More than half a million people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. We are witnessing what could become the largest humanitarian crisis on European continent which focused on the flow of refugees from Ukraine.
by Anwar A. Khan
German Chancellor Angela Merkel once wonderfully dropped a line, “Every person who comes is a human being and has the right to be treated as such”, but where is the dignity of Ukraine refugees who are fleeing to near-by border countries, such as, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Belarus, et al to save their lives from the Russian onslaught?
More than half a million people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. We are witnessing what could become the largest humanitarian crisis on European continent which focused on the flow of refugees from Ukraine.
Attaint, disgrace, dishonor and shame on the Russian government!
The title is at first glance an echo of Gianfranco Rosi’s magnificent refugee documentary study Fire at Sea: a film whose subtlety, complexity and depth I have to say go way beyond this. Actually, it is a quotation from Shakespeare’s drama titled, “The Tempest”, when Prospero tells Miranda the history of their “sea sorrow”, and how they came to be exiles on a remote island, far from Milan, the former seat of his power and prosperity. Redgrave stages a brief, powerful dramatised reading of the scene, with Prospero played by Ralph Fiennes. They are refugees, in their way, Redgrave is implying: people like us, white Europeans to whom we are naturally invited to extend sympathy and esteem.
Another contemporary reading of “The Tempest” might be to imagine Caliban, the island’s indigenous inhabitant, harassed and demonised as a monster, getting into an inflatable and finally turning up in Milan as a refugee, demanding succour.
Refugees face brutal miseries. When some people talked to some of Ukraine refugees, they have revealed more painful truths about the refugee crisis.Ukraine refugee crisis now, is the biggest shame of humanity, which the Russian Government and its army is responsible for.
Displacement affected many families.They have zero hope of going back home, this is how they feel. Every human on the face of earth should try to sleep in their own homeland. The refugees represent the full picture of the Ukraine refugee crisis and they are the ones who are paying.
Their dream is to live in our own homeland… a country…the same country that is everyone’s simple right… They have a bigger dream that shadowed the majority of their smaller dreams. But They are now registered as either a refugee or without identity. We are seeing the Ukraine mother and her kids travelling alone to the unknown future with or without her husband. They are leaving their destroyed house and their scattered memories in this long road to take shelter in the neighbouring countries. One refugee has said, “I am trying to tell the people whom live their lives in peace and dignity, freedom and safety to feel our pain and to help us to stand again for life.”
Only those suffering the atrocities by the Russian authorities and the sorrows of displacement know well the meaning of being a refugee and the weight of this widespread burden.
We, the people of Bangladesh, experienced the similar indescribable agonies in 1971 war waged on us by Pakistan like a rogue state in collusion with Uncle Sam like a bestial country when our ten million people took shelter in India as refugees to establish Bangladesh.
The wars, natural disasters, and misfortunes are unfortunately happening on wider scale nowadays. Suffering and displacement are inevitable for those facing such calamities. However, the aim of this article is to share awareness and empathy with those courageous people around the world, and in Ukraine in particular.
A home is where we belong, where we save the joyful and sorrowful memories of moments we spend with the loved ones, where we seek shelter and warmth, where we have our families and friends, and where our hearts always dwell. However, when such home becomes a source of fear, war, merciless bloodshed, destruction, anger, and so on, what will happen to our memories, our future, our dreams, and our hopes?
Ukraine refugees do not have the time to ponder on such questions, as fleeing for a safer shelter wherever it may be is their only concern with the outbreak of devastating and merciless troubles by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Displacement inflicts lifetime damage upon a refugee, who is forced to leave behind all what defines him most importantly, their identity.
For many of us terror is something that we hear about and read about on media outlets. Yet, for refugees, terror is something stripping them of their humanity, their rights, their future, their dreams, and their peace of mind. It is denying them a life they deserve to live like the rest of us. It is stealing their memories, their land, their identity, their past, and their whole existence. This is the difference between us and refugees; terror and destruction are not a piece of news they read about while enjoying the safety of their homes and the serenity of their living rooms, but it is the bullets falling over their heads devouring everything they ever knew, left with only the hope of surviving to make it to the category of refugees.
And every one of them will tell you, more than almost anything in the world, they want to go home. Alas, they also want to live. The sheltering countries must remain with their people through thick and thin, even asking them to go an extra mile and become true beacons of hospitality.
They flee their own wretched land so their hunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strange lands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands. The international media’s lens into the Ukraine refugees limns with so many terror-scarred people.
We can’t sit back and watch them suffer. They are guests of sheltering countries. They must act like a decent host. Beyond the bustle of the travel guide, the struggle of thousands attempting to navigate life on new and unfamiliar soils is played out on a daily basis.
Under this grave hapless billet, the sheltering countries should give them a new heart and put a new spirit in them; we should remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. They should be doers of what is pleasing to these suffering people. We should remember mercy, compassion, and mighty acts on behalf of those who suffer. Help them to rest in the knowledge of justice and triumph over evil.
Human beings must be the source of all goodness, generosity and love. We thank many people for opening the hearts of many to those who are fleeing for their lives. Help them now to open their arms in welcome, and reach out their hands in support. That the desperate may find new hope and lives torn apart be restored. We ask this in the name of our good spirit who fled fearing persecution at their birth place.
Grant them safety, hope, and new life, even in difficult and exhausting days. Be their light and their salvation.
We pray that we will open our eyes to see the vision of Creator’s kingdom as a place where all can live without fear. Open our hearts and fill them with our love, so that we may share our love with those fleeing a life of enslavement and terror in their own country, and welcome them to live in safety among us. Guide our feet so that we may walk alongside them, learning about them, their needs, their desires; guide our hands that we may reach out and show them how to navigate the ways of our country. Strengthened with the showers of our blessings, may we build the bridges that will allow us to come together in a community of loving support for one another. May all our people know that we are with them. Look with compassion upon them. Grant us the grace to see the refugees as we see them.
The Ukraine refugees must go back their homes in Ukraine singing songs sooner. And that should be our terminus choice. But if it gets delayed, the hope will be getting too far away; we shall not be able see the light at the end of the tunnel. This pale faced people with frustration writ large on their faces are etched with guilt, as if torture, death, the misery of millions, is sorrows that they must not bear alone.
Dante Alighieri competently said, “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” It is a humanitarian crisis and the world leaders and the UN should come forward to exert their influence on the Russian army to find out a lasting solution, the possibility to begin a new life, is the only dignified solution for the Ukraine refugees.
We call on the international community to share equitably the responsibility for protecting, assisting and hosting refugees in accordance with principles of international solidarity and human rights. Remember when a home becomes a distant memory to the Ukraine refugees,mankind should bear in mind that humanity must prevail against all business interests of powerful countries.
-The End –
The writer is an independent political analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs
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