Narimatsu 1

Ashly Narimatsu

Mr. Ryan Smith

English 11 Section 1

14 October 2020

Surviving War, Borders and Documents: The European Migrant Crisis

Introduction

While researching evidence on the recent European Migrant Crisis, I was shocked when

watching Born in Syria, a documentary focusing on the lives of some refugee kids, stories about

their travels from their home country to their new home, the reason their finding refuge, and

showing the viewers what difficulties remain after crossing borders. In director Hernan Zin’s

documentary Born in Syria, Zin comments briefly about how Slovakia is full: “The Slovenian

Government has announced that more than 12,000 immigrants have reached the border in the

past few hours and the flow of refugees has exceeded the country capacity.”

Many should consider the idea that the refugees need help and are not a threat. There

have been many great organizations that have contributed to this cause like the UNHCR and the

IRC, and I feel like we can do more to provide help. The main question many would probably

ask is why should we help the refugees in Europe that have been affected by wars and violence?

Although the Arabic countries are going through a seemingly constant state of violence

and war, we could still help the refugees find homes peacefully. I am sure we can help them by
 Narimatsu 2

donating supplies to refugee camps and making them more suitable to live and to also help them

find legal representations to help them get legal documents.

The Problem

Arabic countries have been at war for a long time, which caused the European migrant

crisis to happen due to the occurrence of the Arab Spring and Nato’s intervention. The two

events caused massive destruction, violence, and chaos in Africa, the Middle East, and South

Asia. Hsiao-Hung Kai reported, “Following the suppression of the 2011 Arab Spring and Nato’s

intervention in Libya, a lawless society emerged, with racial hatred against sub-Saharan Africans

unleashed.” Since families did not want to live in a war zone, this caused the refugee crisis to

occur. Most tried to leave. Some traveled across the Mediterranean Sea and others to Europe,

where most were not accepted since they were refugees. However, some were not so lucky to

leave and were forced into forced labor, torture, and death.

Since there is violence between the government, gangs, militias, and anti-governmental

groups, many have been displaced and are struggling to find refuge. Unfortunately, some places

are not as accepting as others. In director Hernan Zin’s documentary Born in Syria, Victor

Orban; Hungarian’s prime minister states “Please don’t come, why do you have to go to Turkey

to Europe? Turkey is a safe country, stay there. It is risky to come, we can’t guarantee that you

will be accepted here. We don’t want to falsify the dreams of the people.” This situation is

complicated, being that some larger countries are more suitable to live, and many smaller

countries cannot help as much. This makes it a challenge because all are traveling to their own

destination, only to be sent back to their home country.

 Narimatsu 3

Even though refugees who were granted access to countries such as Italy, France, Italy,

and Germany finally found a home, they were treated differently. Later in the article, Hsiao-

Hung Kai talks briefly about her experience when a Chinese builder said to her; “If you didn’t

die in the back of a lorry, you could die working here.” Since those who traveled are not citizens,

they have to work extra hard trying to survive. Because of the downfall of government support,

hostile environment, and poor healthcare, refugees and migrants are forced to work harder than

they did when first trying to seek asylum. An example of who is being hurt is the refugees

seeking asylum in Greece during the pandemic. In the middle of her article, Anna speaks upon

the differences between the Greeks and refugees, “Citizens are (relatively) free to move since

March 4 and Greece opened its borders to international tourists on June 15 as the necropolitical

use of quarantine; not to ensure like but to bring about mass death. Asylum seekers are spatially

confined in camps and represented visually as a crowd.” The combination of the refugee crisis

and the coronavirus is affecting Greeks but mostly the refugees. Greece inhabitants have a home,

food, water, medical aid and only have to worry about the coronavirus. While the refugees have

to worry about surviving.

Many would assume that no one will benefit from this, but this is false. Most refugees are

desperate to flee their homes, they will do anything to get there. That includes paying people that

they have never met before and taking them to their destination. Briam Wanroojj states “Since

the year 2000, migrants have paid smugglers over a billion euros a year to reach Europe.” Many

groups like militias can take advantage of wandering refugees and use them for their uses.

Smugglers can also benefit but being a smuggler or being smuggled is challenging. For the more

obvious reason of being caught, the refugees would be sent back to their country.

The Activists
 Narimatsu 4

Many organizations and people have taken time and money into helping refugees. In

Melanie Nezer’s TedTalk, she states “I think it’s also important to remember that it’s just a

mistake to think about refugees that way [defined for what they lost] because they’re just people

so they also have a lot of things.” Nezer briefly talks about the number of displaced refugees in

statistics, the 3 durable solutions, how people are taking risks, and what we can do as countries to

help them. She spoke of ways of how governments and neighboring countries have been working

hard to help refugees and the organizations that have been helping.

Many countries including the EU have been working on helping the refugees from this

crisis by presenting proposals and reforms, although some haven’t come into play since many

couldn’t agree. The European Parliament News site, states “On 23 September, the Commission

proposed a new Pact on Migration and Asylum which sets out improved and faster procedures

throughout the EU’s asylum and migration system. The new pact constitutes a revision of the

Dublin regulation, which determines the country responsible for processing each asylum claim.”

Many countries have been upgrading security and border controls to control the influx of

refugees that are seeking asylum. Priynaka Boghni writes “Arrivals have fallen by nearly 85

percent, dropping from more than one million in 2015 to 171,300 last year, according to data

from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).” One way Europe has been

trying to help with the crisis is by focusing on specific routes that are popular like the

Mediterranean Sea. Many use the sea as transportation, but it is also one of the more dangerous

ways to travel.

Solutions

A statement that Melanie Nezer says to keep in mind in her TedTalk is that “Refugees are

more of a hidden crisis or something that we didn’t pay a lot of attention to until we saw refugees
 Narimatsu 5

coming into Europe and all of a sudden you know everyone said this is a crisis.” There are a lot

of ways in which we can help the refugees in this crisis. The main thing we could do is by

helping neighboring countries by providing funds. The countries that are close to the migrant

crisis helped for a long time and provided homes and resources for the refugees, but they also

need help because they also have their own political and governmental issues to take care of and

are struggling to keep helping refugees. Many organizations are helping by providing funds and

resources to help the refugees. Although many refugees are causing local integration, this is

causing countries to struggle in aspects such as providing education, health care pay, homes, and

jobs. Many are also trying to help the resettlement of refugees, meaning that they bring refugees

to third-party countries who can afford it, but in this case, numbers are low.

My first solution is to focus on the refugee camps. There are 59 camps in the world,

about 106 million displaced refugees and 2.6 million refugees live in the 59 camps. Because of

these numbers, I believe that the camps should expand their land and accept more refugees. To

help this, we could help by donating supplies to camps like food, water, medical treatments for

sicknesses, and other necessities to help them to survive. Although there are a lot of problems

with refugee camps such as low employment since their located in remote and urban locations, a

lack of medical treatments, environmental problems, and most already being full, the camps help

those who need it. They're an important component to view upon because they help refugees by

providing a temporary home as a means for survival.

My second solution is that we can help provide families with legal aid. The prime

minister of Slovenia states “The situation is very serious, if we do not deliver some immediate

and concrete on the ground in the next few days and weeks, I do believe the European Union and

Europe as a whole will start falling apart.” In director Hernan Zin’s documentary, Born in Syria,
 Narimatsu 6

shows the viewers the struggles of 7 kids from when they were leaving Syria, finding refuge in

Europe and then finally after. You might cast away the thought of what it might feel like to find

refuge as a refugee from Syria and traveling to Europe may not be difficult, but when watching

this, you will change your mind. Although many would say this is not an important topic since

many would say legal firms should always provide the citizens of their own countries first, which

is understandable. Refugee families have to go through dangerous routes to avoid getting

captured But, when they make it to their desired country, they struggle to make a living since

many do not have legal support.

Solutionary Project

My solutionary project is focused on raising money by creating and selling vegan,

homemade candles so I can donate to an organization that would give help refugees and different

camps. 2/3 of the money going to UNHCR, an organization that helps refugees around the world,

and 1/3 will go into making more candles. My project is also focused on shining light on the

recent European migrant crisis and helping others to gain information so they could do

something to help. I believe that by creating these candles and selling them, I can get people

involved. Many people enjoy the scent of candles, and since they're going to a good cause, I

believe that more people would buy them because they will know that they're helping in some

way. This is a good idea for media coverage as well. In the book Violent Borders, author Reece

Jones states “The innocent child lying face down in the sand in red-and-blue clothing made it

impossible to ignore the plight of refugees fleeing the war in Syria. Suddenly the decade-long

issue of deaths at the EU border became global news.” The little boy that was shown in the

media is what caused people to become aware of what is happening with the crisis.