Trump’s refugee formula for the world fails us all
Donald Trump wants Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians but for America to accept no refugees. At all. Clearly, the very word ‘refugee’ is in increasingly bad odour. So what happens to Syrian refugees, nearly two months after the Assad regime fell? Excerpts from This Week, Those Books on Syria’s diaspora. Sign up at https://thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/ and get the post and podcast the day it drops
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The Big Story:
Syrians were in focus on International Migrants Day, Dec 18 because Turkey and Europe began a push to send them home. But it’s still a delicate issue as the situation in post-Assad Syria remains uncertain…
In the very first week after the Assad regime’s fall, countries from the UK to Germany put asylum applications from Syrian nationals on hold. Austria proposed “orderly repatriations and deportations”…Experts say the calls for Syrians to speedily return home has more to do with the “toxic migration debate than with the situation in Syria”.
This Week, Those Books:
The young Syrian refugee who dared to tell his story. The whole story.
And recipes from Syria, that create home where ever there is a hearth.
The Backstory:
Several European countries had been trying to send Syrians home even before Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell. In October, they proposed normalising ties with Assad.
Turkey currently hosts some 3.5 million registered Syrian refugees and more than 1.6 million have sought asylum across the European bloc in recent years.
Germany’s nearly 1 million Syrians are its third-biggest minority…
This Week’s Books:
Homes: A Refugee Story
By: Abu Bakr al-Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung
Publisher: Freehand Books
Year: 2018
This work of creative non-fiction is unique in the context of events playing out in Syria…This story puts a human face on the migration issue: Abu Bakr al-Rabeeah. He was 17 when the book was published. Written by his English-as-a-second-language teacher Winnie Yeung, the book came about because…As al-Rabeeah says early on in the book: “It wasn’t always like this. My life wasn’t always like a scene from Call of Duty or Counter-Strike”.
There is an evocative description of Homs, just before civil war broke out in Syria…He says, “I realize I carry Syria in my heart”.
Our Syria: Recipes from Home
By: Dina Mousawi and Itab Azzam
Publisher: Running Press
Year: 2017
So a Syrian and an Iraqi walk into a kitchen…and they cook. And eat. And write a book.
Itab Azzam, who’s from southern Syria, and Dina Mousawi, who’s from Iraq, came together in London in 2014, bonding over a “mutual love of food—both making and eating it” and decided to tell Syria’s story through its food…They offer some 90 recipes, not least an unusual smoked rice…
Choice quote:
“Syrians are masters of adversity, and nothing unites and inspires them as much as food. They will let loose with sugar, caffeine, herbs, and spices…”
I hope you find This Week, Those Books useful, thoughtful, and…a conversation starter. It’s a small operation here at TWTB, and support from readers like you helps keep this news literacy project going.
I hope you find This Week, Those Books useful, thoughtful, and…a conversation starter. It’s a small operation here at TWTB, and support from readers like you helps keep this news literacy project going.
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Originally published at This Week, Those Books
