Syrian refugees landing on the shores of a Greek island

Yesterday, a panel called “Refugees and Migrants on the Move: The Moment of Truth for the EU and the Middle East?” was held in IAB. We sent Bwogger Megan Fillion to see what the panelists had to say about the topic.

“Idealists stubbornly insist on giving the same rights to refugees that are given to citizens.”

That statement was a strange start to a three-hour panel about the refugee crisis currently occurring in Europe and the Middle East. Professor Elzar Barkan, Director of Columbia’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy Concentration, boldly started off his introduction with this claim and never really returned to it, rendering most of the audience uncomfortable and confused. Unfortunately, this was not the only incoherent and slightly inappropriate line uttered during this event.

The first panel, moderated by Dirk Salmons, the Director of the Humanitarian Policy track in SIPA, was mainly a discussion about the refugee crisis from a more theoretical and academic standpoint.

Michael Doyle, a panelist and Columbia professor , started his argument with a rather interesting remark: Because most of the refugees today flee their countries due to economic downfall or political tumult, refugees do not fulfill the “standard of persecution” set in the 1951 UNHRC convention. This convention stated that a country is obligated to take in refugees if they are subject to genocide or direct physical violence inflicted by the regime in power. Therefore, because the refugees are fleeing from a different type of violence than the one explicitly described in the convention, countries aren’t technically obliged to take them in. Doyle appealed for the modernization of such documents to fit the situation we see today.

This would have been one of the smartest observations of the panel. Unfortunately, Doyle continued by stating his opinions in a manner that undermined his credibility. To take one for example, he said “As we know, refugees work better than immigrants.” Although he did have the best intention at heart, his argument came out flat in demeaning immigrants, who are already put down enough as it is.

Gerton van den Akker, Head Coordinator of the Press & Information Section in the European Union delegation to the UN, diplomatically tried to justify the UN’s unresponsiveness to the refugee crisis. He started off by saying that this is not only a European crisis, but global one – to which all can agree – but his argument started to degenerate when his explanations came off as excuses: The “European Union is still young”; “As we have seen, the European Union works better under pressure.” Ultimately, he said that the EU wasn’t going to do much about this crisis for the years to come.

Akker finished his speech by enthusiastically exclaiming “and for those who don’t qualify as refugees, we have programs put in place to bring them home.” Indeed, it is important that these people have a safe ride after all that they’ve endured, but why is he talking about EU’s rejection of thousands of people in need as if it’s a victory?

Ninette Kelley, the director of the UNHCR office in NY, brought some interesting facts to the table . She accused the EU for their selfishness, saying “if refugees made up 2.6% of Europe’s population, the refugee crisis would be over.” Compared to Lebanon’s whooping 25%, that’s nothing! She also proposed a solution to the refugee crisis – “the Great Bargain”. This program suggests that countries worldwide should temporarily lower their visa requirements, gather funds for massive assistance, and ensure access to jobs and services for the incoming refugees as to appease the crisis. Seeing as many refugees who try to enter countries in the EU are told they will consider their entrance in three, sometimes four years, we are in dire need of a more effective process.

While the first panel was more of a broad overview about the refugee crisis, the second focused more on the Syrian refugee crisis. Hosting the Ambassadors of Turkey and Lebanon and a representative of the Syrian National Coalition, the second panel reached a more in-depth conversation due to the panelists’ expertise about the subject.

Elisabeth Lindenmayer, the Director of UN Studies at SIPA, a former Director of the International Conflict Resolution Specialization, and the moderator for the second panel, started her presentation by lightening the mood: “We can all speak freely here, we’re not at the UN.”

And so they did. The ambassadors of Turkey and Lebanon spoke about their involvement in the Syrian refugee crisis – each country harboring approximately two million refugees. They both introduced an “open door policy” since the start of the Syrian civil war four years ago as a sign of outreach, but both also discussed the meek possibility of this policy’s continuation. With refugees representing 25% of Lebanon’s population, Ambassador Nawaf Salam discussed his country’s dwindling economy, skyrocketing unemployment, and rising deficit due to enlargement of social programs. These two developing countries simply cannot help these refugees on their own.

Education was also a prominent topic discussed amongst the ambassadors. Due to insufficient funds and infrastructure, Turkey is only able to educate half of the Syrian refugees and Lebanon has divided its school day into two “shifts” to be able to take more students into schools. But after talking about the lack of funds, Salam continued by bringing up the issue of culture and integration. It’s a tricky situation because if they continue to educate the Syrian refugees in Turkish or Lebanese, the Syrians run the risk of growing further away from their culture. But if they create a new schooling system in Arabic for refugees, this might further exclude the refugees from the regional communities.

After having heard the struggles of Syrian refugees that fled to neighboring countries, Najib Ghadbian, a representative of the Syrian National Coalition, highlighted the struggles that the Syrians endure from inside the territory. He spoke of the crimes committed by his government, about his astonishment for the world leaders’ unresponsiveness to the issue, especially by the US, and about Russia’s military making everything worse. He finished strongly by saying that he wanted Assad, the current president of Syria, brought to the international criminal court so he can be tried for his wrongdoings.

This idea of the EU and the US lending their help came up multiple times in the panel. After all, why is it that the countries with less money have to burden themselves with this responsibility alone? Iain Levine, Executive Director of the Human Rights Watch, reproached the EU for trying to justify its border reinforcement because of the increase of people who smuggle refugees into EU nations. Smugglers are there in the first place because the borders are too fortified. Levine tied this notion back to the prominent xenophobia in Europe against Muslims, of which Hungary is a major offender.

Although some strange, incoherent phrases were uttered here and there, in general, this event was a success. While the first panel focused more on the theoretical refugee policy and the second dealt with the Syrian refugee crisis, the audience got to go home a little more informed than before. But I think it would have still been interesting to merge the two together. A more in-depth debate featuring the ambassadors and the SNC representative in conversation with the UN representative could have proved more beneficial.

Syrian refugees via The Guardian