Archves (19th June 2017): World Refugee Day

01/12/18 01:45

We are about to celebrate the World Refugee Day. While it is important appreciating that religious, political persecution; as well as wars and conflicts have forced over 66 million people to flee their own countries (source: UNHCR), each of these 66 million people is an individual, individual with a name, with a personality, with a story, with dreams, with strengths and weaknesses, with good and bad sides. It is also good remembering that each of these individuals have an amazing power of interacting with their host authorities, host communities, host families, host individuals - and affect their lives in both positive and negative ways.

There are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people among the refugees, just like in any other group of people - whatever these groups may be. Refugees however are being confronted with extreme situations that many other people do not face. They are confronted by losing the fundaments of feeling safe and secure, by hatred, often physical pain. They are take away, what most of other groups take for granted. ~Refugees are also people who struggle buying acceptance of the societies of their new homes - thus needing to deal with their own vulnerabilities, but also vulnerabilities of their hosts… Hosts, who may be having a powerful advantage of ‘being at home’, but who, like the refugees, have their own strengths and weaknesses; who can be wonderfully generous, but also horribly cruel, or perhaps scared.

Although personally, I have been dealing with refugees and displaced people throughout my entire professional life, it is the last 2 years that have transformed my own understanding of the complexities of problems that refugees face, but also complexities that need to be overcome by their hosts. All of this is happening thank to Tahir - a young Pakistani refugee that miraculously became a reality in my life.

The appearance of this young gentleman has put my life upside down in the most wonderful and scary way - quite literally! Ever since we met, Tahir had been teaching me humility; has been bringing an overwhelming joy, but also an extreme stress, sadness and fear… Quite conflicting feelings that some may discard as exaggeration. Perhaps true, but this is how I really feel what Tahir’s existence in my life is.

Let’s take it step by step though… I met Tahir a little over 2 years ago. Freshly arrived to Bangkok, coming to start a new phase of my successful career. After having spent some traumatic years in the war-torn South Sudan, finally I was coming to Thailand - about to embrace the place where I could enjoy work and have a good quality of life, the place where I could forget about misery and suffering of people… I just rented my beautiful new flat, settled in my wonderful and comfortable office… Life was good… nothing could go wrong! Then one day, I was having my luxurious lunch, and here he was… outside teh restaurant, sitting on the pavement: malnourished, with helpless face, seemingly scared - young man - obviously asking for whatever the by-passers could spare, so that he could buy at least a little bit of food.

Until today, I am not sure what made me approach Tahir, what told me to start interacting with him, what made me invite him for a lunch together. Whatever it was, it changed my life - for ever… It brought Tahir, a person that since then, became a part of my family.

Time passed and we needed to learn trusting each other, needed learning overcome our own presumptions.

So I had to learn that what Tahir was telling me was not an attempt to abuse a stupid Westerner, who had fallen for a story of a poor refugee; I had to learn that the most incredible stories that he had gone through were actually real rather than a part of some horrible war movie. I needed to understand that this incredible suffering was really experienced by him: by the person standing next to me. I also needed to learn that some of my actions were shocking to him: offering him a cappuccino in Starbucks exposed him to a stress of experiencing that a price of a cup of coffee was an equivalent of his monthly budget for food. I needed to learn that when he said that he was afraid of people - he actually meant it. I needed to learn that when his face looked uncomfortable in situations that I thought were normal - meant his immense stress for reasons that I would not understand. Finally I needed to learn that he was getting attached to me and somehow dependent on me… the experience that I did not know…

On his part, Tahir needed to learn a whole lot too! He needed to learn that I did not mean to intimidate him by having my lavish lifestyle. He needed to learn that even if I may have had so much more that he had in terms of material goods, I was not a better person. He needed to learn that despite being financially privileged, I was vulnerable too - perhaps for reasons that were trivial to him, but nevertheless, very much real to me. He also needed to understand that when I was offering my friendship to him - I meant every word of it, that it is a friendship for good and for bad. He then needed to learn to be patient with me; and what is so important to me - given my physical disabilities, to assist me in a way that I did not need to feel ashamed not being so fit. We both needed needed to learn that we genuinely were saving one another.

There is no doubt that meeting Tahir was one of the best thing that could have happened to me.

The appearance of Tahir made me experience so many other unthinkable things… I learnt about the cruelty of systems and regulations, but also about amazing and selfless support of so many other individuals.

Soon after I got to know Tahir, we decided to try normalising his legal situation. We thought of numbers of options: trying to legalise his stay in Thailand; trying resettling him to Poland, Switzerland, Australia and more recently Canada. In practical terms, this meant reading of thousands legal documents, frameworks or articles; endless discussions with lawyers, politicians, NGO workers, friends, journalists It meant writing countless amount of letters and emails… Using all kind of approaches: from being reasonable and sensible to being over-dramatic and trying to put people to shame…

Dramatically for me, The story of Tahir taught me that the country that I loved - my native Poland - could be the most cruel and heartless nations of all… a realisation that I find difficult accepting until today. Learning that my own people, the tribe that I come from, the place that I thought was dear to me, turned its back to a human being that is so desperately in need of help and protection.

Then, there were hundreds of wonderful people too! Dozens of friends of mine that opened their heart and accepted Tahir as their friend. Dozens of people supporting Tahir financially, helping planning his potential resettlement to Poland (when we still believed it was possible), Australia, Switzerland and Canada… I got to know people that decided to go an extra mile and do amazing things for him, even though they never had met him. They were doing it just because they felt inspired by his story and decided that he had deserved attention and another chance.

One refugee has managed to bring all these positive actions from so many: from people who are religious, but also those who are atheists; from journalists, lawyers, or nuns and priests; from people of all races and various nations of ALL earth’s continents, from people of different sexualities; from the wealthy, but also those who are much less so; from men and from women; from older ones and from young kids! The most importantly to me, Tahir made me realise how wonderful my own family was… especially my parents, who offered to him an unconditional invitation to join our family…

On a sad note, meeting Tahir made me realise that despite all of this effort from so many… we can achieve so little… It made me appreciate that if so many people are needed to lend support to just one refugee… there is little hope that, we, the humanity, would ever be able to find effective solutions to the remaining 66 millions…

There are so many other things and experiences that I should and could write about. The point however is that Tahir made my life special in the most amazing way that I could never have expected and hope for. True: he also made me scared and worried more than ever - this is however human and a part of our lives.

Writing this, we do not know whether we will be able to offer to Tahir opportunities that he deserves, whether we will be able to make his life a little bit more acceptable. While I remain hopeful that the future will bring some positive resolutions, I am so scared to contemplate what we may need to consider, if some of our plans do not work out…

Happy World Refugee Day to all of you!

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Archves (19th June 2017): World Refugee Day