Fieldnotes on Humanity

This report is extremely shocking and upsetting. Today, Reuters reported that, according to a memo seen by the news agency, the Trump administration has instructed the U.S. Immigration Department to review all cases of immigrants who were accepted and entered the United States during the Biden administration. This order could apply to 233,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. between January 2021 and February 2025. This is horrible news, as the Trump administration has already reduced the refugee admission cap. For example, in 2026, the admission cap is 7,500 people, allocated only to white South Africans. During two years of field research in Washington, D.C., I met with newly arrived Hazara refugees who told me that they had spent between 2 to 7 years for their cases to be reviewed or processed. Most of these reviews are multi-layered. For instance, refugees from Turkey were first vetted by the Turkish government and NGOs. In the second stage, their cases were referred to the UNHCR, an...

I found this following refugee poem by chance. It is by an Afghanistani poet, Raziq Faani, and I thought I would regret it later if I did not translate it. ----- One morning, from the children’s playground, My little one returned with tearful eyes, And with the lump in his throat, he asked: "Tell me, dad! What is a refugee? Is it an insult or just a name?" At his question, a sorrow filled my heart, And a tear slipped uncontrollably down my cheek Quietly, I wiped it away with the back of my hand, As my mind searched for the right words. I told him: "Look, my dear child, Do you know what homeland means?" He nodded, "Yes, You once told me, That homeland is where our ancestors lived." I kissed his face, And with a heavy heart, I added: "If in one dark night, A band of thieves and marauders burn your dad's home, And set fire to everything, and you, in fear, run away, Spending nights on the streets of strangers, You will become a refugee, my child, You ...

Refugees sleeping on the sidewalk in Indonesia (Photo source: social media) What is going on in Indonesia? It has become an inferno for thousands of refugees who have been stranded for years now. Indonesia has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and its supplemental 1967 Protocol which form the basis of rights of refugees and obligations of governments to protect them. The Indonesian government has done nothing but to create a situation that has become a protracted agony and suspense, a humanitarian predicament that has resulted in the loss of dozens of lives.  In December 2016, in an attempt to a better humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, the Indonesian president Joko Widodo issued a decree called Presidential Regulation No. 125 , which allows refugees and asylum seekers to stay in Indonesia, not to be forcibly returned to their country of origin. In the Article 1, no 1 it says: Foreign refugee, hereinafter referred to as refugee, shall mean a foreigner who resides wi...

Lets imagine ourselves living in a boundary where lines have divided us from each other based on our colors, ethnicity and language. Imagine that we are being told throughout our lives that it is our noble duty to protect our national values from others; others who are different from us in many ways, and there might not be even a single sign of commonality between us and others. What would happen hereafter? It is encountering others that sometimes ignites our sense of ignobleness, and it projects fanaticism, which then let us discharge hatred towards others. The sense of otherness that infuses with ire and then invades our conscience; and eventually replace our morality and ethics with zealotry. That is when humanity disappears. Zealotry is a threat to human civilization; Petra Laszlo is a small example of what could happen if we let our conscious be governed by zealotry that is often reinforced by political entities. It might recur in the future. We are definitely experiencing...