Back to the Killing Fields

[bemildred]

A Syrian engineer waits for asylum in a Hamburg refugee camp as the bombs come closer and closer to his wife and children in Aleppo. Now, he can’t take it anymore. A farewell letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel and to Germany.

It isn’t easy for me to tell you my story. Each of these sentences takes a great effort. I am not well, I have panic attacks and doctors have prescribed tablets for my nervous stomach. Nevertheless, I want to report to you what has been happening to me these last months. Even if it makes my despair all the greater. Because I am being reminded of everything.

Reminded that my wife and my four sons are stuck in my hometown of Aleppo. That bombs are falling there and it is getting worse every day. And that I have to return to the war to see my family again.

It is paradoxical. I came to Germany because of my children, to be able to offer them a future. Now I am going back again because of them.

I am a Syrian father, my youngest son is three, the oldest eleven. I traveled through Turkey, Greece and half of Europe to reach Germany. I know full well how many refugees have entered this country in the last months. I only have to look around in my camp in Hamburg. I live in the warehouse of a former DIY store that is divided with fences and tarps into sections. On our parcel of floor space, I have been housed with three families. Sixteen people live on 40 square meters (430.6 square feet.) It is completely overcrowded.

http://www.zeit.de/entdecken/2016-02/refugees-syria-angela-merkel-germany-asylum-letter/komplettansicht

Kafka knew what he was talking about.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. And You have Secretary Clinton and Saudi Arabia and the CIA to thank for that. Her Deals go Bad .

[bemildred]

2. Is that a Trump-ism: "Her deals go bad"?

It sounds like one.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. No, she is constantly alluding to all the Deals she made, I would never Quote her pal .

[Igel]

4. Oh.

He's not welcomed as he expected. His standards for a refugee camp are higher than he's offered, so he'll reject the offer and go back to where he's in mortal risk of being killed on a daily basis. Makes me wonder where the hyperbole is. Perhaps it's in both cases.

He's also admitting abandoned his wife and kids behind in a war zone, facing death from the air on a continual basis and rape if they were overrun. I can only imagine he left them behind in such imminent danger while he took months to go and scout out a new place for them because Eurorail is such a risky thing, and, you know, you just can't trust Turks. But, in fact, the imminent danger of bombs pales to insignificance when confronted with shared space in a former DIY store, and the risk of rape and death is nothing compared to not veiling his woman. In other words, he places his honor above the lives of his family.

Now compare that with the way refugees are described. Fleeing in terror, for their lives, with just the shirt on their backs. Refugees are usually those with a life-or-death decision, not a "well, this isn't up to my standards, so I'll go back." A bit of gratitude for being allowed to live out from under falling bombs is also in order--instead of being entitled to "paradise" and trying to guilt society into complying with your minimum demands, more than absolutely required, to be sure, for a dignified life.

And his response is to whine and try to guilt his host country into upping their charity.

Poor cultural fit. He's not going to adapt. He insists other adapt. He can take his sour grapes and go home. Perhaps a culturally appropriate bomb will fall on him and he won't have to suffer the indignity of Soviet-era housing. At least when the Russians complained they weren't refugees.


Truly, neproshchennyi gost' khuzhe tatarina, an uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar. (Meaning no offense to currently living Tatars, of course.)