SARAH is not just a refugee, she is an advocate, a student and a leader
In her testimony at the Evacuate Moria Demonstration, Sarah Mardini opens her speech with “I had to leave Syria.” “What does that exactly mean?” she asks. “I had to leave my school, my home, my friends, my family and my entire life behind and I had to pack 20 years of my life into one backpack.” Starting from point zero, Sarah says the only thing one could do is “move, and move fast.” “You have no time to think, to breathe, to ask or to look. Fast. This is how you had to move.” Fleeing from her home in Damascus to escape the Syrian Civil War, Sarah Mardini and her sister Yusra Mardini began their long journey to safety in Lebanon, then Turkey where they were driven back by Turkish coastguards. On the second attempt, they boarded a small dinghy boat alongside 20 others. Shortly after boarding the small boat, it was at risk of capsizing from the strong winds on the Aegean Sea. Fearlessly and selflessly, the Mardini sisters jumped into the water to keep the boat afloat and to ensure the survival of all the other passengers on the boat. After using all their strength to support the boat back to land, they finally landed on the Greek Island Lesvos. After being rejected into the island by Greek authorities, the Mardini sisters made the final stop of their long journey in Germany.
For eight months, Sarah Mardini and her sister lived in a refugee camp in Berlin before they were granted asylum. To give back to the refugee community, Sarah joined the Emergency Response Centre International in Lesvos to aid the refugees freshly arriving on the island. In 2018, Sarah, along with other members of the aid group, were arrested and jailed for their humanitarianism, facing aggressive charges of espionage, violation of state secrecy laws and criminal enterprise. She spent 100 days in prison, facing up to 25 years for helping refugees-- an act criminalized by Greek authorities.
After finishing up her prison sentence, Mardini returned to Berlin to restart University. Till this day, humanitarians all over Europe live in fear of detainment for assisting refugees and migrants—an act perceived by some governments as a criminal one. Mardini believes that the world should stop normalizing violence in the Middle East, something she believes has become progressively easier as the civil war tears through Syria for the 9th year. She states “if we live far from it, it does not mean that it’s not happening.”
When asked about the origins of negative connotations surrounding refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers, Sarah emphasizes the fragility of the word “refugee.” She says “the word refugee is a weapon,” highlighting the strength and resilience in starting over with nothing. “Tell me what you find more powerful than this” she asks.
When speaking about the refugee image in the media, Sarah brings to light that the press “chooses the lowest point and the moment in your life to take a picture of you and post it online.” She emphasizes the obvious: refugees and asylum seekers crossing country borders are in the most stressful point of their lives where the only thing on their mind is their livelihood and their family’s livelihoods. However, she highlights that the press often captures one moment of the refugees’ journey as they arrive on land. This one picture neglects to tell the entire story of the refugees’ journeys and their near-death experiences. These pictures reduce refugees to appearing vulnerable and dependent because they are captured at the most stressful point of their lives she says. This translates to the public consuming an abundance of traumatic pictures of these refugees as they arrive on land, allowing them to create the stereotypical image of the poor, welfare dependent refugee arriving on foreign soil. Additionally, refugees are scapegoated for higher taxes or preexisting economic conditions through rumors spread by the press or the public, pushing the negative perceptions of refugees. She explains that refugees are vilified because host communities, sometimes ridden with Islamophobia, “are afraid of the other.” In an interview with both Mardini sisters, Yusra Mardini describes her experience in Germany “feeling attacked by the word refugee” with people believing that she does not deserve what she has because of her refugee status. People believe that refugees do not deserve to be successful.
Sean Binder, a humanitarian that worked alongside Sarah Mardini at the Greek Island of Lesvos, adds on that words in the media that are commonly used to describe refugees like “hoards” or “floods” of people are what fuels this dehumanization. Additionally, people in host countries that fear for their country’s future are afraid of the “other”, or refugees, and that their country’s policies might not support them. Instead of targeting this fear at politicians, they take the easier route of scapegoating the most vulnerable populations that are coming “undeservedly” through borders. Instead of pointing fingers, Binder believes that it is vital to have these conversations at an equal playing field and assess the roots of these negative feelings towards refugees to build consensus—feelings that are often fear driven. Binder emphasizes that refugees and humanitarians are not asking for much when they demand their right to health, life and safety which are rights that every human deserves to be entitled to under any law. He also cites “reams of research” that point to an overall benefit to accepting refugees and immigrants into society. This diffuses the argument that refugees steal resources and are a threat to a country’s economy. “Anything that increases the dialogue between refugees and conservatives, the stronger we will have a position to say: let’s give people the rights that already exist” he asserts.
In her TED talk, Sarah pleads that “refugees want safety.” “They are not coming to take your jobs; they are not coming to take your money; they are not coming to take your life; they want safety. They want to just sleep in bed at night and not hear a war happening outside of their window.” In response to the criminalization of her work, Sarah stands strong and asserts “I am going to be proven innocent and I am going back to the shoreline.”
She urges people to use internet and social media to search how you can be a part of the solution. “In the same way we can gather in millions for climate change,” she says, “we can also gather in millions for refugee rights and we can go in millions for the criminalizing of our humanitarians.” “There is no more time for hope, there is only time for action.”
