Humans of Davos — Episode 3
This is the third episode of the Humans of Davos diary. Check out https://medium.com/humans-of-davos for more.
“Remove your belt and put your face on the ground,” a soldier screamed, pointing his AK-47 at my face. It was pitch black outside. I was on my knees on the dirt facing a wall. Behind me, I heard, Julia being taken out of the refugee tent and taken into the room of one of the soldiers.
I tried to look. A soldier kicked dirt at my face and blinded me with his flashlight. “Don’t move! Or you won’t be able to move anymore,” he screamed. “Don’t worry, the others are coming to do the same to you.” I looked down at my hands and the wedding ring on my finger. “What if this wasn’t a simulation and Alice was taken away?”
“Do not forget.” I kept repeating to myself.
Sitting back in the refugee tent, my heart was still racing while the other participants traded tips and food they had gotten from the soldiers. They were playing their roles to perfection — but it felt naive to me. I couldn’t speak, in tears, hiding behind my headscarf.
I had decided to play the role of a women, wearing a headscarf for the simulation and the ID card of “Rachida”, a 43-year-old stay-at-home mom suffering from Hepatitis B. As an Arab man, I’ve always wanted to wear a headscarf in public and get a glimpse of that life. But it’s never possible in real life.
At the end of the simulation, the lights went back on. We had spent thirty minutes living through some of the experiences of refugees in camps. The physical and sexual violence, the stress, the loss of family and starvation. In a basement of the Hilton Hotel — the irony… Crossroads Foundation put an incredible effort in recreating the sounds, explosions, insecurity, violence, with countless soldiers in arms.
We sat on benches for the debrief, silent, tearful, and shocked. Julia, Thalita and Olajumoke stared into the distance, lost. Thalita was drying up her tears, while I was in the back, my headscarf around my neck. We looked at each other without saying a word. I wanted to hug them. Eventually, we found the words to share our experience with one another. Words like humiliation, fear, and helplessness.
“Don’t forget,” I repeated to myself.
Far from being the relief I expected, the debrief only escalated our feeling of tragedy. David, a former child soldier, explained how he was forced into a militia and made to kill his relatives. “After you’ve done something like this, you can’t escape anymore. The shame and guilt keep you locked in.” Alexandra was a child trauma specialist from Hong Kong who spent more than a decade in refugee camps. She spoke Arabic fluently. “The situation is worse each year.” She said. “This is the first year that I’ve seen kids under three years old self harm themselves. I have seen Mohammed, age two, bang his head against a wall until it bled. Fatima, who’s now 11 years old, hasn’t spoken since she was raped in the bathroom of her camp. She doesn’t wash anymore, either. Amil, a 15-year-old boy, eats his feces because that’s what his torturer made him do, saying it would save his mum. They killed her anyway.”
It didn’t matter if you were CEO of a Fortune 500 company, assistant, or a Global Shaper, your heart bled at those stories.
I felt my brain was trying to rebuild a fortress around this reality, shielding me from it. At one point, I found myself rationalizing. “This is the worst treatment imaginable. But how many people could this really happen to?” My question was answered by one of the staff in their next breath. “And if you wonder if this is an exaggeration,” one of the staff said, “it represents about 14% of reality in war zone camps — according to those who’ve live through it.”
Crossroads is supporting the effort to raise USD $25,000 for a camp in Beirut that was flooded. “It’s less than the travel expense of many of the participants in the room,” I told myself. If you read this and are still in Davos, go to “A day in the life of a refugee”. It made us all in the room human again.
If you want to help but don’t have the time, donate ->-> here <- <-. They’ll use the money to buy tents.
Julia, Thalita, Olajumoke and I are committed to follow up on this — hold us accountable.
