People have always migrated. “There is nothing new under the sun”, proclaims the Bible (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Some people become refugees, turning their circumstances from the wounded lands into tales of displaced souls, carrying with them the trauma of unsettling survival. Some people become immigrants, twisting their poverty conditions into a fervent hope in their search for peacefulness and balance. Some may cross international borders on their way, while others are just displaced within a territory. My grandparents migrated, and their grandfathers did too. I also became an immigrant, an uprooted one, taking on a good faith, in search of safety. On my travel journey, I then encountered the escape narratives of others in a casual, sensitive, and emotional talk. And beyond this reality checkpoint, I turned my eyes to the tales of refugees. After the miracles of escaping, the suffering might become insignificant, yet the narratives of life from the uprooted ones can become their own identity. Once they reach the safe land, they try to preserve their history through their truth. Encountering the asylum-seeking regime, some of the stories become altered, twisted, so they might fit into the rules of the host country, and not experience disbelief and rejection from adoption. Why are some of the stories distorted? When do the narratives get darker and more terrifying? Where does panic or fear start to fabricate lies? Perhaps, it starts with the essence of the word “persecution”, at the thin border between safety and opportunity.
I was forty when I chose to step on the nomadic journey. After confronting the death hazard, I displaced myself from my homeland, yet, since I was still a European, I could travel freely to the UK. Then I have quickly been labelled as an economic opportunist. Not the brighter side for a foreigner, but because the societies need workers, I successfully negotiated my level of safety: physically and economically. And peace, despite the mental turmoil that came along the way. I was still lucky. No need for any asylum claim. What about the ones from outside of European Union? Article 14 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” From where does the meaning of persecution start in the eyes of the decision makers? In my case, I would not pass with my true story, despite of the corruption, insecurities, and terror I have been through. Besides, before reaching the UK, I could more easily get into a neighbouring country, where I might be safe. Also, the UK Government states that an asylum claim would not be taken into consideration if the applicant has asylum in a third safe country.
Escaping from terror, and reaching a safe place are the hardest parts of a story. Everyone who managed to make it, would probably do their best to sound trustworthy on fearing the persecution on their own motherland. Most of the refugees are true. Nonetheless, for instance in UK, “not all asylum applications are successful. In 2023, 33% were refused at initial decision (not counting withdrawals). The annual refusal rate was highest in 2004 (88%) and lowest in recent times in 2022 (24%)” is written in March 2024 in a report of The House of Commons. Yet, the doubt remains: some of the refugees are still opportunists, taking into illegal migration. Here comes the skills of the asylum officers to discern the veracity from the falsehoods, and the storytelling gifts of asylum seekers in taping into the fiction pile. A good story makes people care, bridging the human experiences, nurturing empathy, and kindness. Meantime, the long waits in the asylum system, are affecting even more the mental health and the wellbeing of the refugees. A research paper published by Oxford Academic in 2021 shows that a review of suicidal behaviour among refugees reveals a prevalence of 3.4–40%. Worldwide, data for tolls of suicide among refugee groups is not collected and the interventions to diminish suicide among refugees received negligible consideration. “I saw the truth of these stories in corroborating scars, in distinct lenses on a single event, one seeing the back as vividly as another sees the front – no flat cutouts. I saw truth in grieving, fearful eyes, in shaking hands, in the anxiety of children and the sorrow of the elderly” wrote Dina Nayeri, in her remarkable book ‘The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You’, being herself one of them.
“I used to love the spring so much… I loved it when the cherry trees were in bloom and near the lilac bushes there was the fragrance of lilac… Don’t be surprised by my style, I used to write poetry. But now I don’t like the spring. The war stands between us, between me and nature. When the cherry trees were in bloom, I saw fascists in my native Zhitomir…” wrote Svetlana Alexievich, in her book “The Unwomanly Face of War”, citing on page 277 an underground fighter survivor of World War II. Specifically for this book, Alexievich documented as literature the testimonies of the war survivors, interviewing 500 – 700 individuals over several years, returning a few times to some of them, about womanhood and war, bringing out the façade of history told by unnoticed witnesses and participants. Most of them concluded: “I don’t want to remember!” “I listen to the pain… Pain as proof of past life. There are no other proofs; I don’t trust other proofs. Words have more than once led us away from the truth,” confessed Svetlana Alexievich. Refugees arrive traumatised, secluded, and thoughtful. They come from different cultures where normality may have a different aspect. Nevertheless, they want friendship, to get involved, care, and feel the human part of their paths. They want to belong to a place where they can reestablish their roots. More often than not, they want to wipe the bad memories and build a new life. “We wanted desperately to live” is another powerful sentence of Alexievich ‘s interviewers.
On the other hand, how stories about refugees might be seen or told, could get wrong. Rifaie Tammas, a Syrian refugee and PhD candidate at the University of Sidney, argues that the storytelling pressure could disempower and humiliate refugees. While testimonies of refugees might be inspiring, Tammas (2019) wrote that “the curated form of storytelling prevalent nowadays tends to marginalise or oversimplify the complex context surrounding these stories.” Highlighting the pain and turmoil they have been through would not benefit the dignity of the uprooted ones. Nor their empowering. Indeed, the stories help refugees to get their new places in a safe environment, and gain their trustworthiness, but in meantime survivors of inferno want to forget, to reinvent themselves outside of any bad memory.
Some survivors of Holocaust, also, mentioned in their memoirs the need of forgetting the past in order to cope with the new life. Still, as they aged, it was something coming from inside that propel some of them to open the pandora box, revealing their sad memories. Escaping death at Auschwitz, Alek Hersh revived his reminiscence in his book, “A detail of history” later on in his life, convinced by his wife. She is also helping and support him to raise awareness and recognize the signs and patterns when society goes wrong. By doing so, he helps new generation shape a better world. “Now that I am retired, I spend some of my time working with young people, sharing my story and reflecting with them on its meaning, past, present and future. I do remember the past. I also think about the future. Perhaps that, too, is why I wrote this book”, penned Arek Hersh.
It was never easy being a refugee, but I concluded my personal journey by turning to a philosophical optimism: “while there is life, there is hope”, as Cicero beautifully said. This point of view could be that of any of the displaced ones. “Refugees escape because their lives are in danger. Even the ones we call ‘economic migrants’, those so-called opportunists, they run from brutal, impoverished lives” (Dina Nayeri). The “hell” people run away from is subjective, and since history belongs to everyone, they must guard their narratives, because they can’t go back. Nobody wants to return to the inferno. Therefore, their stories must be strong, emotional, and trustworthy, as they complete the journey toward freedom and safety. Their stories need to powerfully affirm the gravity of torture, the pain of the run, and the suffering. Persecution needs to get the vivid colour, texture, shape, with a pungent smell. So, through them, the refugees can fit into the shelter of the new lands, rooting in peace their wounded branches, and sometimes forget the past, or keep within them only the echoes of their own reflections.
Simona Prilogan
Image credit Pixabay
Dum spiro spero 
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