These are our children, Part 1

“We came from Syria! We came from Aleppo!”

By Deryal Yuksel

Meet Hasan, Hatun, Hanna and Ali. They are refugees from Aleppo, Syria. They are lost between two lands, feeling accepted by none. Istanbul’s historic Balat district, is their new playground.

Sometimes words in newspaper articles are just not enough for us to understand the Syrian refugee crisis.  This series of shots depicts an individual perspective on the Syrian refugee crisis in Istanbul, Turkey.

I am so lucky that I can call these children my friends. We began taking photographs of each other on the street. All the photographs were taken for fun, and that is what makes them very real. I taught them how to use my camera. They taught me games and songs, but most importantly, they taught me to understand their hardships.

Unfortunately, most of the refugees experience indifference and neglect in societies. We all must recognize that change is never easy, especially if you are missing your homeland that no longer exists. It will make a big difference if we sharpen our senses and expand our horizons on humanity. So, please take a moment to learn about the stories of these four children.

*The quotes in the photographs (below) directly come from the children and are translated into English.

“My name is Hasan. I am seven years old.”
“My name is Hatun. I am nine years old.”

 

“My name is Ali. I am five years old.”
My name is Hanna. I am ten years old.”
“People always call us beggars. They say, look, look at the beggars begging on the street.”
“Our grandfather died while traveling to Turkey with us. We are very upset. God rest his soul.”

Deryal Yuksel graduated as a Psychology major from Boston University.  She is interested in street photography and the lives of the people she shoots, particularly Syrian refugees. There is a stigma in the country that needs to be broken, and she hopes to raise awareness with photography.

Shooting the right way at the Syrian border

By guest author Deryal Yuksel

12506919_10205606700907547_409107148_nI am a photographer, and a few months ago I was travelling around the Syrian border. There is no way I can go there now. Most of the towns I have visited have turned into warzones.

However, while there, I had the privilege of meeting some Syrian children who lived in the village of Harran, extremely close to the Syrian border. I saw many tents while we were driving near the border, tents that the Turkish government had provided for the refugees.

What should be kept in mind is that refugees are also ­humans, humans whose lives have been destroyed. Thousands of Syrians are helplessly trying to balance a small sack on one arm and their children on another. If they are lucky, they can hop the border with some of their belongings and their children. Not everyone makes it.

Some Syrian refugees try to reach the Greek Islands through the Aegean Sea via illegal boats that are not very safe. Most of the boats sink, and fishermen try to save the refugees but are unable to rescue all of them. Current news reports indicated that many bodies have washed up onto the shore.

About 2 million Syrian refugees have fled to Turkey. Some of them are on the streets of Istanbul as beggars and sometimes even threaten people for money. I personally was attacked during the light of day in a crowded place by a refugee. Also, my dad was attacked by a refugee while waiting for an ATM machine. So, some of the Turkish citizens dislike the refugees, and some citizens feel bad for them.

Some Turks are racist towards the refugees, even though they are both Muslim, so it is frightening to think what kind of reaction the refugees would receive in other countries like the United States, where people may think that the refugees will cause violence and terror in their nation. If there is no voice for the Syrian refugees, how can they communicate with countries asking for help? I believe that countries should cooperate with each other to find ways to help these refugees, these 3 million refugees.

Deryal Yuksel is a Psychology major interested in street photography and the lives of the different individuals she shoots. Currently, she is particularly interested in the Syrian refugees in Turkey. There is a stigma in the country that needs to be broken, and she hopes to raise awareness with photography. She took the photographs in this essay in Harran, Sanliurfa, Turkey.

Syria: Between a rock and a hard place

By guest author, Michael Corgan

Does the ongoing Syrian civil war have echoes of the Spanish civil war of nearly 80 years ago?

Unnamed grave with teddy bear for fallen children in Syria.
Unnamed grave with teddy bear for fallen children in Syria. Photo by Bernd Schwabe used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

If the conflict were only between the Syrian government and rebel forces (as was true in opposing Franco), then it would be easy for liberal or humanitarian interventionists to oppose what Assad has done to his people and support the rebellion. Indeed, many have already done so.

During the Spanish civil war, as far as outsiders were concerned, there were communists versus Nazis, and a choice was unappealing on those grounds. In Syria today, outsiders of equally unsavory character and practices are intervening for their own purposes, and that makes choosing sides problematic.

Hezbollah supports Assad and Al Qaeda has an increasing role in shaping rebel efforts. How can one aid either side without aiding those Shia and Sunni extremist militant groups so fond of terrorists tactics, and so responsible, in Syria as elsewhere, for the deaths of many innocent Muslims?

As far as outside interests go, you also have the U.S. trying to assert some role in the area versus Russia, which is loath to abandon a long-time client state and lose its only overseas base.

The biggest problem is for the neighboring outsiders. Turkey can probably handle the huge influx of refugees from the fighting, but Jordan is strained and poor fractured Lebanon could fall apart as enlivened Shia-Sunni fighting spills into its land.

There seems to be no workable ending in sight. Nor even a less deadly one. The best that the watching world can do now is to take care of the refugees whose numbers continually swell.

Not in my name (Stories of engagement)

Our guest author, Glyn Secker, is on the executive committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) and was a lead organizer and captain of the Jewish Boat To Gaza last year.

I grew up with no faith and within no Jewish community, but with a deep commitment to human rights and justice. Searching for my cultural community, I became conscious that it had been buried by a fundamentalism that learned from history nothing but the very mindset of oppression through which it had itself emerged.

In the fight for human rights we should each choose the domain where we can be most effective. So for me, as a Jew, the title of our organization, “Jews For Justice For Palestinians” is an existential statement: its subtitle, “Two Peoples – One Future,” is a deep philosophical belief.

My family arrived in the U.K. as refugees from the pogroms in Poland and Romania. I live in London with Vanessa, who lost a generation of her family in the Holocaust, and our two sons.

I have been a lifetime campaigner for social justice and human rights:

  • Organizing and delivering printing presses to social democratic parties in Greece in 1974 prior to the fall of the military junta
  • Coordinating with social democratic parties in Czechoslovakia prior to the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the regime in 1982
  • Serving on the organizing team of the UK Anti-Nazi League in 1977 and the giant Rock Against Racism concerts in 1978.

I have been on fact-finding missions and solidarity work in Portugal in 1974, Algeria in 1978, Palestinian organizations in Lebanon in 1979, and Egypt in 1981, and I was a courier for social democratic parties in Turkey in 1982 following the military coup in 1980.

All of this prepared me to sail a boat to Gaza to breach the blockade and to say “Not in my name.” I  organized sailing our family boat to Gaza as a JfJfP boat in 2009, with hospital medical equipment provided at the ready by Conscience International, and the crew on standby.

This mission was postponed when Israel began impounding Free Gaza boats for the first time. However, in 2010, I was lead organizer and captain of the Jewish Boat to Gaza.

Glyn Secker