Are my refugee days over?
One of the themes of my childhood was loss. My family was the result of diaspora. A parent who is a refugee means ties to instability. Maybe the greatest stability in my early years was the expectation of death, the winking out of lights I never witnessed shining in person because war blocked my access to those loving arms, those shining eyes.
I hope my family's refugee days are over.
Videos flood my social media feeds of Syrians literally afloat or grounded but being abused by authority figures wherever they land. Their plight is one I am intimate with. Many of my family members were denied refugee status in the U.S. for the express reason of being from the hated Middle East. They were too brown and therefore suspect. So they stayed in a country where duck and cover is not practiced in schools, it is essential.
Bombs through the roof. Bombs through the windows. Goodbye friends and neighbors.
For Syrians, kicks in the gut. Splash back in the water. We don't care what you lost fleeing for your life. Your life has no value because you resemble people who did Very Bad Things. You share a language or a religion. So that means you are likely to do Very Bad Things. Unless we break you, destroy your family, deny your life.
Can't we do better?
Can't we hold each other up, scoot over, make room on the bench for the hungry and tired and those who are asking for hope?
My heart breaks with those families. I feel powerless, having lived it all before. I feel sad and afraid because the news is always the same: No, no, no. We are afraid of you because you were born into a mold that the media tells us is the worst. Therefore you deserve the worst.
I want to see love, hope, giving and beauty. Yes, it is happening, but the overriding sentiment is more along the lines of "Mine!" Even I am guilty, afraid to part with funds because my situation is tenuous. The empath's dilemma: But is my situation as tenuous? No? Then guilt.
I am perplexed by a world that is equally wonderful and monstrous. It seems like the monsters are winning (Brexit, Trump's presence in the American presidential race, Turkish civil liberty infringement, and on and on). And if Trump does win, will my family become refugees again? He thinks I should.
My suitcase is always packed. I continuously update my skills so that I can go.
I am never at rest, I never feel settled down, and I never like to invest in property because I never feel totally welcomed. I lost my full trust....
@steempowerwhale 🐳
🌞 upvoting your lifetime dreams!
<3 This is sad to read. Wishing you stability! Thank you for the upvote. :)
You are welcome. Same to you.
Tell you something good.... I will let Victor Frankl do so, he says it better than I ever could:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
What is to give light must endure burning.
I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.
(fyi: I have spent 33yrs in active war zones, 15 in 'ceasefire' status, only 2 in non-combative situations. I have been displaced several times.)
I very much believe in choice. <3 Well quoted.
syrians fleeing war arriving in Europe are generally welcome (with exception of a few nations which still don't take their share). there's a problem though: the vast majority of the "refugees" reaching Europe are NOT syrians and are mostly economic migrants from other middle eastern nations or Africa.
the numbers are just too high and unsustainable to welcome everyone, so it is important that we prioritize those who are genuinely fleeing war.
regarding the US I don't know what the situation is, but I know the other candidate Clinton is no better and has been supporting wars left right and center. the key is stopping these wars which are orchestrated by powerful interests.
and I know if you are legally in the US (accepted refugees are) Trump said repeatedly that you won't have to leave. so I see undertones of political propaganda in this article.
No propaganda undertones. Just genuine emotional conflict. I've been in it for so long, it's hard not to be frightened. I'm not in the EU, so maybe I'm just receiving bad intel.
Oh! I wanted to add that even if Trump says "well if you're a citizen you can stay," that doesn't mean he will stop inciting violence my family may need to flee from. That's what I was referencing--becoming a refugee fleeing from war or violence rather than exile.
It's usually a problem to be from the region that has many natural resources and not much military power to defend it. Also, Syria is situated to in the way of conquerors starting from Cyrus, then Alexander, Rome, Mohammad, Mongols then Ottomans. I am curious what your impression of Assad is. Is he a monster or is he a pussycat?
In general, my view has been monster.
We won't let them win. We can't let them win. It's that simple. The world is our village, and we must stick together. J.
Cheers.