Refugees to blame for HIV rise in Germany? No.

I wrote this article below for September's issue of the Berlin-based Siegessäule magazine. It has been mainly a response to media coverage blaming refugees for the increase in HIV stats in Germany. It seems conservatives don't run out of arguments and rhetoric against refugees. Whether that they are Muslims, or sexists, or homophobic/transphobic, or antisemitic. The list goes on. As if refugees don't have it hard enough in Germany.

On migration and silence

I had written one of those mystic Facebook statuses of mine. Migration as a silencing experience, it goes, with only one or two likes. It was a surprise anybody liked it at all. It was that kind of Facebook status you put out there because it has been harassing your brain cells for a while, hoping that it will touch someone, annoy someone, or reach out to someone. Isn't that how it usually goes after all?

I have been thinking about migration, because yes, rumor has it that I became a migrant. Rumor is true in this case.

I should probably take this chance to say sorry for my lack of proper goodbye behavior. It has been occupying my mind since I left Egypt, and maybe before I left too. I wasn't sure what was going to come next when I leave. I am still not sure what's going to come next.

Amidst the instability and the lack of familiarity that engulf most migrants, I am lately pondering where I stand from the current state of affairs, whether at home, Egypt that is. It is my home. Or the current state of affairs in Germany, my unlikely and unexpected new home.

I guess it matters to have a say on current affairs, not just because I'm an opinionated person, but it's important for me to be engaged in my surrounding community, in a way or another. This desire for social engagement is not a mere result of high moral standing, but also of a deep curiosity. Thank you curiosity.

I do grapple with questions of belonging. Questions of meaning. That's a natural part of migration I guess. I also grapple with voice. My own voice. How should I use? What should I do with it?

As many people know, I talked about Egypt all the time. Like most of the time. Now, I feel I cannot really talk about Egypt. Not because I think I shouldn't, but others seem to think that I shouldn't. The fact that I don't live in Egypt seems to impact people's view of me. That's understandable. I don't have to go through most of the trials and tribulations Egyptians have to endure on a daily basis. Having acknowledged that, should I just cease to care or worry about my home's state of affairs? But maybe these people are right. Maybe I should remain silent on Egypt. Or maybe not.

Then there's a similar yet different dynamic on Germany. Language barrier is a factor. After all, we always ridiculed those pundits who don't speak a word of Arabic yet always had the nerve to educate us on our countries.  Then there are those experiences of marginalization and racism that are just hard to spit out. And even when you want to speak about them, there's a fear that sharing the personal will just turn into an exercise of quantifying and measuring suffering or mere belittling.

I mean in general, it's not exactly easy being a killjoy*. A killjoy as you may be aware, is the person who tries to be conscious of power structures or how privilege works, and tries to talk about these things, in an effort to achieve a more just way of living, and as a result kills the joy of those who go on living their lives willfully or inadvertently overlooking issues of privilege and injustice. The killjoy is not free of privilege or occasionally of discriminatory behavior, for that matter. She or he tries to be aware of those privileges and not to act them out. At least that's the plan.

Why did I digress into that? I am off the topic now. Or is that the actual topic?

My question is what do we do with our voices? How do we share our opinions and experiences as migrants? As in-betweeners. As people struggling with identity and shifting surroundings. How do we find our voices in these situations? Why does it get taken away from us? 

Why are we being shamed? Being shamed for leaving home. This leaves me feeling as if I should completely uproot myself. And being shamed for coming to the new home, which makes me feel I should have never left and will never be part of this new home. 

Whether we choose to leave or not, life is full of complicated choices. Migration, whether forced or voluntary or in-between, should never another reason for making people's lives harder than already is.

*inspired by Sara Ahmed's writing

  

Syrian Refugees Expose Egyptian Racism!

A refugee is a person who fled their country for fear of prosecution, conflict, disaster, etc. Many leave their countries due to political, religious, ethnic, or gender-based persecution. Depending on the country of arrival, refugees facing various obstacles; those could be legal barriers, or economic issues as it's difficult to find a job in the new country, or could be related to sociocultural factors such as difference in language, cultural habits, etc.

Once called a revolution, now the most commonly used word for what's happening in Syria now is civil war. Syrians have been fleeing the violence to neighboring countries. And while some countries set up refugee camps such as Jordan and Turkey, Syrian refugees in Egypt are more loosely located in urban or even rural areas.

In addition to the newly-coming Syrian refugees, Egypt is host to a large number of Sudanese, Ethiopian, Somali, Eritrean refugees plus Palestinians and Iraqis.

The response to Syrian refugee presence has shown as much Egyptian chivalry towards Syrians as well as deeply held racism against migrants from African origins.  There are many examples that support my argument:

FIRST:  Civil society response has been essentially different. Numerous civil society groups have stepped in to assist Syrians whether with medical, food, shelter services.  These range from nation-wide entities such as the doctors' syndicate to small locality-based groups and mosques. In contrast, refugee of African origins are assisted by a limited number of aid groups, mostly targeting refugees only. While most those groups assist Syrians as well, African refugees find it extremely difficult to access services outside those aid groups.

SECOND: While this closed aid system of African refugees limits their integration to Egyptian society, Syrians find it relatively easy to access various service providers alongside other Egyptians, facilitating their integration into the community. This is also manifested by the heavy presence of African refugees in Cairo (where they can access services), while Syrians are more spread in different governorates and regions of Egypt, because they know they may be able to get decent support.

THIRD:  African refugees report racist slurs and comments on Egyptian street every day. This comes in addition to persistent police harassment and abuse. While one cannot claim that life has been easy for Syrians here, their situation is significantly different.  I recall the brutal massacre of Sudanese refugees in Mostafa Mahmoud square in 2005 when security forces violently interfered to dismantle their protests in front of UN Refugees Agency Office resulting in killing dozens of protesters including women, children, and elderly people. 

FOURTH:     What African migrants go through on a daily basis is not limited to them. It also a ordinary occurrence with Egyptian Nubians. Their dark skin is easily seen as a basis to immediately perceive them as non-Egyptians, as many report that people usually assume they're Sudanese or African-Americans! While race is hardly an obvious factor in Egyptian politics, it's not unnatural to ascribe Nubian marginalization to their ethnic background. Even when some Nubians call for their 'right to return' as a necessary compensation to their forced displacement from Old Nubia, they're seen as instigators or separationists. 

FIFTH:  Women refugees from African origins, typically, find it more difficult as the sexual harassment becomes combined with racism. Since a big part of African refugee women work as domestic workers, they face the long litany of exploitation domestic workers usually face whether sexual or otherwise.

 We all know that sexual violence is not limited to any certain gender, race, etc. There have been increasing reports of exploitation of Syrian women to be married off without their consent in order to get her family supported by the husband. What happens to either Syrian or African women is a gross abuse and violation, however it highlights the different ways Egyptian male perpetrators view those women. Some can only amount to inferior domestic workers while the Syrians can be marriage material!

Comparisons are unfair and suffering is never to be quantified or measured. However, this is not the intention of this piece; it's about exposing Egyptian racist attitudes to Africans, which sounds like an oxymoron since Egyptians are African themselves.

Also, the issue definitely runs deeper than this. The historic relationship with Syria makes us see Syrians in a special light. This is at odds with the African relationships which once were strong but kept on declining particularly after Mubarak's assassination attempt in Addis Ababa. Everyday government and independent media cover events in Syria while we hardly get news of what's happening in Ethiopia or what's going on in South Sudan.

In any case, our society continues to be in deep denial about this problem, hindering any action to be taken in that regard. We have seen progress on some issues such as  they have moved from denial phase into how-to-deal-with-it phase, such as street sexual harassment. Whether we will see the same happening with racism and ethnic discrimination is yet to be seen.

 

Refugees in Egypt, a forgotten issue!

In Egypt, several issues do not have enough attention. Refugee issues in Egypt are not usually publicly discussed and even if this happens, it hardly goes in the right direction.

Due to its position, Egypt receives a lot of refugees and asylum seekers who aim to stay in Egypt or only to transit until they leave to another country. Those refugees and asylum seekers leave their countries for various reasons, such as fleeing war and armed conflict, political instability or prosecution. They come from different directions; the majority of which come from Sudan followed by Iraq, Somalia and Eritrea and other countries. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), there are approximately 40,000 registered refugees in the country, from 38 different nationalities. Not all refugees are registered with UNHCR however, so the real number is very much higher and may reach millions. 

Recently, Youm 7 newspaper carried a daring and shocking investigation in Sinai and revealed the horrors that refugees are subjected to there. The investigation shed light on the African refugees who seek to enter Israel through Sinai are subjected to torture, rape and killings by organized criminal groups in Sinai. Those criminals engage in organs trafficking taken from the refugees’ bodies. The details and images were really harrowing and definitely caused a controversy.

CNN also made a report called "Death in the Desert" about the same issue which caused an international media buzz.  

The investigation stirred many reactions. Some Egyptian media reported on it. African media in Sudan and Eritrea also reported on it and human right groups there called for further investigations and for the Egyptian state to interfere to protect the lives of those refugees. Egyptian human rights groups also called the results of the investigation a scandal and demanded immediate intervention. UNHCR also “expressed concern” over the reports and claimed that they haven’t received any previous complaints regarding the issue.

Egyptian human rights organizations have raised concerns about torture, rape and human trafficking of African refugees in Sinai before, but officials didn’t want to admit it or take any actions.  The situation seems to continue as it is and our government doesn’t want to intervene to stop this tragedy.

Unfortunately, we have a bad history in dealing with refugees in Egypt. Refugees leave their countries running away from wars, prosecution or dire economic conditions to face other hardships in Egypt. Egypt has signed 1951 Refugee Convention, but it had reservations and there’s a de facto ban on accessing employment and formal education for refugees. Obviously, Egypt already has a struggling economy and high unemployment rate which makes it hard for our government to provide services to refugees.

The Sinai horrors are not the first of a kind for refugees in Egypt. In December 2005, Egyptian security forces attacked a protest camp that was set up by Sudanese protesters in Mostafa Mahmoud Square which caused the murder of about 30 refugees including women and children, other were also deported and detained, which was also reported on in the Egyptian blogosphere. 

 Egypt also uses shoot-to-stop policy at Israeli borders to kill African refugees trying to cross the border to Israel with a death toll amounting to dozen of refugees. 

Sadly, it's not just the state that discriminates against but it permeates into daily life events and African people in Egypt suffer from incidents of racism and discrimination. 

This tragic situation cannot continue any longer. Immediate action must be taken from the government to stop those grave violations. It's horrible that those men, women and children flee their country to save their lives and find themselves in equally dangerous conditions or worse.More attention should be directed to refugees and their situation to end the dire condition that they suffer from.