What does it mean to be a refugee? I have asked myself this question countless times. Broadly speaking, the answer is simple (refugees are uprooted, homeless, involuntary migrants, who have crossed a frontier and no longer possess the protection of any means in their origin country). I suppose that definition is all right as far as it goes. However, it does not really illuminate the true nature of what it is to be a refugee. No one can deeply taste what it is like to be a refugee unless they live like one. Refugees are men, women, and children who once had homes, families, and wishes to be someone, but, unfortunately, one morning they woke up to find themselves in the middle of nowhere.
I am a refugee and know some of what it means to be a refugee. I also would like you to stay with me for a while to see some of what I have gone through and how I became a refugee.
I had a normal life before the war erupted in my country. I was born to a police officer father and housewife mother. In my childhood, I had great expectations. If someone had told me that I would end up a helpless refugee in a foreign country as I am now, I would have surely called him or her insane.
It was 1990 when what made me a refugee started. A barbaric war exploded between the USC militia and the army of Barre’s regime in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The USC wanted to overthrow the regime by force, and the army fought back. They exchanged heavy weapons; stray missiles were hitting this house and that house. Many people were either dead or wounded. People were roaming, walking on feet to escape with their lives and loved ones. The scene was more like a doomsday occurring without warning.
My mother and I were among these people. We went to Afogye, a small town on the outskirts of Mogadishu, 30 kilometers to the south. I had a grandfather there (my mother’s father). He dwelled there and had a farm. My father fled from the country to avoid persecution because of his job. Later I was told by a neighbor lady that my father was killed by USC militia men in Kismayo. Kismayo is a place in the southern part of Somalis, around 500 kilometers from the capitol of Mogadishu. After that incident, I have become a victim of nightmares, which visualize the torture of the inhumane way my poor father was treated. I also wonder if he had a decent burial like any other human being, of if he was left over to the wild animals to take care of him. It is an unpleasant thing to have a father killed in this way.
There was too much pain during my teens. I was an only child of my mother…I did not have other brothers and sisters to play with; playing with my peers was dangerous. My mother told me to avoid them, for safety reasons. I turned my attention to books and thanks to books; they were and still are good companions for me.
From 1991-1999, we were living in Afgoye with my grandfather. In the mid of 1999, a man from the USC militia who had the control of Afgoye, confiscated my grandfather’s farm. Hence, we went back to Mogadishu, to our previous house, along with my grandfather. He later died of hypertension. The house was looted. The roofs and windows were completely stripped. My mother repaired the house, and made part of the house a cafeteria to manage the daily living in it.
On May 5th of 2000, a man emerged, claiming that my father was behind the killed of his brother. Barre’s regime had executed his brother. This man was eager to take revenge for his dead brother. There is a Somali tradition saying that says the killed man never rests in peace in his grave unless revenge is taken by his close relative. It says this persons’ avenge taken must be equal…it means that a male can only catch a male.
This man was a militia man, so I became a target to merciless militia men. I did not have the means to protect myself nor did my mother. Therefore, we went to Shekh Said, a mosque imam in our neighborhood, for protections. He said the issue involves a vendetta, and it is very difficult to deal with. He said the man will never stop until he gets what he wants, and what he wants is to kill your boy as revenge for his brother. My mother wanted a solution and asked him to help in a tone full of fear and shock. He suggested my mother send me outside of Somali. My mother had to sell our house, the only sellable thing she had in hand to send me outside of Somalia. I kept hiding in the meantime, until August 18, 2000 when I left Somalia.
It was a gloomy winter day, the day I departed from my country. It was a rainy season, though that morning it was not raining. My mother escorted me to the airport. On the way to the airport, trees on the side roads were leaning and swaying like they were waving good-bye to me, in a sad way, as they were upset with what was happening to me, but could not provide help.
Another refugee example is Muna. She is a young lady with a small, illegitimate baby girl. She was raped brutally by gangs. She lost her livelihood and loved ones in her native home, fled to a second country, where she is now living. But the second country she fled to was not much better; she was humiliated and sacked out of a maid servant job she was doing after the family she was working for discovered her small baby’s girl’s illegitimacy. She became jobless and homeless in a foreign country, a place she does know the people, their language or environment. To make things worse, it was a cold night and her tiny baby girl was crying for food and shelter. “You are not pure, you are dirty, and it is against God’s teaching to have you and your unclean child in our house”, they roared. This lady back home was victimized. This innocent child she was being blamed for and fired for came into this world not by her will, but as a product of a rape her mother went through unwillingly.
Many people despise and disrespect you, like you’re not human, when they find out you are a refugee. What I cannot understand is how naïve they are not to understand no one can have a control over fate. The whole mankind is vulnerable and not the heroes of themselves. The lead is not in their hands. We are all vulnerable, susceptible to disasters, whether it is man’s disasters of nature’s. I think if we apply the philosophy of Dr. Dennis Whitley who write in his useful book, ‘The Double Win’, saying, “If I help you win, I win too” it would give us a world of love, peace and prosperity. I hope the world dwellers will come to that conclusion one day soon! |
