Posted in #1 Displaced Persons

Displaced Persons

  Published Date: September 11, 2017  4 Comments on Displaced Persons
Tom Stoddart 2015 Lesbos, Greece A father celebrates his family’s safe passage to Lesbos after a stormy crossing over the Aegean Sea from Turkey.
Two summers ago I spent the month of July travelling across the country, stopping at Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and ending up in Los Angeles. I was recovering from a second back surgery, and I felt that I needed to undergo a complete physical, mental, and spiritual recharge to get back on track.  While in Los Angeles, I spent my days doing yoga, going to the beach, and exploring the San Gabriel and Sierra Nevadas. Merriam-Webster defines the word refugee as “an individual seeking refuge or asylum”; refuge is then defined as “a place that offers protection from distress.”  With these definitions in mind, it doesn’t take too many mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion that I was a refugee of sorts.  The state of my life in Virginia was causing me distress, so I fled that for refuge in California.  In my case, this “distress” is merely concern over what my undergraduate GPA is going to be and the day-to-day stress associated with being a college student.  The fact of the matter is that, objectively, I am lucky to experience that distress and even more fortunate to have the resources to flee from it.  Worldwide, there are 65.6 forcibly displaced persons- people who have been forced from their home due to persecution and conflict.  22.5 million are refugees- people who have been forced to leave their country (http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html) Only 189,300 refugees were resettled worldwide in 2016.  This represents approximately 0.008% of all the refugees on planet earth.  As a refugee, your chances of being accepted to resettle in a more developed country that offers both safety and opportunity are in the same ballpark of playing NFL football or being struck by lightning. https://twitter.com/GatorsScott/status/640865339320999936/photo/1 As a species, how do we tolerate this?  How do we let these people suffer in the name of “putting our own country first.”  In reality, these individuals are human beings just like we are, but we don’t let them in based on “nationality,” a concept that is man-made and-at times-unnatural.  All of the borders, definitions, and legalese that we have created is inherently artificial, and we are using that to justify a simple lack of empathy, compassion, and kindness.  How do we live with ourselves?

Author: aspenc1

4 thoughts on “Displaced Persons”

  1. It was interesting that you connected your personal story of refuge to the topic but you mainly just talked about the idea of a refugee and not specifically WWII refugees.

  2. It was refreshing to read a blog post that discussed a personal connection to the topic and talked about refugees as a modern issue. I think refugees will always be a problem as long as war and conflict exists.

    Tana Putnam

  3. I really enjoyed how you made a personal connection to the topic. I think it really puts a lot of the readings into perspective, and while we can never understand what those people really went through, I think it allows us to have more sympathy and a tiny peek into what their lives might’ve looked like.

  4. I like your questions at the end How do we let these people suffer in the name of “putting our own country first.”. Because of the time period people did not do things for moral reasons everything was economical or political. Countries wanted power and to do that they used everyone as pawns.

Leave a Reply