Brev fra udvisningstruede irakiske børn

Forleden dumpede dette brev i min indbakke. Et spørgsmål fra udvisningstruede irakiske børn om hvorfor det er, de skal smides ud af landet. Jeg har tidligere mødt nogle af brevunderskriverne og var blevet meget rørt over deres forfærdelige situation. De vokser op isoleret fra omverdenen fordi det officielle Danmark ikke vil kendes ved dem. Men asylbørn er hele Danmarks børn så længe de er i den danske stats varetægt. Læs deres brev og svar i formularen eller på mail-adressen angivet nedenfor.

Børnene støttes af Støttekredsen for Flygtninge i Fare, SOS imod Racisme, Læger for Sameksistens, Bedsteforældre for Asyl, Borgere for et anstændigt Danmark, 28 adspurgte præster fra Præsteinitiativet og Radikal Ungdom.

Kære dansker,

Vi er en gruppe børn og unge født i Irak. Fælles for os er, at vores forældre har problemer i Irak, og måtte flygte da vi var små. Vi har været her i mange år. Vi er vokset op i Danmark. Nogle af os har været længere tid i Danmark end i Irak. Nogle af os har små søskende født i Danmark.

Vi har gået i skole i Danmark. Vi har ikke lært at leve i den irakiske kultur og land. Vi har venner og veninder i Danmark. Børn og unge og voksne vi kender og holder af. Vi har ingen i Irak og føler ingen tilknytning til Irak.

Nu vil Danmark snart sende os ud til Irak. Vi er bange og kede af, at vi skal sendes til et land, hvor vi ikke kender nogen, eller deres måde at leve på, og hvor vi har store problemer. Selvom Danmark vil give os nogle penge med til Irak, kan penge ikke hjælpe på alt. Vi er meget ulykkelige over, at vi skal miste vores venner og alle dem vi holder af i Danmark. Vi forstår ikke, hvad det er vi har gjort, og hvorfor vi ikke må være her. Vi vil gerne kunne forstå det, og hvorfor Danmark synes vi er så dårlige mennesker, så Danmark sender os ud til Irak.

Vi vil være meget taknemmelige, hvis du vil hjælpe os med at forklare os, hvorfor? Hvis du synes, at vi skal sendes ud til Irak, hvorfor du synes at vi skader Danmark ved at være her?

Hvis du synes, at vi skal have lov til at blive her, vil vi også være taknemmelige, hvis du vil forklare os hvorfor? - Og hvorfor vi så skal sendes ud af Danmark?

Du kan svare os direkte fra siden ved at klikke her.

Eller ved at sende en mail til: forklar(at)stoettekredsen.dk

Ved mail vil vi meget gerne have at du underskriver dig med navn og adresse. Efternavn offentliggøres kun ved særlig tilladelse og adresse offenliggøres aldrig.

Du kan læse offentliggørelse af andres svar her.

Kærlig hilsen
Bisian, Helin, Avin, Afshin, Awras, Yasmin og andre irakiske unge, der snart skal sendes ud til Irak.

Refugees United

My first thought when I heard about this organization was “Why couldn’t we have had something like this in the 1990’s?”. A fast way of finding lost family and friends who had ended up on the other side of the world, as it often happens during wars. We had the Red Cross who would try to find people for us and even to send letters, but I rarely saw this work. There are still plenty of people from my childhood I never got back in touch with.

In the Internet era things work differently. Now there’s Refugees United, a non-profit, non-political, non-religious NGO, which runs a platform where refugees can search for their friends and relatives - for free. By registering with nicknames, scars, former locations and other markers only identifiable to family and close friends, everyone can remain ‘invisible’ to all but those who know them.

The organization was formed in 2005 by the Danish brothers David and Christopher T. Mikkelsen, after they met a young Afghan refugee named Mansour; a man desperately seeking his siblings and parents lost to him at the age of 12 while escaping from the Taliban regime. It turned out that his entire family had been scattered all across the world, and to this day they only had luck to find one of his brothers.

“Our aim is to provide a global, anonymous and dedicated refugee network, to end the torture of not knowing where relatives are in this world,” the founders say. “We do this, because after we brought the two brothers together in Afghanistan, we realized the unnecessary hardship many refugees must endure to find family.”

You can help Refugees United by telling the world, supporting the cause on Facebook, by informing refugees of the service, by volunteering your skills - all help is welcome.

For those who read Danish: the organization was featured in the daily Politiken on November 16th and another feature is coming up on the 23rd

Problems with Serbia’s dealing with the past

In a previous post (Danish) I talked a little about the 4C-sign, that was used extensively as a sign of terror and Serb supremacy during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The sign can still be seen on walls in various countries (I’ve seen it in such different places as a house wall in Nice and in the restroom of a library in Copenhagen) but also on the Serbian flag and in the coat of arms of “Republika Srpska”. There has definitely not been any official denouncement or public condemnation of the sign, although to me and many others it’s the same as a swastika. Meanwhile, the original flag of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina was replaced by the UN High Representative by one void of any meaning, because it “offended non-Bosnians in the country”. Nice going.

During my trip to Serbia I didn’t see the 4C as much on walls etc., but it was still everywhere - namely on each and every receipt I got! I was very surprised to see that, and wasn’t even sure that I had understood correctly, so I asked some of the Serbs at the conference. They said that the Ministry of Finances had decided that the sign should be on all receipts, although I never found out why. They explained to me that to them the sign didn’t at all mean what it meant to me and that it was being used in a different context.

And maybe that’s the problem. We all know that the swastika originates from Hinduism, but in these parts of the world at least it has definitely gotten a different meaning through its usage in the Second World War - and now it’s even forbidden in Germany. It’s the same story with the Serb hand sign with three fingers, which to many Serbs is just a common greeting while to many Bosnians and others it’s the same as raising your right arm in a Nazi salute. There just hasn’t been any dealing with what these signs were used as in the war, let alone agreeing to the fact that they are now contaminated by their violent past.

I learned at the conference that officially, Serbia wasn’t at war in the 1990’s, which honestly shocked me to hear. I mean, everyone knows it has. But when the officials deny this fact, it shows all over society. For example in something as small as the tourist guide to the city of Belgrade. On its first pages there’s a listing of important years in the history of the city - and you’d think that the collapse of Yugoslavia and a war would be something worth mentioning. If you look at the bottom of page 6 however, you’ll see that nothing happened in Belgrade between 1944 and 1999 (click to enlarge).

I don’t know what history books say in Serbia, but I assume that they also tell the official story. After years of hearing it, even people who have traveled outside of Serbia and read other books can blurt out stupid remarks about the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example. This happened once or twice while I was there. On one occasion I happened to mention the trams in Sarajevo, upon which a young participant from Serbia laughed and said “Ah yes, the many trams in Sarajevo.. what is there, like one line?”.

Yes. Isn’t it funny how your country destroyed my capital so badly that it lost many of its tram lines - apart from more than 12.000 of its inhabitants? My capital, which was the first city in Europe to even have electric trams. Some people really haven’t understood that it will never be OK in their lifetime to joke about the consequences of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even though they themselves had nothing to do with it. It really should go without saying. No one’s blaming them for anything, but a tiny bit of decency really wouldn’t hurt. Just imagine tiny swastikas on German receipts.. or in the German flag! And imagine Germans laughing in Jews’ faces with tasteless remarks about the Second World War - only 13 years after it had ended.

Some impressions from Serbia

There has already been some fuss about my trip to Serbia because I put some pictures from it on my Facebook-profile and commented on them. For instance a photo of myself in front of the Serbian Parliament, which to me was a personal feat as there are still people in there from the Milošević regime who would very much have liked to see me dead in the 1990s.

As small an event as it may seem to others, to me it was a powerful moment to stand as a survivor in front of some of those who had sent grenades over my country and feel like I was saying “I’ve survived you” right in their faces. But to some the comment under my photo was offensive because it was perceived as being directed at the whole Parliament and maybe even at the entire population of Serbia.

Of course it’s not nice to have people like that in your country’s Parliament. We’ve got idiots in the Bosnian Parliament as well, and even in the Danish one there are those who would have preferred to see the “Bosnian problem” solved the way Milošević had intended it. But they’re the ones who are the problem, not someone who simply points them out.

It took me months to decide to go on this trip. I had never been to Serbia before, not even in the Yugoslav era. Quite frankly I was afraid of what might happen to me as a Bosnian (not to mention as one that came to an anti-racist anti-fascist conference!). As a war child from Bosnia-Herzegovina, I have a whole personal history with Serbia and the things done in its name, both by those who had the authority to do so and by those who didn’t. And even after the war had ended, the political situation in the country had seemed very scary to me. My family was also worried. But I thought it was necessary to go so I went. Not exactly knowing what I expected but hoping for the best.

The week before that I had met Mr. Scheske from the UNHCR in Strasbourg who was very optimistic about my going to Serbia and asked me to write to him about it afterwards. The problem is that it wasn’t so fantastic as he expected - not the way that he meant, at least. The conference was educational, I met great people, I bought cool boots, the weather was terrific and the cakes were a dream, but on my last day there it was still as scary as it had been on the first.

Although our hosts from the different Serbian NGOs did whatever they could to make us comfortable, there was nothing they could do about the radical graffiti and posters all over Belgrade. Or the daily nationalist rallies in support of Radovan Karadžić. Or simply the fact that I was always very aware that I was a Bosnian in Serbia. There were even some really stupid remarks made at the conference itself. And every time I saw a person over a certain age I kept thinking “Where were you in the 90s? What were you doing?”.

To those who have lived in Serbia for years, the situation today is probably a lot better than it was ten or even five years ago. Maybe they didn’t even notice the graffiti as much as I did because there had probably been more of it before. I on the other hand don’t have the past to compare with. I couldn’t say things were great now and “you should only have seen how it was before”. I know there were a lot more people at the radicals’ rallies before, and it’s only encouraging that their numbers are decreasing, but even 20 people are 20 too many in my opinion.

I would read things on the walls and recognize them from the war in my country. The same slogans that made a refugee out of me. The year 1389 was sprayed everywhere, in some streets you could see a crazy wanted poster for the Dutch minister of foreign affairs and on the main square stencils of Radovan Karadžić. There was no way I could feel comfortable around all of that, not even among friendly faces.

But it was definitely great to meet local activists such as for example Women in Black - Belgrade, who started their work back in 1991. Their office is a treasure chest of books on anti-militarism, human rights and the war in ex-Yugoslavia (they gave me a whole pile of them) and very touching photos from previous street actions in Belgrade and elsewhere. Banners saying “People of Sarajevo, you are not alone” and “Women in black against war”. On November 9th, they invited the participants of the UNITED-conference to commemorate the Night of Broken Glass with them in the main pedestrian street (Knez Mihajlova), and all of a sudden I found myself standing in the middle of Belgrade holding a peace flag, surrounded by people with anti-fascist signs. It was surreal. As were all the TV-cameras pointed at us.

During the street action I heard a man asking some of the demonstrators about the signs. “What do you mean you’re against fascism? There’s no fascism here, what are you talking about? That ended in the Second World War!” It’s hard to fight a problem that many are completely oblivious to. But standing with a group of Women in Black and UNITED-participants from all over Europe, someone as unlikely as a Bosnian refugee in the middle of Belgrade felt like there was hope for the cause yet.

Back from Serbia, safe and sound

I’ve arrived back in Copenhagen tonight, safe and sound - albeit without my luggage which decided to stay in Switzerland an extra day. My first trip to Serbia was a quite scary but also interesting experience. I even took part in a street action on November 9th (the Night of Broken Glass), in the middle of the pedestrian area. I’ll make sure to write about it all in the next days. With plenty of photos.

Meanwhile, I was surprised to see in the Danish newspaper URBAN that “immigrants” were now promoted to a nation in its own right. The revelation came with this quote by Hanan Amadid, pre-med: “I think that many people prefer to be around others of the same nationality. So it would have also been easier for me had there been more immigrants in my class.”

It’s funny to spend a couple of very international weeks and then come back to little old Denmark where the world is divided into 1: Danes and 2: everyone else..