, with over 2.5 million refugees. \u00a0Then come almost-100%-Muslim Pakistan, with 1.6 million, and mostly-Muslim Lebanon, which hosts over 1.5 million people. \u00a0Other countries on the list include the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n By contrast, said Amnesty International,\u00a0the world\u2019s wealthiest countries \u201chost the fewest and do the least.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a link to the \u201cI Was a Stranger\u201d<\/a> campaign launched and coordinated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 The Jordanian ambassador to the United States of America, Dina Kawar, is in Utah right now. \u00a0She lectured yesterday afternoon at BYU, and my wife and I enjoyed a dinner with her last night, hosted by Elder Larry Lawrence of the Seventy and his wife in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n