Who would want to be refugee?
“No one willingly become an asylum seeker.” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi
The definition of the refugee is made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly on December 14 1950, as follows: Refugee is “someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so.”.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s 30-point declaration, after several amendments, adopted in the 183th session of the UN General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948, defines right of asylum as follows: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (Article 14/1)”. Mass asylum occurs in times of civil wars, conflicts, intense pressures and major disasters. Individual asylum is mostly for political reasons. Sometimes foreign embassies, warships and planes protect those who seek asylum. [1]
In my opinion, we can consider the refugee concept in two groups. One, those who become refugee willingly, two, those who were wrongfully and unwillingly forced to become refugees. In the first group of refugees, people or communities are forced to leave their homes as a result of their own unjust and unlawful acts and actions. This group of refugees are those who escape from the punishment they deserve and do not want to suffer the consequences of the crimes they commited. The second group of refugees are those who are excluded from their country as a result of the treatment they do not deserve, forced to flee their homeland by leaving their dreams, hopes and loved ones behind. This group of immigrants always have a hope and live with the dream of a day when they see justice done and return to their homeland. Those people and hope are like inseparable pairs. This hope is their force to endure injustice they have suffered.
Did you know that many famous names are also refugees? Albert Einstein, who escaped Hitler’s persecution, took refuge in the United States from Germany. Sergey Brin, one of google co-founders, fled from the Soviet Union and took refuge in the United States. Madeleine Korbel Albright, the first female foreign minister of the United States is also refugee. She fled from Czechoslovakia to the United States. Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, fled from Austria and took refuge in the UK, and Austrian writer Stefan Zweig took refuge in Brazil after going to several countries.[2] Turkey’s national anthem composer, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, was forced to spend the last 11 years of his life -except a few months before his death- in Egypt.[3]
I would like to share some information to explain the concepts a little more for a better understanding the subject. Even though the word refugee consists of 7 letters, it contains thousands of emotions in it. Sometimes it expresses the pain of a mother, sometimes a father’s feeling helpless, sometimes social exclusion of a child, and often hunger, misery and fear. Being a refugee means leaving and being able to leave relatives, friends, memories, culture, history, favorite things, books, and most importantly, dreams and goals behind. Refugeeism is to leave behind the business, the home that has been built with a thousand dreams and difficulties. The refugee is the one who is fleeing from the persecution, war, political oppression or social turmoil that he/she is in, getting on boats with a new hope and excitement, crossing the borders for days, humiliated and despised on this path if neccessary. The refugee is the one who reluctantly agrees to share a tiny ward with dozens of people. Refugeeism is the name of being illiterate and ignorant in the eye of society, despite you are a knowledgeable person. Refugee is the name of being like a child without any literary knowledge despite you read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, George Orwell, Stefan Zweig, Jack London, and Cemil Meric before. It’s like having to show what you want with a finger like a baby. It’s like learning his/her own name again. It is to have great difficulty in showing and teaching your children your own culture, religion and customs.
According to the figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in April 2019, there are more than 70 million refugees in the world.[4] This figure is even above the population of France. While some of these refugees had to translocate within their own countries, a large number of them had to migrate to different countries. As Filippo Grandi said, “This equates to one person becoming displaced every 3 seconds — less than the time it takes to read this sentence.” At least 50% of immigrants are consist of children under the age of 18. Having an unplanned baby make things more difficult and cause misery, which is also a vicious cycle.
Turkey is the country that host the most refugees in the world. According to 2019 figures, approximately 3.9 million refugees are housed in Turkey. The ranking continues with Pakistan, Uganda, Germany, Lebanon, Iran, Bangladesh and Sudan. In Europe, Turkey is followed by Germany by accepting refugees for more than 1 million 410 thousand, respectively. Germany is the country with the highest number of refugees among EU countries. Germany is followed by France (402 thousand refugees), Italy (355 thousand), Sweden (328 thousand), Austria (173 thousand) and Greece (83 thousand), respectively.[5] The number of people drowned in the Mediterranean between 2014–2015 is 15826.[6] When the diseases and deaths in different geographies are added to this number, a terrible figure emerges. Such a number is almost impossible to determine. People leave their homes and countries not only because of wars but also because of famine and political authorities. The fact that more than 3 million Venezuelan refugees forced to leave their country is also an example of this area.
As can be understood from the statistics I have given above, the majority of refugees have taken refuge in developing countries, not in developed countries. This situation is a separate cause of misery for refugees. These countries, which cannot offer the opportunities offered by developed countries, is a problem for both for their citizens and for refugees. There are two reasons why refugees reach high rates in developing countries. It is either geographical proximity to these countries or that pressure of developed countries by promising to offer financial opportunities and conveniences to these countries. We can see clearly that as in the examples of relationships between Turkey-Germany and Italy-Libya.[7] As a result of these agreements, refugee boats can be kept at sea for weeks, The internal turmoil in Libya, on the other hand, causes much bigger problems for the refugees who are sent back. People crossing the border over the Maritza river are unofficially extradited to Turkey by Greek authorities. Turkey’s economic hardship puts refugees into more trouble.
Also, if we consider the issue in terms of human traffickers, we can understand how difficult the situation is. For example, asylum seekers fleeing war, conflict and poverty try to reach Europe on three different routes: the Western Mediterranean, the Central Mediterranean, and the Eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to Greece and Bulgaria. Asylum seekers in North African countries try to cross to Italy from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya by sea, and to Italy and Spain from Morocco.[8] On all of these routes, it’s almost impossible to move without resorting to human traffickers. In this adventure, in which a few thousand euros per person is paid, it is very common to drown, to be defrauded, to stay at sea or on an island for days, to go up in smoke, to lose their child-wife-mother-father into raging seas or diseases. Other problems waiting for the refugees are: crowding into a boat for 10–12 people with 30–35 people with the hope of recovery, or trying to walk for days in hunger and misery, piling into a truck’s chassis or a van in which it is hard to breathe, Staying in a filth in Greece camps where there is no light, where even the insect can’t survive because of the lack of air. Starving for days in Hungarian camps surrounded by the barbed wire fences is another problem waiting for refugees.[9] Another problem may find you as soon as you think everything is ok! You are glad that you have come to one of the safest countries in Europe, but before you know where you are, your victimization and your fears have not been considered sufficient. Like who? Like Norway sent the Abbasid Family back to Afghanistan despite all the protests and criticism.[10] In short, do not be stateless once, after you are stateless, you will lose sleep over so many things! If asylum is seeked in a country where the law is not fully functioning and the informal economy reaches high rates, it means that the problem continues even if it is reduced. Because first of all, you will be employed under the counter without insurance and under difficult conditions, after then, you can get your money, which is your labor income, neither ontime nor in full. The worst thing is that you cannot complain or make a sound about these bad practices. Actually, you want to make a sound, but neither your language nor your courage is enough.
The citizens and the management of the country of asylum, whether aware or not, are also party to these problems. Many societies have been refugees, asylum seekers and victims throughout history. The fact that societies living a comfortable life today, not experienced this type of suffering in the past, does not mean that they will not suffer in the future. Today, for example, Hungarians are seen as having a great prejudice on asylum seekers, but in 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, about 200,000 Hungarians had to seek refuge in neighbouring Austria. Meanwhile, in September 2015, the trip by Hungarian cameraman Petra Laszlo to a Syrian refugee on the Hungarian-Serbian border is still a wound in the heart of humanity.[11] In fact, the situation in Europe during the Hitler era can be given as the greatest example. When the dusty pages of history were glanced over a little bit, it can be seen that every society from time to time was suffering from wars, dictatorial leaders or great famine. Today it is our duty to take lessons from history and be with the victim, the languisher and the oppressed and to take him/her under our wing. It should be our duty to benefit not only a society, but a whole humanity, not by hunting flies over the swamp, but by trying hard to dry the swamp. By using the power of international sanctions, by being a union, we must always be against the war, dictatorship and exploitation. Leaving aside the indifference, we need to make a principle of that “it burns me no matter where the ember falls” not “an ember burns where it falls” in our lives.
I think it would be helpful to look at the issue from the following point of view. Given the countries that refugees come from, the reason for the problems in the countries can be better understood. When we look at countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia, Yemen, Burundi, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Venezuela, where citizens have become refugees, we see three things. Either underground wealth like oil and gold, either dictators, fascist rulers, or we see the policies of big states who want to protect their interests through ethnic differences. There are many losers in the geographies where these situations occur, and the winner is only arms, shrouds, drug manufacturers and human traffickers. Those actual responsibles often wander among us with their stylish clothes, the high positions they occupy and their luxurious lives as if nothing had happened. They can smile artificially whenever possible, as if they did not cause a baby to suffocate in Maritza river, had no effect on the disappearance of an entire family as a result of a bomb hit in Syria, or did not contributed to the disintegration of a family in Venezuela.
A matter that cannot be ignored is that at least half of the refugees are children, that is, under the age of 18.[12] It’s vital to throw everything to wind and do something for these children. After all, we can’t prejudice these children who have no chance of choosing their family and their homeland, their nationality. Almost every child whose life you cannot shape today will soon fall into the hands of an abuser or will have trouble with the society.
Another point that stands out is public attitudes towards refugees in most countries.[13] The opposition towards refugees who are under protection with the the rights and obligations determined by the constitution and the law determined by the state of which they are citizens of, shows that individuals do not trust their own laws or their administrators in the first place. It is already quite difficult to find administrations that oppose their own citizens and give refugees rights. Battering and cornering governments over refugees who are vulnerable and not know beans about legal rights is the most common situation in almost every society.
Please don’t look at refugees as people who come to occupy your country! They want to live in a house, live to see their children grow up and get married, turn an honest penny and pay taxes, like you. In any case, if we are going to find fault, let’s find faults and causes in poverty, in ignorance, in the wars, in dictatorial and fascist rules. Refugees are not monsters, refugees are victims, oppressed!
This article is dedicated to all the oppressed who have lost their lives and tried to regain their lives in Maritza river and the Mediterranean while escaping from persecution-war. I recommend watching “Kefernahum” for a better understanding of the subject. Please watch! You will not regret it!
https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BClteci
https://ab-ilan.com/dunyayi-degistiren-5-multeci/
https://www.tyb.org.tr/mehmed-akif-misira-neden-gitmisti-24623h.htm
https://tr.euronews.com/2018/06/29/avrupa-da-en-cok-siginmaci-kabul-eden-ulkeler-hangileri-
https://multeciler.org.tr/son-yillarda-akdenizde-olen-gocmen-sayisi/
https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-48076782
https://amnesty.no/aksjon/stans-tvangsutsendelsen-av-taibeh
https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-46044914
https://tr.euronews.com/2017/06/20/dunyadaki-multecilerin-yarisi-cocuk
https://tr.euronews.com/2018/04/17/avrupal-lar-ulkelerinde-yasayan-multeci-say-s-n-gozunde-buyutuyor
precast mould fabrication/repair
4 年Why can't the south african boer claim refuge status