Young adults from the most conflict-ridden areas in the world

When the word "refugee" is mentioned in the media, it is often in the plural as "refugees". This majority is faceless, and there are far too many of them. First of all, there are far too many in the actual sense and from a human point of view. Worldwide, there are about 30 million refugees, who according to the UN are “any person who is outside the country of which they are a citizen due to well-founded fear of being persecuted because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or affiliation with a special social group ».

From a European and national perspective, one is often concerned that too many of them seek refuge with us, in Europe, in Norway, with all the resources they require, and all the elements of alienation they carry with them. Political debates and conversations often bear the mark of this anonymous, problem-oriented, and then in the understanding problem – for us. Refugees, it's the others.

Over the mountains

Boken Stories about escape gives face to the refugee, similar to the critically acclaimed Danish film Escape, who recently won the Nordic Council Film Prize. The book tells ten stories of young adults who all fled in their teens from some of the most conflict-ridden areas in the world – such as Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan. We hear about experiences from the war in the homeland as the reason why they fled. For example, a Syrian girl talks about how the war moved closer, in step with the fear. First, the jam disappeared from the slice of bread. Then the power disappeared, so the water, the conversations changed, they had to seek refuge in the basement. And about the bomb that went down, how there was suddenly blood everywhere: "I remember how the heat slowly disappeared from my little cousin's body as I said goodbye."

"I saw two dead on the road, a large and a small body lying close together between the stones."

Other stories tell of the flight itself. An Afghan teenage bride was beaten even worse than before after giving birth to a girl, and tells her story of how she, with the help of her big brother, fled with the small child over the mountains: “I was so tired that I zigzagged and leaned on rocks along the path whenever I could. But I never stopped. Because if you stop, the smugglers and the others in the group leave you. […] Yes, I saw two dead on the road, a large and a small body lying close together between the stones. " But the worst had not yet happened to her.

The role of the teacher

Being a teacher – like the undersigned – involves human encounters. You can experience getting to know destinies and life stories just because you are the adult who is available. Confidentiality can arise in this landscape of trust. As a rule, the stories remain in the hidden space of anonymity and the duty of confidentiality, and that is natural. In this book publication, a solution has been found to bring out important stories. It is made to fit in a teaching situation, but is well suited for wider reading.

Stories about escape is written by three teachers and based on interviews with young people. The stories are anonymized and structured into narratives using the teacher's language skills. At the same time, some of the orality is retained, through expressions such as "I promise you" and "I swear ass". The stories are relatively short and represent experiential dives into the various destinies. So we do not get an answer on how it goes with the various people we hear about, or how it went, for example, with the eleven-year-old little sister who was sold to raise money for big brother's escape from the Taliban.

Trauma

From psychology, we know that carrying trauma can go far beyond the ability to concentrate and can give painful flashbacks, something we also encounter in the book. Even though the flight is over and the body has reached a safe place, emotions and thoughts can still be in crisis preparedness:

"Mom and my two siblings were blown to smithereens by a car bomb IS had planted right next to our house. […] Even though it has been several years, the sink still fills up with blood when I wash my hand », says a boy from Kurdistan.

As a result of European countries putting pressure on Libya to limit the number of refugees, Libyan prisons are full of refugees. We hear the story of a young man who was imprisoned in one of these prisons after fleeing Eritrea as a 14-year-old. 30 men crammed into a small room. He talks about the wait, which is so long and poor in nutrition that the muscles and flesh disappear from his body – and the nightmares of others at night, the smell from the men, from the stinking hole in the ground that acts as a toilet. This is where he is back when he fails to concentrate in class, we learn.

The smell of the stinking hole in the ground.

Stories about escape also shows us how refugees can dream about the life they once had, about what is their homeland, about grandma and the cakes, about horses standing and resting under crooked olive trees. How it can bind in the stomach when they hear people think that refugees can only run back. For some, it's actually the only thing they want, one day to be able to "go back to where they came from."

These are heartbreaking stories that will be shocking to the reader, despite the fact that they appear toned down and without excessive dramatization. The stories testify in many ways to the power of the story, since they bring us both closer to the people behind the numbers – and the humanity in ourselves.