For Oct. 19th
One of the most impactful scenes from Human Flow for me was when Ismatollah Sediqi (1:15:42) began telling the story of losing five of his travelling seventeen family members. The scene continues to progress to a grassy area which is plagued with holes dug out and placards with numbers. The man has to step around the mounds of dirt dug up, headstones with just numbers, and open graves. This scene perfectly expresses the dehumanization the refugees have gone through in their hunt for safety. Bodies are practically buried on top of each other in the field and in this scene their final resting place does not show their names. This is yet another symbol of the demeaning practices refugees face in order to escape death and war. Ismatollah breaks down as he explains how the five dead family members drowned at sea and he describes the psychological effects that have ruined his brother (he lost his wife and kids). Ismatollah also details that the journey to escape has taken all of his money. This heartbreaking scene is enough to outrage anyone, however the rest of the documentary details the harsh treatment of refugees. Many european countries have closed their borders and refused to give further aid. This strands the thousands of men, women, and children who have risked everything and lost potentially family members in unknown lands. The exchange with Ismatollah puts in perspective the dire situation for refugees from the middle east, asia, and africa for someone like me who has been blinded by their own privilege. The film shows other privileged Americans a first hand account of the atrocities of war and how children half their age, or the age of their own children, have seen more trauma in one single day than most of us will encounter in our entire lives.
A section from Jana Lipman’s chapter in At War that stuck out to me was the bit about the St. Louis. I remember something from 206 about them being turned away because of the Immigration Act of 1924, and it is terrible to think that many on that ship were condemned to die because of that reason.
ReplyDeleteA part from Human Flow that stood out to me was the large barbed wire border fence that was constructed by Hungary. The police and Hungarian army share the duty of patrolling and making sure the fence is secure. One Hungarian officer said it was the job of the army to back the police force. This stood out to me because it could fall in line with the militarization of the police force section of our class but I could be reaching. Also, it strikes me as odd that an EU member state would have such strict border laws
As Americans I believe we have a minuet understanding of the effect of war and the refugee crisis. As explained in Lipman’s piece, the U.S. government has always been resentful towards accepting and indoctrinating war victims into our borders. In fact, the U.S. didn’t adapt the same refugee definition till the 80’s. Acts such as these make me question the true role that the U.S. seeks to play in the world. Are we really the World’s Policemen, or do we find a way to dirty our hands in every conflict for our own self-improvement? The Afghanistan Vet who came and talked with us on Friday stated this very well. War has consequences and these repercussions effect not only the Americans who lost their lives but also all the innocent civilians that are forced to change from their norms. Civilian causalities are inevitable in war, yet the U.S. doesn’t choose to help these people. This summer my philosophy on this topic changed drastically, while in Greece I worked with refugees from the middle east. These people are just like us, trying to live life. Except what distinguishes them from us is the circumstances that they must adapt too, these refugees live in countries in full civil war where killing and destruction is a norm. Yet the U.S. has not made any advancements in helping these people. We are just as responsible for these wars as the two sides fighting, for we choose to support one side like in Vietnam. If the U.S. wants to be the greatest country in the world we need to learn to not only exert dominance but also bring help and care for the people we displace. Lipman talks about how the governments approval of refugee acceptance is based largely on country of origin. At what point will we stop stereotyping people of different countries and beliefs, because in the end we are all humans.
ReplyDeleteAfter being told that the Macedonian border has been closed to refugees trying to seek asylum in Europe, Ai Weiwei asks what an Afghani woman and her family will do next. She replies, “We can’t go back. No one leaves their country lightly. You only put yourself through the hardship of fleeing in order to find safety. To find peace somewhere” (00:45:00).
ReplyDeleteAs demonstrated by Ai Weiwei’s powerful documentary, Human Flow, the world today faces a crisis of displaced persons and refugees on a scale that has not been seen since World War II. How the world, and especially a powerful nation like the United States, responds to this modern refugee crisis is important to understand who nations deem “refugees” and how they balance the security of their borders, as compared to the call for humanitarian efforts. As presented in the documentary, the bulk of modern-day refugees are Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans, who are fleeing wars within their country, whether it be civil war, destruction by ISIS, or from wars waged in the areas. However, there are also refugees from Iraqi Kurdistan, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. Most of these refugees look toward Europe, specifically Germany who have accepted many displaced persons, helping to give them asylum. But with the influx of displaced peoples, countries started blocking their borders to “protect” their nation from what they deemed “trespassers.” In 1951, the United States High Commissioner of Refugees defined a refugee as “an individual who has a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’” (Lipman, 148). Countries accepting refugees must provide aid to the displaced peoples, who will eventually return back to their country. Due to this most countries, like the United States in the aftermath of the Cold War, institute quotas and have a process to decide who enters the country. An issue arises when a country decides who to accept and who to keep out based on a strict quota system: countries will tend to let in who they deem “desirable.” As the Afghani woman testifies, refugees did not leave their homes on a whim, there is a reason for them seeking refuge. Especially with most refugees coming from the Middle East, a rise in xenophobia across the world has restricted sanctuary for people in need. President Trump’s promise of “extreme vetting” ignores the humanitarian crisis at hand and puts up barriers to those who need help. Today’s refugee crisis should not be viewed as a policy from one country to another, but as a global humanitarian crisis, where together, we can help people in need who have been torn from their homes by war.
I thought it was interesting how in the film Human Flow, they show the struggles of the refugees trying to find somewhere that they can be safe, but every once in a while they put in a clip of one of the little kids playing or laughing at themselves in the camera. The movie does a good job portraying the hardships that these refugees go through; from just the fact that they truly have no home, to the time they spend on tiny rafts, to losing their family members. As Americans, I think we view this and we see it as a sad story and not like millions of people’s daily lives. And one can see from the clips of the little kids just messing around that this is there normal everyday life, and that they do not know any different, so for them their life is not hard as they do not understand their situation like their parents do. The movie also does a good job at showing how brave one has to be to take their kids and leave their country. First, to have to survive in such a harsh environment that you are willing to give up all that you have and all that you know for a chance at something better is hard enough, but then to arrive in a place where you thought that you could recieve help and realize that it might have all been for nothing because you will be sent back or that the borders are closed and now your life is an indefinite stay for you and your family in a tent is not even something that I can really grasp the realities of. Overall, the film did a good job at showing people the refugee crisis by explaining their lives to the audience and not just making these people not just into statistics.
ReplyDeleteRefugee policy, at least in the United States, seems to be centered around personal gain. The chapter we read in At War explains how refugee policy has been tied to political interest. The chapter ends in negativity, mentioning how the election of Donald Trump instituted the United State’s “most hostile stance against refugees in decades.” We’ve all heard Trump’s chanting of “America First,” and his unwillingness to let the nation be used to hold multitudes of foreigners seeking refuge. When it comes to outsiders, he has stressed “extreme vetting” and tried to restrict immigration completely. What Trump neglects to mention, but what Human Flow does a good job of reminding us, is that the condition of refugees is a humanitarian issue. Hanan Ashrawi emphasized this, saying that it is “much more than a political status. It is the most pervasive kind of cruelty to be exercised to human beings by depriving all forms of security, the most basic requirements of normal life, while playing that at the mercy of inhospitable host countries that don’t want to receive them.” We seldom consider the conditions in which refugees come, often the homes they are leaving have been pillaged and raped. When confined in camps, these individuals live in crowded and dangerous conditions, being unable to experience life fully and living of fear of what will happen next because they have no other choices. Early in the documentary, Rafik Ismail says, “We too have feelings. We too are humans.” I feel this encompasses the entire issue with American policy on refugees. Rather than weighing the pros and cons of accepting them, people in power such as Donald Trump must think less selfishly and consider that refugees are individual humans in need of help, not a single entity that is simply an inconvenience to the United States.
ReplyDeleteIn both the film and the reading I took away two major themes. The first of which was how political refugees are viewed both historically and contemporarily by the US government. The second, which in a way stems from the first, is the way refugees themselves are misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteAs seen in the reading through the examples of the Cubans and Haitians, the US will take you in as a refugee. If you fit the agenda of the current administration. The Cuban refuges were admitted right after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. This cannot be coincidence. Only 11 of the 22,940 Haitians were granted refuge. This was simply because these people were of a different race than the majority of us and because they did not serve any real political purpose. The film can be used as a great example of showing why the US refugee policy is so broken. These people did not leave their homes because they felt like it. They left because they faced real danger and persecution. We as Americans need to realize this next time this debate comes up.