Adam Dombovari, Author at Migration Views

William Anselmi: Hospitality – the liquid cemetery, a picture

My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
Vice President Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003.

The damage has been done; so welcome.
Welcome. Let us offer our welcome to the new and forgotten. Whatever appears, what we can touch, the presence we feel belonging as we belong. What faces us, the horizon, assumes a form that reflects me. I would not recognize myself were it not for this possibility: in passing in time, I cannot help but being elsewhere as here opens. Not only am I you – we exist only in passing – not one moment of existence is frozen in time. In moving we chance fulfilling the vastness by the body in front of us. If it offers words, be they unknown to me, we share a language of recognition – words that want to bind us, presently.
If the body washes ashore broken, a thing, language fails. I know. I know that what fails is not language because had the body spoken there would have been a voice. I stand in front of my failure, which is not the other but a passing, together. It’s a thing; it does not speak. It washes ashore, void of assurance but swollen with hope. I encompass its brief existence within my gaze, memories without a past.
How do I welcome a thing, a corpse? This thing thrashed about by currents of water upon the sand, held by hope. I must speak for it, because when I speak for it I am thrashed upon the darkness of no language. I must move among the Homines Sacri, to find them in their darkness, in silence. And I must start again to find words.

Hospitality

In the ancient Mediterranean Sea, a shared word threaded together the overcoming of boundaries. It drew to itself a language that enveloped the voyage. The word spoke to traveler and host, it bound them to make distance safe, by responsibility. Though the word is tied to commerce, it transcends the possible transaction. It does so by creating the horizon for a relationship, of welcoming the unknown, the stranger, in a precise space. The word is Xenia. What appears through the word is respect, safety. Hospitality that subdues and relegates violence to the nature of water and gods, violence flowing through unexpected patterns, harboring the tempest, so baring life to the shipwreck. It is not by chance that further in time, Lucretius wrote:

Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s tribulation: not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant.(On the Nature of Things, book 2, line 1)

Here, hospitality unravels in the fury of elements, and folly – if that were the case – of tempting fate. The passive condition of the watcher is the release of empathy, its subjugation by being on terra firma in front of a fearful spectacle of rising death. Xenia contains this, and opens to it, vanquishing the ancestral fear of chaos by welcoming, encompassing in the traveler one’s possible future, the experience of the past, memory. A sense of this can be drawn, for example, from Martin Buber and Edmund Husserl. The way they posit the relationship: ‘I’- you’, encompassing the other by presence. The ‘you’ that can never be ‘it’, the ‘thing’ that opens Simone Weil’s The Iliad, or the Poem of Force:

The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad is force. Force employed by man, force that enslaves man, force before which man’s flesh shrinks away…. To define force – it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him.

In fact, Xenia is the baring of the gift: you are safe, here, to live now. It is not the expectation of immediate reciprocity, the sociality that invests such a process lays bare future possibilities: I have traveled with you, and I would welcome the approaching safety though I know not my host nor an elsewhere. Perhaps. Perhaps such a reading of the past, where myth fades into history, is always the limit of the present looking back, Benjamin’s Angel of History struggling forward somewhere, in time.
Is it for this reason then that The Odyssey must address Xenia repeatedly in the epic of the way back, through extended time? The first four books, concerning Telemachus and Odysseus, where Xenia is given the stage, bring about a recuperation of a shared knowledge erased from the living by the war at Troy. In the Iliad, a stratagem not only brings about the destruction of a city and its conquest, but – unknown to its doers – the whole of the Mediterranean civilization. The wooden horse left in front of the city’s doors, the apparent gift, erupts at the seams. One does not betray the fundaments of a shared culture as easily as such. For the voyage home becomes the reconstruction through the remnants of that cataclysm. As Odysseus becomes the Everyman who must use force, now the force of storytelling, strands are woven into a tapestry – a wineskin that is still marked by its tears, where water seeps through – necessitating time, twenty years, a full generation. A time span unthinkable today: we percolate through the compressed, eternal present that denies history, continuously forestalling each future via spectacles enhanced by environments of technological communication. Paraphernalia of surface reflections: mirrors of mortality. Question: was James Joyce’s Ulysses, its 24 hours span, the ironic criticism of contemporary conditions?

The liquid cemetery

Modernity, paradoxically, is the removal of (passing) time from experience through unspoken acceleration. Everything stands on the present: continuous, endless. A personalized ubiquity diffuses us through the swelling globe, by the proliferation of screens and cameras that gratify, augment, narcissism. Zygmunt Bauman recently used ‘liquid modernity’ (2002) to denote the consistency of late modernity. Everything is in a state of flow, directionless, on the surface; gone are the roots that bound us to a solid reality, to a particular type of knowledge. Marshall Berman’s All That is Solid Melts into Air, twenty years prior, indicated the passage that took all to the very same state of affairs. Perhaps, William Shakespeare’s reflection in Henry IV, Part 1 was meant to convey this lived world we must leave: “But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool; / And time, that takes survey of all the world, / Must have a stop.” (Hotspur, Scene IV, Act 5). By stopping time as history, as future, has death not been vanquished?
I have in front of me a copy of an Italian magazine, L’Espresso (25th of June, 2015). The cover has 12 golden stars in a circle, floating in a tranquil sea of blue. Five of the stars are in various stages of sinking. Underneath, in red, the title: Immigrazione. Immediately beneath it, in white, a larger font: Europe’s shipwreck, (Naufragio Europa). In italics, smaller font, the following: “Paris and London reject the refugees but exploit their ex-colonies’ resources. Where, with a few Euros, jobs can be created. And slow down the exodus…”
I know what the picture is alluding to. The stars symbolize the European Union reverberating with the flow of tragedies that have marked the Mediterranean Sea in the last years. Each star, in its sinking stage, stands for the boats that have shipwrecked, the thousands that have vanished in their attempt to reach Italy, Europe. I have chosen this magazine, this issue, because it points graphically to a responsibility halting at the surface of things. An image. Yes, it has already been overtaken by the course of further events. Speed binds us still. But has it? The Mediterranean Sea remains a liquid cemetery, and the recent past(s) cannot be crossed out. If anything, it can only point to Thanatos – not a home, nor a welcome.

A picture, one dead word

A picture moves the world. A lever? No, a child washed ashore. A thing, picked up by a guard. Why this particular picture? All the vanishing of peoples in time finally reached their destination in this visual catalyst. Exhausted. As Roland Barthes indicated, a picture is the best form to represent death. And we buried in the steadfast flow a word as we moved into this eternal present: Xenia. In dispersing it, we have lost humanity so as to acquire its dissipating spectacle. Business is business. What is real, today, are news flashes evoking the emotive, competing with instant vision, overflowing, momentarily, at the seam of a million eyes? Still, can I welcome you in this haze?

Universo

Col mare
mi sono fatto
una bara
di freschezza

(G. Ungaretti, Devetachi il 24 agosto 1916)

L'Espresso magazine cover (June 25, 2015) — L’Espresso magazine cover (June 25, 2015)

Dr. William Anselmi is a Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta.

Jelena Macura: Sharing is not caring

The media is dangerous. It has this innate power to persuade and perpetuate certain mentalities. It thrives off of one sensational word, or line, and it strings together elaborate prose that attracts the attention of readers around the globe. This proves to be an issue when looking at the coverage of the current European Union migrant crisis. There is this profound ignorance abundant that fails to recognize the heterogeneous composition of this mass influx of migrants. Yes, there are refugees. Yes, there are immigrants. And yes, there are outliers. This is not a blame game where the media is at fault, it is the reader as well. Recently, social media users have assisted in the dissemination of unviable information. My Facebook feed in particular is plagued by uninformed bigots and self-proclaimed constitutional scholars, especially in response to the recent violence in Paris. In their desperate attempts at sounding intellectual, people are formulating posts riddled with incorrectly used political jargon, and contributing to the dehumanization of a population. As a result, these migrants, as a whole, are being treated as scapegoats in response to a separate issue.

Before I continue with my reflection, I should start with my background so that my opinion on the migrant crisis may hold some sort of merit. I was born on March 10, 1994 in Knin, Croatia during a time where nationalist tensions were rampant and an inevitable conflict was boiling. Until I was 16 months old, I lived in an area that was the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Kraiina. Although this republic was never formally recognized, certain individuals took their patriotic notions to an extreme and built up divisions that slandered all other ethnicities present in the country. Guerrilla and formal violent groups formed and wreaked havoc on villages, towns and cities. It was a particularly difficult time for my immediate family, as well as my extended because my heritage is both Croatian and Serbian. In August 1995, the tiny village where I lived was invaded by military forces. My family and I fled with a few necessities and settled in a Red Cross refugee camp. According to my mother, I survived for ten days on only mashed peas and water. After our stay in the camp, we boarded an overcrowded bus that was headed towards Belgrade, Serbia. My family and I lived in Belgrade until I was four years old. 1998 was a significant year because there were rumblings of more violence in Former Yugoslav regions. My parents foresaw potential devastation and sought to move to safer grounds. At this time, the only immigration approval we received was from Canada, which is how I ended up living here. In 1999, NATO forces launched a series of bombings in their participation in the Kosovo War.

I went to both Serbia and Croatia by myself this summer for the first time. In Croatia I visited Knin and, perhaps it was because I went by myself, I noticed things that I never saw before. Previous times I had been there, I did not recognize how the city, or legally now a “historical town” was a shadow of its former self. The only things it has to offer are consulate services and administrative dealings. I also visited my old house in my tiny village. The entire structure, which my father had built with his own hands, is in complete ruin. When you enter, there are char marks from the fires of grenades, there are broken dishes strewn about, and mangled furniture is everywhere.

It is a hard pill to swallow.

I think that this summer was also significant for me partly because of my experience at the airport in Split. I have both EU/Croatian and Canadian citizenship, as well as both passports. This means I have no problems with automatic visa clearance. This time, there were migrants coming in from many different areas seeking entry into the country. While I waited in line I overheard a young couple with two small children pleading for entrance into Croatia. I couldn’t help but see myself in their shoes. I was given the opportunity to enter two different countries and actively contribute to society while bettering myself—I was given a chance, so why shouldn’t this people?

Yes, I recognize that there are external factors that make my utopian thinking somewhat impossible. Yes, I realize that there is global economic instability. Yes, I know that the EU is not equipped policy wise to take on everyone. Yes, I understand that there are security issues present. Yes, I know that this migrant crisis is, well a crisis. Yet, at the same time, citizen ignorance is systematically categorizing these individuals as threats to the well-being of member states, and the world. But, take two steps back from reading extreme right wing propaganda, and sharing media that is bias and recognize that there are many different people in this issue. There are legitimate refugees that, under humanitarian rights, must be accepted into a safe haven. These are individuals escaping the very monster that the media is branding them as. They are fleeing by any means possible, by sea, air or land, in the hopes of escaping the clutches of violence and instability. These people are hopeful for an opportunity to thrive, to be successful, and to be treated as a human being. In addition to this mix, there are immigrants. Immigration is a long and tiring process filled with bureaucracy and waiting. I cannot comment on the motivation for immigration, but I can say that I am an immigrant that escaped a country where devastation was looming. Then there are the outliers. The security threats. The fanatics. The extremists. This category, however, should not be holistically applied, but it is. Since the violence in Paris, my social media feeds are riddled with media sources, some legitimate, and some downright offensive. Article after article is being shared branding all migrants as threats to security that should be barred from entrance. The media plants this seed of propaganda, and the people motivate it to grow.

The point of my reflection is not to blame anyone, and it is certainly not an attempt to put forth mitigation techniques to remedy this problem. In no way am I a seasoned academic, or political prodigy, more than anything, this is a plea. Before ‘liking’, ‘sharing’, or posting another new link, question the source, question its motivations, and question its purpose. As individuals, were are not privy to the private lives of others. This may seem naive, but I firmly believe that the first step in finding a solution is a more informed audience. Then, looking through a clearer lens, more possibility for a viable response is present. A clear mindset would allow for reevaluation of border screening, integration policies such as the Schengen, and economic capabilities of states. So please, think critically while engaging with media—you never know what someone is going through until you step in their shoes.

Finally, I’d like to share a few images. This broken house still stands after the Fall of Krajina as a reminder of what I’ve run away from. The media does not have these pictures.

Jelena Macura is a 4th year student at the University of Alberta majoring in Political Science with a minor in Economics. She holds certificates in Globalization and Governance and European Studies. She is also Speaker of the Association (Lister Hall Students’ Association) and Chair of the Governance and Transition Committee of the University of Alberta Students’ Union.

Anna Trofimova: Refugees in Europe: a crisis of gratitude?

Political discourse of the refugee crisis seems to be the leading framework of analysis, with some attention to the institutional dimension of the problem. The social perspective of experiences of the newcomers entering local communities, preoccupied with their fears and daily struggle with their own economic issues, is often a puzzle left to the people to solve it themselves. New ethical questions regarding the meaning of sharing and mercy do not find an easy answer in political speeches and legal formulations. At the same time, the migrants’ inflow works as a magnifying glass, demonstrating the shortcomings of social and cultural policies. Unemployment, low income, lack of equally available childcare and educational establishments suddenly became amplified to distorted proportions. In terms of the culture of sharing, we still confuse help and sacrifice; sharing from abundance and taking a share from those competing in the job market.

The case of Sulistrowiczki, a small village in Dolny Śląsk, Poland, which made it to the local news reports, can be a quotidian illustration of this. In September 2015, one of the Caritas organizations in Wroclaw archdiocese responded to the request to give shelter to Syrian refugees. The house, previously used for a charity project for local children, was repaired to become a refuge for as long as it might be needed. Suddenly, children seemed to have lost their summer camp. Sulistrowiczki has a population of about 140 – supposedly, to be joined by 100 refugees. Most village dwellers learned about the decision from gossip and the news reports. The villagers were quite concerned about the price they would have to pay for the decision of their bishop and Caritas’ management. The journalists enjoyed a rich material of dissatisfaction and unease. In October however, radio Wroclaw published information that there would be no refugees in Sulistrowiczki (see: http://www.prw.pl/articles/view/45993/Nie-bedzie-uchodzcow-w-Sulistrowiczkach). Caritas denied information about refugees coming in, as no one has accepted the generous offer: Sulistrowiczki was not attractive enough. A TVP Wroclaw news report informed that potential refugees stopped by police in Dolny Śląsk in August did not wish to ask for a status in Poland at all, though. They preferred to move to Germany.

Redistribution of benefits is a painful topic. Why should locals keep struggling for their daily bread, while the newcomers would be enjoying free residence, food and good schools for their children? The social cost of helping refugees is an uncomfortable idea. An open refusal to show mercy is frowned upon. Compared to Pope Francis, Sulistrowiczki residents seem terribly heartless. Quite a different proportion of refugees resides in the Vatican, though. Our culture is confronted with a new question: can mercy become obligatory by the will of powerful leaders?

My most useful lesson of a migrant’s ethical code came from forced migrants – internally displaced persons I met in Ukraine, while volunteering for a charity. The charity was happy to receive local donations for the IDPs, still, most of the gifts came from abroad in large cardboard boxes. Volunteers were delving in those boxes together with the IDPs. One of the forced migrants, Olena, was a mother of three children – one of so many mothers who left home taking just the kids, a bag with a change of clothes for them, and a folder with their documents. Olena needed emotional support with her task to choose something fitting – and befitting – her family. She used to own a chain of second hand clothing stores back in her hometown, “in my previous life,” as she said. Just in a couple of days, she became a person unable to pay for a second-hand T-shirt on a clearance day.

During one of her visits, an internally displaced glamorous lady dropped in. She announced that she came from one of the towns occupied by separatists, and therefore the charity is obliged to give her aid. She brought along her friend for support. “I want you to give me appropriate shoes to go to work”, she said, pointing her finger at me. “These should be designer shoes, genuine leather, black, high-heeled, and no round toes. It’s matronly. Size 36.” Marvelous, thought I, any of my friends would appreciate designer shoes. But we have to work for at least six months to afford them. No one has donated designer shoes for the IDPs for some weird reason. “I am sorry, but we do not have high heeled shoes. All we have here is warm clothes and footwear for everyday wear. Used clothes, donated. Mostly children’s clothing, as we support families with many children in the first place.” “Don’t you get what I say? I want new designer shoes now! Or I will sue you and your charity!”, replied the young lady. “What’s your name and address?”, her friend enquired. In the back of the room, looking for a sudden smile of fortune in the boxes of second hand boots and sneakers, Olena was trying to hold back her tears. Tears of helpless anger: “We are not all like that. We are not.” The girl went upstairs to try her charms on someone more important than me. She did not show up to search for a happy chance in our boxes. Six months later, I learned that Olena and her children started volunteering for a charity supporting sick children.

I interviewed a university professor, also an IDP, about his experience in his new dwelling place. Every second sentence started with “I am grateful.” Grateful to his colleagues for getting him a job many locals would enjoy, to his new friends for offering their support, to the quiet and welcoming town he’s adapting to after leaving a city that never slept. I learned from my informant and from Olena’s family to see migration as an experience of gratefulness to the receiving community, a comforting experience of sharing, and making an effort to give support to others – an effort of gratitude.

It is not a common belief that sharing can be a direct manifestation of gratitude to those who do not need our help, but used to help us. If we can see beyond our privilege for a moment, gratitude is the first thing we might notice. Each of us has been a receiver of someone’s help at some point. Usually, the benefactor cannot be repaid, as the nature of giving presumes being better off in some aspect than the one receiving support. Gratitude goes beyond equal shares and careful measuring of due payback. We can only repay by helping others as an act of gratitude for the times when we were helped. At the same time, true gratitude cannot be earned, nor can it be demanded. Just as genuine mercy cannot. Both of them are continents of emotional values to be discovered. Gratitude comes from courage to be human no matter what.

Gratitude and sacrifice are often confused. Gratitude has a goal and time limits, a grateful giver is capable of measuring their capacities and giving the support of clear purpose and timing. Emotional sacrifice can often be blind and have an undertone of emotional self-purging experience, not a relation between the giver and the receiver for the improvement of abilities of both sides of support. We (demand) sacrifice to help our own selves to feel better; we help to strengthen someone in a hardship.

The refugee crisis posed too many ethical questions we have no answer for, both in the grand narrative, and in a small instance of a given locality. Has the small Polish village ever experienced gratitude to Caritas for helping them? Could we assume that gratitude possesses power to open people for sharing their hard-earned benefits, or is it rather a utopia in regards with human capacities? Did the villagers feel it was the charity`s first obligation to cater to their needs, just like some migrants might presume? Should the cases of unwillingness to share one’s life with those in danger mean that we should stop gratitude in its tracks to reach those who try to rebuild their life in a culture which is so foreign in its deification of self-reliance?

Anna Tromifova is a postgraduate student in international HR management at the Wroclaw University of Economics in Poland, where she specializes in migration and labour studies, and a PhD student in social anthropology at the Ethnology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Megan and Shayne Woodsmith: Without a voice

On a recent trip to Paris, we visited a migrant camp in an abandoned high school in northern Paris on Rue Jean Quarre. A friend helps migrants and refugees with paperwork and he offered to escort us to the school to meet a few of the migrants. The former school now houses about 250 migrants and is separated into two halves—one side for men and the other side for women and children.

When we enter a classroom, we see about twenty men sitting and lying on the mattress-lined floor. Their kitchen is in one corner of the room—it consists of two portable tables, a few plastic bowls full of water, and a collection of packaged food that was donated by local Parisians.

France Migrant Camp-Credit-Shayne Woodsmith — Migrant camp in Paris (Photo credit: Shayne Woodsmith)

As we move toward the center of the room, two men approach us and offer us chairs. We sit with them. We hear their stories. But this is only one of the many rooms in the school, and these are only two of the many stories.

Sudanese refugee1-Banner-Credit-Shayne Woodsmith — Sudanese refugee in Paris migrant camp (Photo credit: Shayne Woodsmith)

“I want to go from here—to England or Canada—but they don’t let me to go from here. If you want to move from country to country, they close the borders. Why? I don’t know. They don’t want us to go. Why? What’s the problem? No problem. They don’t want us to move, they don’t want us to work. I don’t know. If I know this before, I never come to Europe.”
“What did you think it was going to be like in Europe?”
“I think it would be good life. I left my country, Sudan, in 2013. I came to Libya, but Libya was so bad, so awful. I left the Libya to Europe. In Europe, I stayed in the street for one month—two week, three week. If I want to go, the border closed. I left Sudan because of the war. The war in Sudan since 2003. In Libya is also war. If you get out from Libya, it’s difficult. Some of us not try, not know how to get out from Libya. But we get out, come to Europe and Europe still, so bad. No house, no work. I want a future. We are out of war, but we are also still in war but not by gun.”

Sudanese refugee2-Banner-Credit-Shayne Woodsmith — Sudanese refugee in Paris migrant camp (Photo credit: Shayne Woodsmith)

“Where does the help come from?”
“Lots of people here come to help us. They give us food and supplies. They don’t work for an organization; they’re normal people. Good people from France. They bring us all—clothes and food.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“We want to go to any country. I think England don’t like us to go to there. They don’t let us to go to any place. I want to go from Libya to border cross, only here or Italy. I met some Sudanese who stay in streets in Italy for eight years. No house, staying in street—for eight years. Here, also, you can spend your life in street.”
“What is your hope for the future?”
“I want to study. I want to go back and help my brothers and my sisters. I left them in a bad case. I want to do good for people but how I can do this? … I studied chemical engineering at home, now I study English.”
“What was your life like in Sudan before you left?”
“Life before war … that happened overnight. Me, I had family, there were animal. Me, I studied school. We accept to live in Sudan. Life was typical but also with war is fighting, so we run away. If you want to die, stay in Sudan. So I come here. I think the situation in Europe is better than it is. I feel safer now … It is difficult, very, very difficult. My mother and father were killed by government.”

Megan and Shayne Woodsmith are both U of A Alumni. Shayne studied creative writing and Megan studied philosophy. Shayne instructs writing at the U of A Faculty of Extension and Megan was a Program Coordinator at the U of A Faculty of Extension.

Lorna Sutherland: Keleti Station, and a presentation in Budapest (September 2015)

I was to present in Budapest. I have recently travelled to several countries to talk about my research on friendship, and on the way to Hungary I would meet with family in Scotland. Two days prior to my departure I made a decision not to go. I pulled out of the conference, which seemed to send shock waves across the ocean when my relatives who were going to pick me up at Edinburgh airport heard of my decision. My timing was off perhaps, but whatever the reason, it didn’t feel right; my decision to withdraw was sudden, intuitive.

Segue to

Images of people waiting outside trains, waiting at stations, tents pitched, people everywhere, crowded squares, men everywhere, children in close ups who had spent nights at the Keleti train station on the floor—the station where we were going to take a train to Vienna. People standing in the outside of buildings that I missed seeing, the architecture that I would have been raving about, was lost in the serious consequences that unfolded through our screens, that ever glossy filter. I watched from a distance people, standing outside buildings witness to yet another historical event. Not since World War ll, have so many people been on the move.

Segue to

I am in my kitchen looking at buildings across the valley, and have all the food and the money and the safety and friends that are always there. I feel sick, horrified, and months later read an article of Smith’s (1999) article on globalization, and thought about “new kinds of wonderings” the “imaginary” (p.3). Syrian refugees and other people spilling across borders; a man carries an infant child in his arms, baby clothes and others with cell phones taking photos of us–a man talks to media about needing help

My cousin and a friend said that it was probably better that I did not go—I am not sure.

as I watch continents away
the continuing broadcasts
the people looking
for help, continents
away, wonderings and imaginary
they are not safe they are not
I tear through pages and let them fly

Smith, D. G. (1999). Globalization and education: Prospects for postcolonial pedagogy In a hermeneutic mode. Interchange, 30(1), 1-10. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1007514907813?LI=true#page-1

Lorna Sutherland is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta.

Megan Butler: Traveling through South Eastern and Central Europe during the refugee crisis

I am sharing a personal experience that I had over the summer as a simple tourist. I am a third-generation Canadian-born nursing student, in my third year at the University of Alberta. I traveled alone from Greece to Poland, taking mainly trains and buses, which allowed me to see a raw part of the countries that many tourists miss. On July 12, 2015 I set off for Budapest, a city recommended by handfuls of other tourists like myself: white, English-speaking, fun-seeking and privileged. What I learned from my experience on a train from Belgrade, Serbia to Budapest, Hungary was completely unexpected and mind-blowing. Needless to say, it opened my eyes to the current refugee crisis affecting countless Syrian refugees.

My experience began outside of the train station of Belgrade, Serbia. I was at first perturbed by the amount of people, all families, sitting around the train station. I noticed many young children sitting in their mothers’ laps or playing on the sidewalk. They had very few belongings, dirty clothes and all had darker skin. In the station, where I stood for over an hour to buy a ticket, were more of these people. I spoke with a local who informed me that they were all Syrian refugees. They had fled and come up through Turkey and were stuck here in Serbia. They were trying desperately to get into the EU through Hungary, legally or illegally. On the train, I was completely surrounded by these people. There were so many passengers that children were sitting or lying in the aisle. Initially I was annoyed that they were so bothersome, they smelled of body odour and they were tremendously loud. I softened, though, when I observed the family next to me. They were well mannered; the mother continuously waved at her son to stay close (at least that’s what I perceived). I clearly remember a little boy holding his even younger brother, who was trying to sleep. They both kept looking at me and smiling. They couldn’t have been over 6. They were talking to a woman, their mother, I guessed, who was holding a baby. The man beside her was dressing a little girl, no older than eight. After some time, I had to stop what I was doing (I was writing in my journal) to hold back tears. I could no longer ignore the families surrounding me. I felt sick that I was so vain, holding my iPhone, with a bag of snacks and clean clothes. I was on this train by choice for leisure, next to fleeing refugees who came from somewhere in the world so terrifying that they left everything. The family next to me had two small backpacks for a 6-person family and as far as I saw, not a single person had a piece of technology.

A man asked me, in broken English, what stop we were about to arrive at. I looked up from my iPhone and realized that I was surrounded by about fifteen more people listening and staring. He pointed at a map and asked, “Subotica? Are we in Subotica?” From the urgent look on his and his company’s faces, I couldn’t help but want to help, but there was such a strong language barrier that I didn’t do much help at all. A moment later, after the train came to a stop, the entire train cart aside from myself and two other boys was empty. We were at the border of Hungary and the Syrians were forced off of the train. After they left I found myself thinking, where will they go? How terrible must their home lives have been to leave everything? I tried to understand how these people felt after leaving everything, only to be unwelcome everywhere they went. On top of all of this strife, families had to take care of their children.

I continued on my vacation, and eventually came home to start another year of study, but I never forgot about this train ride. It has been a few months and among the chatter regarding the elections, the topic of Syrian refugees has come up on many occasions. I have found myself aghast at what I’ve heard concerning Syrians and their threatening reputation to Canadian security. As a nursing student with little to no affiliations to any immigrants or refugees, national security and migration services are naturally not my most knowledgeable realm, but I offer my experience to anyone who would like to broaden their perspective on the global refugee crisis.

Megan Butler is a 3rd year Nursing student at the University of Alberta.

A European Agenda on Migration: State of Play (October 14, 2015)

Source URL: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/eam_state_of_play_20151014_migration_priority_en.pdf

For more information about the work of the European Commissions’s Migration and Home Affairs department please see: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/

Michael Frishkopf: Music for global human development

Since 2007 I have been working on music/development projects, starting with “Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees”, which began in 2007, emerging out of my Ghana study abroad program.

A series of projects, with these refugees and others, developed into a broader project “Music for Global Human Development (M4GHD). M4GHD entails participatory action research in music and development (humanized in aims and methods), centered on global collaborations between academics, NGOs, government organizations, musicians, and others, applying ethnomusicology to real-world social issues, focusing on peoples who have been marginalized – socially, politically, economically – by colonialism and its aftermath, whether in the “developing” world or not. These music-centered projects, often including related arts (dance, poetry, drama) as well, are ideally twinned with evaluative evidence-based research, gauging project impact through anthropological and sociological study. They are carried out as collaborative partnerships with artists and other experts in each locale.

Giving Voice to Hope CD cover — Giving Voice to Hope (CD cover)

For an overview see: http://m4ghd.org

Follow this link for a video about Shadow, a refugee producer/musician: https://vimeo.com/19579830

Information about the refugee music project: http://bit.ly/buducd

Songs for Sustainable Peace and Development project: http://bit.ly/songsspd

Dr. Michael Frishkopf is Professor in the Department of Music, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta, Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, Research Fellow at FolkwaysAlive!, Adjunct Professor at the Division of Community Engagement in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, and Adjunct Professor for the Program in Religious Studies within the Faculty of Arts. For more information see: http://frishkopf.org

Author: Adam Dombovari