As part of our article series, ‘Know their names’, we share stories and experiences of individual refugees. We think this is a really important project as a reminder that there are real people behind the numbers, statistics and generalisations we see in the media. We hope this project reminds you of our commonality as humans and the fact that no one chooses to be a refugee.
This is the story and reflections of Kamal, a Syrian refugee, currently living in Turkey who I got to interview in February 2020.
Kamal is from a small town in Northern Syria, near Aleppo and close to the border. Just like us, he went to university where he studied archaeology and did anther qualification enabling him to teach Arabic to foreigners. He graduated in 2012 – a time when Syria was changing dramatically. From here, his life took a different path.
At age 26, he was unable to do the masters which he had originally planned on doing, as he was required to do military service. However, Kamal having seen and strongly disagreed with how the Syrian army was being used at that time, refused and escaped to a rural area which was free from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s control. Kamal commented that he had been a supporter of the revolution and for him and many other Syrians it had seemed like a dream at the time, and a real opportunity for change and improvement in Syria. He is saddened that something that initially inspired so many people and was seen as a moment of change, has actually resulted in something that destroyed his country.
From 2013 to 2015 Kamal spent his time teaching, but life was becoming more and more difficult and dangerous in Syria, increasingly so with Russian involvement in 2015.
In 2016 he made the decision to move to Turkey. For him, he saw no other option.
In Syria, it was becoming impossible to survive, not just by being an unsafe place but a place where it was now becoming impossible to earn enough to
even buy bread or food. Kamal emphasised the difficulty of this decision. He had once dreamt of making a change to his society and country and now he was having to leave everything – his family, his friends, his memories, his land – and accept that he was unable to do anything more. He didn’t see any other choice in order to survive, the option was either to become a soldier and fight or to leave.
Kamal walked to Turkey. Groups of people would walk for 4 hours in the middle of the night at 3 am to cross the border into Turkey. It cost just $300 at this time and was a viable way to escape, Kamal says that this route later became much more expensive and dangerous to cross. Reflecting on the Syria he’d known before the war, Kamal describes Syria as being “everything for me and for many other people.”
Life for a refugee, however, does not end once in a new country. Since being in Turkey, Kamal has moved to lots of different cities, working lots of different jobs. In 2017 he worked with the UN as a volunteer on a social cohesion programme specialising in informal education. Unfortunately, he had to stop this as most jobs and opportunities in the region require Turkish nationality. He is in the process of obtaining Turkish nationality, but the process is arduous and long, with not much clarity on when or how he will receive it.
Kamal and many other refugees are living in limbo, unsure of where their lives are headed. Life in Turkey is difficult for these refugees, they have to work all day, 6 days a week just for enough money to survive. Kamal added that it feels like you’re constantly under immense pressure. At the beginning, Kamal says that Syrians were only asking for shelter and safety- that they only expected to be there for a few months. He said that none of them expected to have to create a new life and that a lot of Syrians have struggled to come to terms with this. This year, Kamal and his brother were finally able to bring their family (his parents and sister) across, after years of separation and struggle to help them.
His hometown is now occupied by Iran and the Assad’s regime, meaning that he has no hope of ever returning to his village. He feels as if he doesn’t have a home anymore.
Kamal says he personally thanks Turkey as it has given him everything in a time of need, but that he would like to choose the place he re-builds his life himself. He cannot see himself staying in Turkey, he would like to look for a place to build something for his future and for his family, somewhere with better job opportunities. Perhaps, in Canada where his relatives were relocated through a UN scheme.
Asked about any discrimination he has felt, Kamal says you can’t always see it, but you can feel it, in little things. He speaks about how he is often referred to as “the Syrian” as opposed to being referred to by his name. Furthermore, he feels like Syrians are often used as a scapegoat for all Turkish problems in the media.
Kamal currently lives in a town in the south of Turkey called Gaziantep where there are more than 700,00 Syrian refugees. He is currently working part-time with refugees on an informal education scheme through an Italian organisation. His dream had been to work with children and to change the education system in Syria. Although, this dream will not be realised it is amazing to see how his dedication to education and helping others, particularly children, has remained despite the difficult circumstances. Kamal is currently working, with the help of a UCL Opportutoring volunteer group, to improve his English to be able to pass a TOEFUL exam, which will open greater opportunities for him. He says that it is a struggle to learn English in a land where it’s not the spoken language and that he has had to do this on top of learning Turkish in order to get by in Turkey.
Kamal ended by wanting to remind people that Syrian people do not want to see themselves as refugees and that they don’t want charity. Instead, they have had to flee and leave their home country for their own safety. His is a story of hard work and determination, even in the face of discrimination and extremely difficult circumstances.
Kamal thanked me repeatedly for listening to his story and providing him with the opportunity to be heard. It’s a powerful reminder that we are all human and listening is the simplest way to help someone.
Written by Tanya Hussain.