At the core of the plight of refugees is a simple question of how much a human life is really worth. — AP
JUNE 20 was World Refugee Day.
According to a report by the United Nations High Commis-sioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of the middle of 2023, there are 110 million people who have lost their homes due to conflict, war, and suppression.
Of these, 62.5 million are internally displaced within their own countries, while 36.4 million have fled abroad.
One of the highest profile cases involving refugees today is of course the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and deservedly so. I think most Malaysians need no reminding of the humanitarian disaster and genocide that is unfolding in Gaza at the hands of Zionist persecution. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East estimates that there are some 1.7 million refugees in the Gaza Strip alone.
There are other lesser known humanitarian disasters unfolding as well. One such case is Sudan, whose civil war has seen 13,000 to 15,000 people killed, 33,000 injured, a staggering 7.2 million internally displaced, and 2.1 million who have fled abroad.
In Malaysia, UNHCR states that there are 189,340 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the UNHCR in Kuala Lumpur, as of May 2024. Some 166,290 are from Myanmar, comprising about 109,230 Rohingyas, 26,350 Chins, and 30,710 other ethnic groups.
The remaining refugees come from Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Palestine, and others. Of these registered refugees in Malaysia, 52,810 are children below the age of 18.
At the core of the plight of refugees is a simple question of how much a human life is really worth.
To those who oppressed and sought to harm these refugees in their home countries, the value of that life is clearly less than zero.
As normal citizens, our ability to affect those situations in those home countries can seem limited at times.
For heavily blockaded places like Gaza, we can often feel similarly powerless. We are not at all powerless, however, when it comes to the question of how we treat refugees in our own backyard.
Malaysia has often struggled with the question of how we perceive refugees. There are some who are very sympathetic and helpful, some to the point of even dedicating their whole careers or even lives to providing help to people who have endured some of the worst trauma imaginable.
And then there are some who dedicate their time and energy to generating hate towards these groups of humans – fanning the flames of all kinds of xenophobia, distrust, and disgust.
This process is at its core one of dehumanisation. Such dehumanisation is a vital, necessary element in the phenomenon that is hatemongering. It is the very same dehumanisation that enables Zionists to torture and kill Palestinians; that enabled Hitler to kill millions of Jews during World War II; that enabled the genocides of Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and so on.
This is because it is almost impossible to visit any kind of atrocity or even harm on someone we see as a fellow human being – alike in more ways than not.
If the world is to progress towards more peace and less violence, then we must be champions of the opposite: humanisation.
This will always be an uphill battle. In the era of Brexit and Donald Trump, there is ample proof that it is easier to dehumanise and generate hate than it is to humanise and generate love.
But just because it is harder, doesn’t in any way mean we should shy away from it.
One recent step in the right direction was the manner in which the UNHCR was able to work with the Islamic Religious Department of the Federal Territory (Jawi) on a Friday sermon on the subject of refugees.
One particularly encouraging excerpt read: “The refugee crisis is actually a challenge for us who want to claim to be true Mukmins (believers). This is stated by the (Quran verse) which was read at the beginning of this sermon just now...
This unprecedented collaboration is a triumph both for UNHCR and for Jawi.
Increasing our sense of humanity is not meant for refugees from foreign countries alone.
Earlier this month, hundreds of Bajau Laut people in Semporna, Sabah, many of whom are stateless, had their homes allegedly demolished and burnt down by the authorities.
These people are among the very poorest in the whole of Malaysia, and one can only imagine how much harder their already hard lives became after this incident.
I can understand the arguments of those who protest against making a one-to-one comparison between such actions and the Zionist destruction of Palestinian homes. It would be far-fetched to say they are exactly the same; but I think it would be equally far-fetched to say that there are zero parallels whatsoever.
We are right to condemn oppression abroad; hopefully we can have the same standards of justice and standing up for the oppressed in our own nation.
When eight Bajau Laut students went to Kota Kinabalu in a solidarity protest against water shortages and as part of campaign to highlight the problem of statelessness this month, they found themselves arrested, along with their teacher.
Five of them were between the ages 18 and 22, while the remaining three were under 18.
Is it truly necessary to detain these young activists?
Once again, instead of helping and affirming the humanity of these people who have suffered so much, we seem to only be adding onto their suffering.
As Malaysians, we still have a long way to go with to how we treat the last, the least, and the lost.
Let’s start that journey by learning to see the humanity in each and every one of us.
Nathaniel Tan is strategic communications consultant who works with Projek #BangsaMalaysia. He can be reached at nat@engage.my. The views expressed here are solely his own.
