Talli Ortiz

Displacement in Iraq

            After my last research posting I became curious about the displacement ordeal that is affecting the world.  When reading the biography, Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit the word children and the letters UNICEF stood out (186).  Audrey was an ambassador for the United Nations International Children’s Fund.  The United Nations obviously works with countries in need.  At the beginning of Audrey’s life she faced the horrors of World War II and then towards the end she faced a country, Somalia, where “there is no government” (179) and watched while “A little blind girl was working her way along the camp’s fence, trying to find the medical facility” (186).  To read about these images is terrifying and to know how relatively similar they are to the Holocaust is a slap in the face.  As Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey’s son, points out,

We have sworn never to let the Holocaust take place again.  Yet the sad truth is that every day, in Africa, the Holocaust is alive and well . . . Masses of refugees are not brought to the camps against their will; they arrive in desperate and exhausted droves, as a last resort, with empty shame in their souls for not having been able to provide for themselves or their families. (180)

Therefore, refugees are our new form of colonization, since there is no empty land for them to go to; they are shoved and pushed into another land, when all they want to do is go home.  When thinking about refugees the first thing that comes to mind is Iraq and the war that we are currently fighting over there.

            The world is full of internally displaced people (e.g. the victims of Hurricane Katrina or the refugees of Iraq) and they are constantly trying to make a new living in a strange environment.  According to the Forced Migration Review “4.5 million Iraqis . . . have now left their homes”, often this transition makes them homeless, since they must flee to a refugee camp without usually money, clothes, or food (51).  The Iraqis usually flee to their neighboring countries of Syria and Jordan and can cost those countries an astronomical amount, about “$1 billion per year” (53).  Could the United States ever imagine spending this amount of money for people in need?  No, but they have contributed “$26.2 million” (Ashraf 630).  Which is a good sign, but I wonder how much money has been spent on the war.

            Another interesting aspect is that this is not the first time that Iraqis have had to flee from home.  The other time was during the Gulf War.  According to Haroon Ashraf in his article, “Health Crisis in Iraq” the refugees that fled during the Gulf war have taken asylum in several neighboring countries.  The biggest hit has been to Iran where there are “2.4 million Afghans and 450,000 Iraqis—the largest refugee population in the world” (630).  In addition, Iran is willing to take on more people, already in the process of making tents for those in need (630).  This shows that though other countries are saturated with a large amount of refugees they are still willing to take on more.

            On a positive note, Iraq is attempting to rebuild and deal with the aftermath of the war.  Several organizations are willing to help those that want to go home.  For example, the Iraqis Rebuilding Iraq Programme “is helping the government to recruit and place qualified nationals for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country” and this shows that they have not just decided to remain refugees for the rest of their life (Ladek 51).   Instead, they are trying to build a new life in a war-torn country.

            In conclusion, being forced from ones home can happen to anyone.  Thankfully, an organization like the United Nations is there to lend a helping hand.  In an “Americanized” way of thinking — such as “Protect Our Soldiers”, we forget about the rest of the civilization over in Iraq.  As a country we need to open our mind to see past this individualistic view and realize that the whole world is in need for something, whether it is food or oil.  By finding some way to aid others, we will in turn have aid.

Works Cited

Ashraf, Haroon.  “Iraq’s Refugees and Internally Displaced People Will Face Hardship Wherever They Go.”  Lancet.  361.9358 (Feb 2003):  630-631.

Ferrer, Sean Hepburn.  Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit.  New York: Atria Books, 2003.

Harper, Andrew.  “Iraq: Growing Needs Amid Continuing Displacement.”  Forced Migration Review.  29 (Dec 2007):  51-53.

Ladek, Dana Graber.  “IOM:  Building Iraqi Capacity and Assisting IDPs.”  Forced Migration Review.  Special Issue (June 2007):  50-51.