Refugee Week: ‘They are the solution’

“It would be a tragedy to lose the potential of this population when they are the solution” — a quote from the new doc Salam Neighbour and an important reflection at the end of Refugee Week.

This last week was Refugee Week around the world, when civil society celebrate refugees and recognise the enormous challenges they face.

It was also a week in which immigration debates in the UK — where I’m based — soured the outlook of a country with a proud history of embracing immigration and diversity, including the welcoming of refugees and the potential that comes with them.

The quote above is taken from a documentary called Salam Neighbour, in which two film producers from the US (makers of Living on One Dollar) live in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan for one month. The quote — and the film as a whole — captures not only the hardship of the camp, the loss, and the tragedy, but also the potential.

This is important to remember, particularly at a time when the number of displaced around the world hits another record breaking high. This scale can become quite over bearing. People feel apprehensive. Rhetoric can quickly turn vicious. Nationalists wallow in obsessing over their own reflection: minds narrow, values are discarded, and memories shorten.

But we should recognise the skill and potential to contribute of those who are routinely ‘othered’ in reflecting on our own society, not have disdain for their presence and intrinsic value.

The Tent Foundation recently released a report detailing the economic return of investing in refugees: Europe will gain €2 for every €1 spent on refugees. One of the key research streams of Oxford University’s Humanitarian Innovation Project focuses on the innovation of refugees themselves. This positive approach also drives the Jamiya Project: how can the Syrian community be higher education providers as well as recipients?

Why, in such a week as this one, are these facts, visions and ideas important? For two reasons. Firstly, discourse around this area is not immovable or inevitable. We can shape it and, subsequently, shape policy to empower refugees arriving in the UK, Germany or Jordan. The Tent Foundation’s predication may be very optimistic, but that perspective is likely to be self-fulfilling: the more positive the approach, the more conducive policies will be to refugee success, and the more likely a net economic contributor. In the UK, Richard Rogers, the Saatchi brothers and Lucian Freud all came from refugee families! There will be equivalents in the populations that are currently fleeing conflict, but their potential wont be realised without supportive policies.

Second, this recognition of skills and potential is crucial for the re-establishment of a country’s infrastructure, economy and culture — and preventing a vicious trap as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. Post-conflict Syria wont be a success because of Germans or Americans or Britons. Syrians will be the ones to rebuild the country. So let’s invest in them and recognise their skills.

Let’s not talk too much of 65 million refugees. Such fixation on somebody’s plight to distinguish them from ourselves removes them from our own reflection. Let’s see 65 millions potential Lucian Freuds. They are not the crisis, the breaking point or the problem. They are the solution.