The Mindset of a Refugee

Joseph Minani

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781641377591
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique de l'immigration

The Mindset of a Refugee: Understanding the human potential for current and former refugees to change our planet is part autobiography, part call to action. In the book, author Joseph Minani recalls his childhood through the fictional character Karenzo-a young boy living with his family in a Tanzanian refugee camp. Through Minani's words, you'll learn of other true stories that prove refugees can offer value to the countries that take them in while advocating for change and help with the international crisis.

In this book, you'll learn about the power of a mindset forged by adversity through:

• Karenzo's experiences in a refugee camp and his journey to the United States
• Stories of refugees who persevered and reached happiness and success
• Interviews with professionals working on the front lines to help refugees

Minani looks to break the stereotypes and stigmas portrayed through the media and prove that refugees deserve fair treatment. You'll understand the need for refugees to be directly involved in finding solutions for the problems faced in camps and during the resettlement process. You will be inspired to believe that everyone deserves a right to life, equality, freedom, and a future with endless possibilities.

PART I:
HOW WE GOT HERE

CHAPTER I:
Chronicles

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

–Albert Einstein

Hutu-Tutsi Conflict

Three tribes: Hutus, Tutsis, and Twa lived together in the kingdom of Ruanda-Urundi and co-existed in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa. Between the majority tribes Hutus and Tutsis, a person who was considered Tutsi owned a lot of cattle and lived closer to the mwami (King), while a Hutu was one who lived farther from the king and was a farmer. Because of the occupational differences, the Tutsi were wealthy and powerful, but the Hutu were the majority who were mostly poor.3 It is one of the many reasons why the colonizers allowed the Tutsi leaders to keep power and maintain control over the new colony. In the early 1800s, the mass killings of thousands of people in the kingdom of Urundi (modern day Burundi) rendered the first thousand to become refugees as they fled the country to Ruanda (modern day Rwanda). The killings years later intensified because of a great conflict between two ethnic groups whose division was sharpened by the Belgians as they had control of the Ruanda-Urundi colony. The colonizers also required that everyone carry around identity cards, making the difference between the two tribes a racial one. A person was considered Tutsi usually if one had lighter skin color, a narrow nose, and had a tall, slender body. A Hutu was the opposite: shorter, darker, and with a deeper voice. Such preposterous classifications would later cause people to lose their lives as there really was no clear way to tell the difference.4 The colonial rulers precipitated a division by classifying and categorizing a people which bred tension and violence among the Hutu and Tutsi people.

After the kingdom gained independence in 1962, it separated into the Republic of Rwanda and the Kingdom of Burundi. Great conflicts among Hutus and Tutsis arose because of tensions between the minority Tutsis in both new Burundi and new Rwanda. After ten years, in Burundi, 200,000 people were massacred by a Tutsi army. The world speculated or rather hesitated to step in; this was a grave mistake. After twenty years of built up tension and thirst for vengeance among a people, the world witnessed utmost horror.5 It was in 1994, when a plane carrying the prospective Hutu leader was shot down over the capital Kigali in Rwanda. To the majority, this was considered an assassination of a Hutu leader, which triggered a great conflict in Rwanda—the Hutu/Tutsi conflict in which over 800,000 people were killed.

It was complete savagery featuring tragedy after tragedy as friends and loved ones lost their lives. No one was safe, as anyone could be a victim of vengeance and retaliation in Burundi or Rwanda. My parents fled to Rwanda as the killings intensified in Burundi, joining the two million families that fled to neighboring countries and many straight into refugee camps in that region, which quickly became crowded.6 In these same camps, rebel soldiers and undercover killers lived among survivors. Killings among friends and families escalated even within these well-militarized camps. For one to survive, it was crucial that they were constantly on the run; a life lived while looking over one’s shoulder. What parent could sleep knowing that death by slaughter, death by fire, and death by the hands of neighbors was imminent? For the next five to ten years, violence and covert killings continued. Whether in Burundi or Rwanda, people lived in fear; people were in shock after having lost loved ones, many having been displaced after losing their homes, but many more held head their heads up for the sake of the future of a people, of a country, and most importantly for the sake of their children’s future.

My mother gave birth to my older sister and brother in Rwanda surrounded by great violence. After a few years, our family was forced to flee once more. This time they fled to Tanzania. Both my parents took long journeys seeking refuge. My mother had one child on her back and held the other’s hand. They settled down multiple times in different camps before they reached Camp Lukole in Tanzania. They started from scratch and rebuilt everything from the ground up. They built a house and finally settled in Camp Lukole. My parents were able to provide and stay strong for the next nine years. In 2007, our family moved one last time, this time to the United States as Burundian Refugees.

History’s Refugees

It is believed that people from around the world have been forced to flee their homes because of war, persecution, fear, or violence way before borders and independent governments were established. This kind of displacement can be dated all the way back to 721 B.C. when the powerful Assyrian rulers took over the ancient land of Israel and deported ten of the twelve Tribes of Israel. It is unknown where these ten of the twelve legendary tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel ended up, and so this large group of people are still lost in history.7 To this day, refugees around the world go uncounted in the numbers we get from the news. Many disappear as they take the most dangerous routes, usually the only routes, to seek protection. People become refugees; it is not something they have control over. A powerful man usually had something to say, something to convince the masses that a group of people were evil or different or unwanted. Usually a war erupted, or bombs were dropped. In a matter of days, lives of families would be disrupted forever.

During the Spanish Inquisition, King Ferdinand II and Isabella I passed a decree that gave Spanish Jews an ultimatum. They had the choice of converting and being baptized or getting expelled from Spain. An estimated 160,000 Jews were forced to flee Spain or be persecuted in their own country. And between the years 1478 and 1834, more groups of people were given the same difficult choice.8 In 1502, Francisco Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros promulgated the persecution of Spanish Muslims, the Moriscos. It was not until he ordered the last of the Muslim Kingdoms in Spain to fall to the Reconquista that the persecution of Muslims hasten in Spain for a while. By 1566, the Moriscos and the Spanish were at war, and the Spanish forced around 300,000 Spanish Muslims from the city...