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Music is a universal language that crosses all borders

Auteur: pixabay.com

Enrico Macias song « J’ai quitté mon pays » then and now

Lire la version français de l’article ici

Music is a universal language that crosses all borders; a tool for arousing emotions and feelings, as well as for bringing hope and healing. It is said that the Arab philosopher and musician Al-Farabi, (872–950), was able to make people laugh and then make them cry by his wonderful performance on the Oud.

I was born and grown up in the rural north east of Syria, a neglected, impoverished region, considered as the center of numerous ethnic groups. Tough, resilient people, mostly descendants of refugees fled from atrocities in Turkey. Strongly attached to their ethnic music and culture; perhaps because of the relief it brought to them from long years of deprivation and traumatism.
As an adolescent, my mind was receptive to this rich, multi-ethnic music. At those days, the mid-seventies, we didn’t have a TV set. My parents had an old cassette-recorder, where I used to spend long hours listening to the charming songs of the diva of Arab music, Oum Kalthoum, and the adored youth singer Abdoul Halim Hafez, as well as to Adis (1), M.Shekho (2) and many others.

Tom Jones, Charles Aznavour, Julio Iglesias, Enrico Macias…!

However, those years brought us also western music and songs recorded on audio cassettes, mostly from Beirut-Lebanon, the cultural hub of the Arab world at that time. Like many of my peers, I was fascinated by Tom Jones, Aznavour, Julio Iglesias, Enrico Macias…!

I had a guitar those days, and was trying to learn to play simple tunes. So naturally, I developed a liking for Enrico, particularly his song « J’ai quitté mon pays ».

J’ai quitté mon pays
J’ai quitté ma maison
Ma vie, ma triste vie
Se traîne sans raison

I loved this song! I don’t know why! Certainly, not because of its nostalgic lyrics, or the moving historical background: Enrico Mascias left his native country Algeria and went into exile in 1961. My knowledge of French was very little then. But probably, because of its melancholic oriental melody and the heartfelt performance on the guitar! It was tender and relaxing, evoking mixed emotions of joy and sorrow! In fact, my interpretation of the song was purely romantic and emotional!

The magic city of Aleppo!

At those carefree days, during my college years in Aleppo, Syria, my mind was full of rosy things and wild expectations. Part of it was connected to my fascination with this magical city, where history and modernity combine. Where the Citadel of Aleppo , the Great Mosque the madrasas and the aroma of spices in the old souks and Khans of the old city, carry you away with caravans that used to cross the city from China, Bukhara and Isfahan to the West, during the Golden Age of the Silk Roads from 12th to the early 15th centuries…

It was time of optimism and dreams! How could I have imagined what destiny had in store for Syria!

Then, years rolled by… And one day, all of a sudden, the sky fell on our heads and turned our world upside down! The country was ripped apart and the civil war ruined all aspects of life, including the magic city of Aleppo!

Diaspora

At this point came the moment of revelation with all its poignancy and intensity! Uprooted from homeland, we have become a diaspora! A displaced people, thrown to strange shores and under makeshift camps! Our warm houses, our childhood playgrounds, our blue sea, everything… were all stolen from us!

Having been transferred to a completely different reality, I have come to fully understand what Enrico went through some sixty years ago, when he was forced to sing farewell to his beloved city of Constantine, Algeria!

J’ai quitté mon soleil
J’ai quitté ma mer bleue
Leurs souvenirs se réveillent
Bien après mon adieu

The lovely melody of « J’ai quitté mon pays », which once used to cheer me up and arouse feelings of joy and love, now evokes multiple memories and images, extremely poignant! Extremely nostalgic!

H. DONO

Contributeur externe de Voix d’Exils

1. A popular Armenian singer
2. A popular Kurdish singer

 

 




80 million scars on world’s conscience

Auteur: dimitrisvetsikas1969. Pixabay Licence.

80 million forcibly displaced people by the end of 2019

La version française de cet article intitulée « 80 millions de cicatrices sur la conscience de l’humanité » est parue dans Voix d’Exils le 3 mars 2020

Wars are provoked, countries are divided and refugees are flooding the world, while terrible images are displayed every day on television screens of migrants drowning in rough seas, dying of exhaustion or starvation, killed by mercenaries, exploited by human traffickers and transformed into merchandise and currency. They are victims of political machinations and « regime change », in other words, man-made misfortunes!

According to the estimates of United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), at the end of 2019, an unprecedented number of 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide and delivered to stormy seas, to the burning desert sun and to the whims of the immigration offices of host countries.

Children are the most vulnerable

Children are the most vulnerable among refugees. They are infected with widespread diseases, recruited as child soldiers in armed conflicts and are victims of rape and forced labor.

The other day, as I was scrolling through my Facebook page I came across this piece of news: “Fatima Ibrahim Hadi, aged 12, died of malnutrition on February 4 of this year, after her photos invaded international media as living proof of the ugliness of the war on Yemen and of the crimes committed by the warring parties and their patrons”. In Yemen, an estimated 3.2 million children and women suffer from acute malnutrition and 7,4 million children need humanitarian assistance (ICRC). Then, continuing to scroll down my page, I found this obituary: « The al-Ghai family is devastated by the loss of four family members who perished while crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. Four other members of the same family were saved. Many others have drowned. Most of them were from Hasakeh governorate of Syria ” located in the northeast of the country.

Weaponizing refugees

In October 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Syrian Sunni Islamist allies launched a full-scale military offensive in this very region of Hasakeh. The incursion has triggered the displacement of 200,000 to 300,000 people overnight in the towns and villages of Ras al-Ain, Tal Tamer and Tal Abiad, and caused widespread devastation and pillage.
Turkish President Erdogan, whose country has been deeply involved in the war in Syria, and who opened his country’s borders to Syrian refugees at the start of the conflict, is now using them as bargaining chips with the European Union, and his latest attempt to pushing them to the Greco-Turkish border demonstrates his lack of concern for their well-being.
Moreover, the policy of weaponising Syrian refugees and recruiting them in Turkey’s proxy wars in Lybia and elsewhere continues full-scale. The Guardian’s correspondent writes the following from Ankara on 26 may 2020: In Lybia “an estimated 8’000 to10’000” Syrian mercenaries are fighting as “part of Ankara’s plan for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean” (1). This blatant violation of all international conventions is another clear example of how Turkey is mistreating and manipulating an extremely vulnerable population.

Refugees die twice

Someone has said that these poor refugees die twice: once when their natural habitats is destroyed and they are bombed outside their countries. And a second time, when they struggle along the arduous roads in their quest to reach the host countries!
On an official mission for the United Nations, Jean Ziegler, a sociologist from Geneva, made a research tour in May 2019 to Lesbos, one of five refugee reception centers on Greek’s Aegean Islands. And in his recently published book « Lesbos, la honte de l’Europe », he describes how 20’000 refugees are crammed there in totally inhuman conditions, in a flagrant violation of the most basic principles of human rights! These conditions, he says, are « Set by the European Union for one purpose: to create terror and deterrence in order to prevent the arrival of other refugees »

Mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies

Being well aware of the nature of politics, there will be no end to these man-made disasters in the future. The UN, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people of good will do not have the appropriate leverage to end this situation. The mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies. Meanwhile, the powerful countries that have been involved in these disasters do care only about how to « divide the cake » in countries like Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and many others which have become failing states unable to protect their citizens.

Have human values and ethics become empty slogans?

If humanity had lived by certain human principles and values, most of these displaced people would have stayed at home, enjoying a dignified and secure life, even though they had to tolerate difficulties and poverty.

Hayro
Member of the Vaud editorial board of  Voix d’Exils

References:
(1) Turkey and The Weaponizing of Syrian Refugees.

 




The lady with the dog

CC0 Creative Commons

Reflection on displacement, aging and integration

I have been working hard for 35 years and was so immerged in my work that I rarely thought of my age. I loved my job: teaching. But, things turned upside down all of a sudden, and a ferocious tsunami has flung me violently into other shores.

At the refugee camp, I was in constant combat with all visions of my past. The attempts to kick them out by various means: meditation, yoga… came to nothing. Being a passionate fan of reading, I frequented the public libraries which provide a quiet and tranquil place for readers as well as for nappers! These libraries were very much like a kitchen full of mouth-watering food and delicacies, forbidden for me to eat. The shelves were packed with all sorts of books and publications mainly in French, a language I knew nothing about save few expressions and words which still lingered in my memory from the distant past. I was very much like a blind man groping his way in a room crammed with furniture. Ironically, during my practice as an English teacher I stuffed the heads of my students over years with advises on how to learn a foreign language. Now, I find myself at a loss.

I still remember an incident which happened to me some times ago. One day, while I was engaged in reading a book in a quiet park, I felt something is sniffing my hand. I pulled it out instinctively and found myself facing a dog barking at me, followed immediately by a barrage of angry words in French from a lady, the owner of the dog. What I could make out was that: “The dog would not eat you!” Had I knew French well, I would have told her “I know Madam! But your dog might have bitten me!” We both lacked something, I the language, she some manners.

Nevertheless, the thought of my upcoming French language courses – given to refugees as a part of integration program – would sometimes lift up my spirits. Kind of light at the end of the tunnel.  I would see everyday lots of students streaming down the main camp-route, heading towards “École”, and was wondering why my name was not included in the lists!

Then, one day my social assistant told me rather softly, to make it sound less painful: “The Establishment encourages young refugees to integrate not people at your age“. A shiver ran through my body. How time passes quickly ! Psychologists say teachers are most prone to the traumatic effects of aging as soon as they quit their job or retire. Yet, this was not what I felt. It was not the realization that I am growing old. It was something else, more poignant more distressing.

Had I been here 20 years ago, things would have been different! Completely different! But, there was no time for self-pity and pathetic feelings. I needed badly these courses; otherwise, I was going to “disintegrate” in no time between the four walls of my small cell.

Fortunately, the word “motivated “, a term commonly used here, came to my rescue. I was motivated! So, I started my intensive courses, together with many young refugees who spoke every other language except French; a good number of them were “unmotivated”! Even so, at the start of each new course, the word “aged” would replace “motivated”, and I had to struggle again to have my name included in the lists. Interestingly, the responsible of the courses, a very nice person of my age would argue in favor of the “rules”, while I would request an “exception”. Then as if to comfort me, he would tell me that he too was going to retire very soon!  What a comfort!

Yet, I have to admit that “old age” had at least one “advantage”! I was elected each time as a “delegate” of the class, not so much for my competences, but rather out of respect the African and Asian students still have for the grey hair! Moreover, teachers were considerate and one of them made some nice remarks about the age 60, saying that it is the period of maturity, relaxation and vacationing…!

Finally, I know well that “motivation” and “old age” do not go hand in hand as far as “labor market” is concerned. Yet, I know also that the key to “integration“, in the broader sense of the word (cultural, social, and psychological) is, the acquisition of the language skills  of the country, no matter whether the person is old or young, or else the incident above of the lady with the dog will be the alternative.

Hayrenik DONO  

Membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Infos:

Cliquer ici pour lire la version française de l’article.




The rise and fall of a city in the endless Game of Thrones

la ville de Qamishili. Source: page Facebook de Qamishili.

la ville de Qamishili. Source: page Facebook de Qamishili.

An important part of my job as a legal translator in my city Qamishli, situated in north-eastern Syria on the border with Turkey, was working with asylum-seekers and refugees, especially Iraqis who had fled their country following the American invasion in 2003 and wanted to find refuge in the asylum countries. 

I was preparing their dossiers: translating the documents, fixing appointments with the embassies, filling the formulas etc. Hundreds of families came to my office, each had an extremely painful story of deportation, persecution and displacement. It was very distressing to hear the narratives of these unfortunate people, who once had lived a fairly stable and comfortable life, then all of a sudden their world turned upside down and having lost everything they found themselves homeless refugees in other countries.

Being myself a descendant of a refugee family, their stories were not totally strange to me. My grandfather was the only survivor of an extended family massacred during the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman government against the Armenians and the other Christians of Turkey during and after the World War I. In 1920, like many of his compatriots, my grandfather could only survive by miracle, traversing on foot the enormous territory separating his ancestral village situated in the province of Diyarbakır in southeaster Turkey and the Syrian border town of Ras al Ayn. Therefore, tales of displacement and mass killing had always haunted my memory since I was a child.

Nevertheless, putting myself then in the shoes of the Iraqi refugees, I could not help thinking of what might happen to me and my family had we experienced the same devastating war in Syria? The mere thought of it was terrifying and nightmarish.

But, what I then thought as something incredible soon became a reality in 2011. The civil war started in Syria and the Pandora box, with all the evils of the world, was opened widely. This time, the troubled faces of my countrymen started streaming into my office, carrying alongside their precious documents, gruesome stories of kidnappings, lootings and killings as the entire security system in the country collapsed, the vital services completely crumpled and considerable territories surrounding the city fell into the hands of Daesh ISIS.

Ironically, the grandchildren of the refugees who one hundred years ago had founded this beautiful frontier city as a safe haven from persecution, were now frantically fleeing from the impending apocalyptic devastation and killing, by seeking refuge in Sweden, Germany and other European countries.

The lights of the lively, multi-ethnic, prosperous city of Qamishli suddenly dimmed, the buzzing activities died down and the streets became deserted and lifeless.

Another sad story of the rise and fall of a city in the endless game of the thrones.

DONO Hayrenik

Membre de la redaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Infos:

Version française de l’article parue le 21.09.2016 sur voixdexils.ch




«Where Vol Spécial ends, Escort starts»

Guido Hendrikx

Guido Hendrikx. Director of the film « Escort ». Photo: Miguel Bueno.

 

Voix d’Exils participated in the festival Visions du Réel held in Nyon from 25th April to 3rd May. It is an important international film festival specializing in documentary films, one of the largest in Europe in this field. During the festival, « Escort» was one of the most shocking documentary films screened about refugees, catching Voix d’Exil’s serious attention.

 

 

 

 

The 18 minutes long film «Escort» follows two young Dutch border police recruits who undergo an intensive three-week training course intended to prepare them for their future role: deporting rejected asylum seekers back to their country of origin.

The film starts with statistics (Dutch Border Police, Dutch Marshals) about the number of refused asylum seekers who were

escorted out of The Netherlands in 2012. 4823 refused asylum seekers left the Netherlands, among which 1410 were escorted (against their will) by the police officers.

The director Guido Hendrikx tries to find the answers to the following questions like «What are the physical and mental challenges for this escort training team? How do the participants go through their training lessons? What are the techniques that they use for escorting out the refugees? How do they handle the last minutes before dealing with refugees who strongly refused to leave the country?» He transferred what he has experienced of those questions by getting his audience to travel through the movie.

Here is the interview with Guido Hendrikx conducted by Voix d’Exils via e-mail conversation.

In this interview, Guido Hendrikx talks more about his film and asylum situation in the Netherlands, in particular about the handling of rejected refugees.

 

Photo: Voix d'Exils.

Visions du Réel festival. Photo: Voix d’Exils.

Interview:

You participated in the festival «Visions du Réel » in Nyon a few weeks ago. As a Dutch filmmaker, how did you experience the environment of the festival Nyon? What can you say about Nyon and the organizers of the festival?

I enjoyed the festival of Nyon, even though it was raining most of the time. It was very well organized, with a good program: an interesting experience for film directors. Unfortunately the debates after the film were mostly French-spoken, so I couldn’t participate.

Your film «Escort» was selected for international competition in the category «court-métrage» and was screened two times in cinema during the festival. What were the reactions, comments and critics that you got from viewers?

Unfortunately, the cinema was not really full at both screenings, which makes the film experience less interesting in my opinion. I didn’t get many reactions from the audience, but the few reactions were mostly compliments. The most interesting reaction I got from a Dutch lady who is living and working in Switzerland. She said: «I work at the airport in Geneva, and everyday I can see through my window how the Border Police in Switzerland deals with refused asylum seekers. And I can tell you, it’s much and much worse than how they deal with it in The Netherlands».

Why did you choose this subject for making a film?

For me filmmaking is nothing more – and nothing less – than a lifetime personal study of human kind. Besides, I am interested in the conflict between rational thinking and moral feelings. The film (documentary) I am working on now has the same theme. Furthermore, in Holland, many films are made from the perspective of the asylum seeker. Most of them I found not interesting, too sentimental and irrelevant. I found it interesting to change the perspective and to make a film from the viewpoint of the executors. Without accusing, without offering an excuse. I wanted to confront the audience with the system they invented themselves and to ask questions like «is a human deportation possible?» Those are some of the reasons for making this film. But, the most important one is when I read a newspaper-article about the training I was fascinated. Something I do not experience that often.

Photo: Voix d'Exils

Visions du Réel festival. Photo: Voix d’Exils

In the public discussion that followed the projection of your film during the festival, you said that it was very hard to get the training team of the Dutch border police recruits to collaborate, and that you spent more than one year to convince them. What other challenges did you face during the shooting?

During the shooting we didn’t have many restrictions. Only during the scenes in the deportation-centre itself we were limited to the surveillance-camera room. But because we had little microphones, it turned out to be a helpful and interesting limitation. Thereby it was a challenge to choose the main characters of the film, because we met them for the first time at the first training day.

Did you watch the Swiss films «Vol Spécial» and «L’Escale» that are closely related to the topic of asylum seekers in the context of Switzerland? If so, how are you considering those films?

I watched «Vol Special» on Dutch Television. An impressive film. And to a certain extent an inspiration for the film I made. Where Vol Special ends, Escort starts. In short, I think the director of Vol Special did a great job.

 

Photo: Voix d'Exils

Visions du Réel festival. Photo: Voix d’Exils.

What is your personal view about European migration policy concerning asylum seekers and about Netherland’s escort act?

My personal view about European migration policy can best be summarised with the term of «organised responsibility escape». Every institution has a specific responsibility regarding migration policy, but nobody is able, or is willing, to see the whole picture. In Holland for example, at least three institutions are involved in escorting refused asylum seekers to their «homeland». One to put the signature on a piece of paper: «you have to leave»; one to «help» the refugees in the last months before departure (as we see in Vol Special for example); and one to escort. They all point to each other saying they didn’t decide this, they are not responsible. We also see this in Vol Special.

I find that mechanism very interesting. How does it work exactly etc? And maybe, even more interesting and hypocritical, I find the critics and accusations of a part of the audience, a part of the people, the so-called politically «left» people mostly, who try to blame the executors while sitting in their own lazy chair. Because I think we, myself included, most probably don’t care about refused asylum seekers. Do we agree on how they are being escorted? We simply don’t know because most people are not interested in that question.

What’s next for Escort?

Escort has been sent to several film festivals, previous week it was screened at IndieLisboa (Portugal), in two weeks it will be screened at VIS (Austria). We are also negotiating about a long version of the film with the Dutch marshals for T.V – broadcasting.

Interview by:

Sara

Voix d’Exils, Vaud

Thank to : Guido Hendrikx, Director of the Film Escort.

More details about Festival du Vision du Réel, Nyon

The festival is dedicated to showing the world as it is lived, to break away from the mainstream. It offers a diversity of committed and inspired film-making, allowing the connection of experiences, reflections and aspirations.

Next year’s film festival will take place from 17-25 april 2015

Official website : http://www.visionsdureel.ch/