http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qfDgxNWkdkg#!
June 20 is World Refugee Day, established by the United Nations “to honor the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.”
The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has been helping refugees—including survivors of the Holocaust—since shortly after the end of World War II. As genocides, ruthless military regimes, internecine warfare, and torture have continued to engulf many areas of the world in blood, agony, and horror, the numbers of men, women, and children displaced from their homes continue to swell. For most of these refugees, the UNHCR is their only lifeline.
The UNHCR site provides videos in which some of these survivors describe their experiences. If you listen to these stories, you will be both chilled at the terrifying nature of the dilemmas that these survivors faced and moved by what they were able to achieve despite these horrors.
In reflecting about the work of the UNHCR over the last six decades, we do well to consider the extent to which American participation in armed conflict in pursuit of its own interests has contributed to many of the refugee problems, and to reflect on how we can atone.
At least one in five refugees has been subjected to torture—the topic of our upcoming June 24 post. Many of the people labeled “immigrants” in the U.S. today are refugees, and many have suffered horrendous torture. Many need ongoing services to recover. I have met some of them. Perhaps you have done so also, without even knowing it.
To learn about some of the circumstances in which the U.S. has gotten it right, watch the video, “Six voices for six decades.”
June 20 is a good day not just to honor the courage of refugees but to recognize that helping others to help themselves benefits all of us and perhaps helps to save our souls.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology