Author: A migratory girl
Seeking for protection in a world of war
Where is safety?
In a camp with 14,000 refugees coming from different places of earth living under inhuman conditions one piled upon the other, the authorities can do very little to protect us. In fact, the miserable conditions they force us to live in, the inhuman laws and rules they subject us to create a small world of violence – a form of systematic violence against all of us.
If you live this violence day by day, you become part of it. In the end we humans, who are currently refugees in your Europe, must defend ourselves, our tents and our families against a generalised violence from above, but also from all sides. This violence can come come from any side now.
Where is safety?
If you live under conditions not worth for animals, violent conditions, then you can become violent any time yourself even if you share the same pain.
I feel powerless against this violence. I feel it crawling in our veins. I don’t want to become a part of this. I feel shame, when I see anger growing between people who suffer the same pain and shame when I feel anger rising inside me.
Instead of establishing friendly relations between each other as oppressed people that face the same discrimination, we become part of the reasons of fear. We escaped war, but it seems we are in war again. There is no way out. This is the war to survive the jungle called Europe.
It is so painful to witness women and children unable to sleep, afraid of violence. Their men must stay awake to guard in front of the tents, to protect their families all night. A piece of nylon, a zipper separates them from any intruder.
Today when, more than ever before, we need each other, we are afraid of each other. We don’t know from which side we could be attacked. We don’t know who is a friend. We have lost trust in life and people because there is no system to protect us and to make us feel like humans among humans.
Today instead of curing our wounds hand in hand, we put salt on each other’s wounds. We are trapped in a desert where no one will help us and no one will ask about our whereabouts.
I am responsible of myself. Within this violence, I have to do the first step to not become part of this. I have to criticise me first and start the change from inside myself, as no help will ever come from outside. We have to start from ourselves, from our families, our communities, to stop the violence and to raise up against this system.
I don’t want to brake. I don’t want to feel shame for my actions. I will stand firm against you violence and answer it with raised head and open fists. We crossed thousands of kilometres to find a life in safety, but it seems that there is no security here for us.
I stopped believing that we will find a place in peace. We have to find peace inside us and withstand the war going on outside. When violence erupts in Moria, when the police beat us, when people riot or even fight, we cannot count for protection by anyone. We have to find the solution to beat the monster.
Can you imagine yourself living in these conditions, having survived war, facing daily violence… Could you control yourself, stay calm and start peace if after all your fate was unclear for months and years while trapped in Moria?
Living under such anxiety and insecurity, we people are under permanent shock; we experience panic and trauma daily. We inflict injuries to ourselves and others. There are even kids hurting themselves and trying to commit suicide.
Where is safety?
Clubs, tear-gas, wooden sticks, stones and knives… Fists and kicks….
Our shields of protection are naked hands and our dignity. All our wealth is our blankets and our few warm clothes. Fear of losing even these keeps us near our tent 24 hours a day. But even if we decided to move away, where could we go? During the day, the knowledge that darkness is always near and fear of violence shakes our body.
For how long?
Wolves hunt in the darkness of night and the shepherds look after their flock. But here the wolves are the shepards, the shepards are the sheep and sheep turn into wolves.
No sleep. No dreams.
Where is safety?
How long are we going to search for safety by holding guns in our hands? These hands, which long for a pen not a gun!
Open your doors for our lives’!
Parwana