In her poem titled "Home", Warsan Shire, a writer, poet, editor and teacher, who was born to Somali parents in Kenya writes … You have to understand that no one puts their children on a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
The poem is a perspective on immigration, on seeking asylum, on refugee camps, on someone escaping violence, war, or devastating conditions and losing their home. It reminds us that on daily basis people are forced to flee their homes, where families are torn apart, friendship lost, educations and careers halted, lives are changed forever.
Formally known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World War to help the millions of people who had lost their homes. Around 30 million internally displaced persons, refugees and asylum-seekers live in Africa, representing almost one-third of the world’s refugee population.
Millions of new displacements were recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Nigeria, triggered by increasing insecurity and human rights violations.
In the East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, millions of people have fled their homes due to conflict, climate-related events and political violence. By the end of 2021, the region hosted 4.9 million refugees and asylum seekers, as well as 12 million internally displaced people.
No matter who we are or where we come from, we all deserve to have a decent life, a home. A home encompasses the intangible elements of family, relationships, security, and personal connection. It is a place to feel secure and feel loved and a place that gives a sense to know we have the power and opportunity to take care of our beings and build our own futures.
At times one might have a place of origin called home but for some reasons, because of other circumstances a person is forced to forsake that home. After their escape and finding refuge, safety elsewhere, a person might feel secure and safe, it should never be denied the right to call that place a home.
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
An author, Idowu Koyenikan on living a life, he wrote the following …We do not get to choose how we start out in life. We do not get to choose the day we are born or the family we are born into, what we are named at birth, what country we are born in, and we do not get to choose our ancestry. All these things are predetermined by a higher power. By the time you are old enough to start making decisions for yourself, a lot of things in your life are already in place.
So, if this is true, how then can we regard or see refugees as if it is their own making, their fault, perhaps they have not worked hard enough in their respective homes. Why do we treat them as if their government which they have voted in power has failed them. It is like...to say it in isiZulu, ukhahlel' umunt' ephansi (to kick a person who he/she is fallen). This is a societal failure, this is one of the indicating factors that society has failed.
In her poem, Conversation about home (At the deportation center), Warsan Shire is shocked …
They ask me how did you get here? Can’t you see it on my body?
I hear them say, go home, I hear them say, f*****g immigrants, f*****g refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second and the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun.
It does not matter what our politics are, our ethnicity, our nationality, our culture, our religion, our strong views on life, but a society does not work if refugees’ right to seek asylum and find safe path to refuge is denied. Especially having fled violence and persecution or war. Any society must open its doors safely, to protect the journey, the right to call another place home, lest we become part of the problem.
We are living in a myth that if we work hard enough, we will succeed. We live in a society where we walk pass issues, maybe I am going through a lot myself, my country is also on fire. But at least we must have that understanding that no one puts their children on a boat unless the water is safer than the land. Understand that no one chooses refugee camps.
‘In truth, many of us in the world today no longer know where home is. We spend most of our lives silently mourning the home we either never had or never knew or the home we actually lost.’ – Achille Mbembe
No one leaves HOME unless HOME is the mouth of a shark
What is you thought?
