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Dear Refugee,
I have always wanted to ask you, how do you feel? Being forced to leave everything that you knew to be:
To be safe
To be real
To be right
To be just
To be yours?
How does it feel to go to a new place in which; it matters not whether or not [or how much; if at all] you are made to feel welcome by the citizens of the new place you have run to for refuge from the horrors that have driven you out of home. It matters not even when you are shunned, ridiculed or turned away by the locals you know that most of the time you will usually still feel set apart. For you nothing is really every going to be quite the same. But I suppose that change is constant for all of us so maybe it is just that for some – as in your case - the increase in frequency of the changes you are obligated to experience as a result of sometimes selfish propaganda, or greed and tribal conflict is what causes the absence of permanence in any of your thought processes.
What gives you the hope that you have? What drives you to carry on , to keep on striving, trying to make yourselves progress; when in most situations as in the case of war; you have seen all that you worked for destroyed [for sometimes the most trivial of reasons?].
I admire you, I applaud you, and I am in awe of your resilience. Your courage and your strength, it takes strength to continue to carry on wanting to live and it certainly takes courage to trust even though you have been let down by people who one would argue should be the last to let you down. When you have been let down by your own families, your clan, your fellow citizens and your own world.
Do refugees have to physically flee? Could one live in a camp situated in a secluded and usually poorly equipped portion of other people’s land for an indefinite period? For the specific and therefore often horrific reason that , even this squalor is better than the situation which they left behind. What possible remedial psychological regimen could be employed by do-gooders to help to heal the nightmares of the children? Ah, and about the children…
How do you comfort the children when your own nightmares are more vivid, more terrifying, and sadly much more real?
Refugee, please help me understand what does that term mean exactly? For instance, I hope one could explain to me: how could one be made to live like a stranger an alien, unable to own property or eke out a decent living in one’s own land? I have also heard - quite often most recently - of the term “economic refuge” and, I’m aware, of the necessity of liberty; for all who feel oppressed by the system in place in society.
And I have come to believe, falsely perhaps? That running away is never really just the preoccupation of those who have lost their homes due to warfare. Everyday there are those who run away from their responsibilities or emotional demons, can they too claim refugee status? Can one take sanctuary from their social responsibility or form reality?
Refugee should not be…
In the speed with which the world is able to develop new technologies, to make life easier; should we also not be working towards making life better? Better for all, safe for those masses that live in “far off lands” - by making their homeland seem that much farther away from us, we are also emotionally distanced from their plight. The poverty, war and disease are not our primary concern. When will the amazing race slow down enough for the viewers of the show to see and then take an interest in the happenings in the various countries that are visited by the competitors?
Refugee should not be …
At least not in this century.
I wonder too, is there a place you go to in your mind, when you find yourself unable to come up with a reasonable explanation for why people seem intent on giving you a tough time? Why you are accused of idealism and romanticism when you ask those uncomfortable questions; in an attempt to find tangible definitions, living examples of/for peace love unity and justice for all?
Is it a lonely place, this place you go to in your mind sometimes? In order to be able to compensate for the warmth and virtues of mankind that somehow got lost on the way to the destruction that you left behind in your home town, village or land? In this place you may feel the need to visit in your mind, do you meet others who think like you and mirror your sentiments? Others who have passed on ahead, before you, into the realm of the dead?
Would you, if you had the chance {or opportunity and resources}; come up with an alternative for UNHCR or UNEP or United Nations or any of the other Human Rights and peace affiliated multinational organizations that are mandated to deal with the humanitarian crises that result from the neglect of the rule of law and the moral code to which we are all as mankind held accountable? Do you even know what they are mandated to do for those like you? Have they helped you or is their presence more mythical in your view?
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fauxhawk
"read and learn; write and BE"
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clear and concise writing with flash Prince Saud Ben Abdulaziz | Nov 14th, 2004
You have created intellectual property, did you
copy right your essay? Will you consider and find ok to charge a fee for others to read your essay?
Will you be able to teach others to write on line(internet connections) for a fee?
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