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‘Flee’ Screening and Post-Show Talk: Contemplating Our Shared Humanity

AFR-SG — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 04:00:02 +0000

On 12 June, Advocates For Refugees – Singapore (AFR-SG) partnered with local cinema The Projector to screen Flee, a film recounting the true story of Amin, a gay Afghan refugee who fled Afghanistan following the 1989 civil war. Amin’s experience of stigma, shame and trauma at the intersection of two marginalised identities provided ample food for thought on the realities of living beyond the margins and the enduring commonalities that tie us as humankind.

by Amanda Chen

These topics were dissected in our post-show dialogue featuring Dr Gül İnanç, founder of Opening Universities for Refugees and founding co-director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, Dr Hana Alhadad, a trauma-informed consultant and researcher with extensive experience working with migrant communities, and Ms Mathilda Ho, founder of AFR-SG and Deputy Chair for the Southeast Asia Working Group at the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network. The dialogue was moderated by Ms Selene Ong, a volunteer of AFR-SG.

To kick off the dialogue, attendees were invited to respond to the question, “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear ‘human identity’?”

Dr Gül elaborated on the concept of human identity as being complex and shifting in nature. She highlighted that different labels can be assigned to one population, each with their own definitions which may have specific implications in formal contexts; examples include ‘forcibly displaced’, ‘stateless’ and ‘refugee’. These labels and their accompanying legal criteria may overshadow the humanity — the unique perspectives and experiences — of the people bearing them. Dr Gül noted that we can refer to the responses given by the audience, including ‘freedom’, ‘belonging’, ‘acceptance’ and ‘dignity’, to understand what connects us as humans. While the parts of our lives that we, or others, pin as our identity may always be subject to change, our striving towards a fundamental set of needs underlies the shared human experience.

Dr Hana expanded on the centrality of belonging to human identity. More than simply being included in a community, which may be predicated on changing parts of oneself to fit the expectations of the group, belonging implies unconditional acceptance. This freedom for people to be themselves completely, knowing that they will be accepted as they are, can be seen as a fundamental human need, but also as a privilege that not everyone enjoys.

Addressing a question from the audience on whether belonging exists on a spectrum, Dr Hana noted that we each have many intersecting identities and may find ourselves ‘belonging’ to some communities, such as our home, more fully and naturally than others, such as our workplace. Adding to the notion that human identity is rooted in how we see ourselves in relation to others, Mathilda highlighted the importance of connecting with others on a personal level. In particular, real interaction is essential for us to accurately understand the perspectives of other people and to perceive them as they are, rather than as they tend to be portrayed in popular media.

As the topic of discussion progressed to our attitudes towards people marginalised by society, a question from the audience probed whether asylum seekers must portray themselves as “model” refugees in order to be granted asylum, and whether this bar is set too high. Dr Gül recalled her encounter with the term ‘first class refugee’ in Malaysia — this referred to someone with education, money and proper identity documents, often from a Middle Eastern country such as Syria.

In contrast, others such as Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were treated as inferior. This highlights how differential treatment exists even within marginalised groups, depending on how different aspects of identity such as ethnicity and class intersect within an individual. Dr Gül noted that guidelines for the recognition and treatment of refugees remain as those laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention developed following World War II. Formal changes to make policies more inclusive, such as towards elderly refugees, and more flexible to accommodate unique challenges faced by refugees in different regional contexts, are yet to be enacted.

In parallel to the concept of ‘model refugees’, Selene noted how certain ‘attractive catastrophes’ tend to garner more attention and sympathy than others. Our recognition of important issues in the world tends to depend on the media and their perception of what stories appeal most to audiences. For instance, the spread of information regarding ongoing humanitarian crises in Africa or Yemen pales in comparison to that relating to the war between Ukraine and Russia. Dr Gül noted that crises are experienced at an individual level, varying in degree depending on the specific contexts that people find themselves in; the framing of longstanding phenomena like migration as crises to nation-states is much more debatable.

Dr Gül further pointed out that pejorative labels such as ‘boat people’ and ‘illegal migrants’, popularised by media narratives, unfairly strip refugees of their humanity when after all, in her words, “actions can be illegal, people can’t”.

An audience member posed the question of whether we should focus on extending compassion to those in need in our backyard, or in communities distant from us — both Dr Hana and Dr Gül felt a strong responsibility to do both.

Taking a holistic view of the issue of forced displacement, the panelists also considered perspectives of other stakeholders involved. In response to an audience member’s question on managing the tension between the “scammy and dangerous” nature of trafficking journeys and the imperative on refugees to make these journeys due to their lack of alternatives, Dr Hana shared observations from interactions with human traffickers in her work. Some viewed themselves as saviours offering refugees a lifeline in desperate circumstances, some came from refugee backgrounds themselves and earnestly tried to find policy loopholes to get refugees to their destinations, others were exploitative and operated for the purpose of profit. Despite the ostensibly good intentions of certain traffickers, the danger that refugees are exposed to as a result of illicit journeys remains unchanged. Mathilda emphasised that this concept of irregular or illegal movement, allowing traffickers to exploit migrants’ journeys for monetary gain, only persists due to policies that make ‘legal’ journeys impossible in the first place. Acknowledging them as the basis of the desperate decisions that refugees are forced to make is perhaps the first step to alleviating their suffering that results.

Another question from the audience considered potential costs to the majority when marginalised groups are accepted into a community. This is salient in Singapore, which lacks geographical space to accommodate refugees — yet, Mathilda pointed out that our drive to expand economically has seen land reclamation efforts repeatedly come to fruition over several decades.

A lack of priority could hence be a stronger factor dissuading us from accommodating refugees compared to a lack of space. Selene added that as we readily enjoy the privilege of safety and belonging in our daily lives, we are responsible to share this privilege and uplift others who lack it.

At the end of the day, we are all simply humans, each with our own unique set of experiences and world-views. The documentary film ‘Flee’ offered an immersive insight into the world of an individual sidelined by society multiple times over, and the dialogue following it rounded our understanding of how we can support such individuals living life on the margins. To resist indifference and enact change, we can first and foremost respect each individual as the person that they are. As we forge connections and recognise the commonalities we share, the elements of life that make us feel human — belonging, acceptance, dignity and freedom — will follow.

Amanda Chen is a current BSc Neuroscience and Psychology student at King’s College London. She volunteers actively with organisations providing material and wellbeing support for refugees in the UK, as well as in northern France outside of term-time. Joining AFR-SG’s team for the first time in 2022, she is keen to learn more about the issue of forced displacement in the regional context and to do what she can to make a difference.

For more information about RAW 2022, please visit our platforms:

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Local and Global Responses to Humanitarian Crises: A Panel Discussion Review

AFR-SG — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 02:10:48 +0000

On 4th June 2022, Advocates For Refugees – Singapore organised a panel centred on Humanitarian Crises, exploring the role of local and global responses to them. The panel was held as part of RAW 2022, an annual campaign to commemorate World Refugee Day on 20 June.

by Tan Jing Ling

Overview of the Panel

Two central themes guided the panel: humanity and borders. The former focuses on the promotion of human welfare and the active belief in the value of human life. The latter explores how borders and geography affect the nature of conflicts and the responses to them. Intersecting both, the panel brings together the humanitarian work of speakers across borders and regions, from Afghanistan to Africa. The panel hosted:

Ms Gabrielle Tay, Founder of Action of Women, Greece a women’s rights organisation dedicated to working towards a bright tomorrow with women and girls displaced by conflict, violence and persecution.
Dr Hakim Young, a Singaporean medical doctor who has done public health, humanitarian and peace-building work in Afghanistan for over 20 years.
Ms Bernadette Iyodu, a Rights in Exile Programme Coordinator at AMERA International, a UK-based organisation, Bernadette is a lawyer by training from Uganda in East Africa.
Mr Amoz Hor, a PhD Candidate at George Washington University and Predoc Fellow at University of Southern California and Notre Dame University

The panel was moderated by Ms Sangeetha Yogendran, a PhD Fellow at the Human Rights Centre of the University of Ghent.

The State of Humanitarian Crises in 2022

Starting the discussion where the world’s attention resides, Ms Sangeetha pointed the discussion to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since February 2022. From there, a series of questions were posed as central to the theme of humanitarian crises:

How do local and global responses towards different humanitarian crises differ?
What underlying factors (geopolitics, race, ethnicity, religion) can explain differences in humanitarian responses from crisis to crisis?
What spurs an effective humanitarian response or causes inaction?
What are some of the responses towards humanitarian crises of our times?

Taking a step back, Ms Sangeetha put forth a guiding definition of humanitarianism: “the promotion of human welfare and the active belief in the value of human life; whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and aid other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity”.

Ms Sangeetha further identifies three principles that guide humanitarianism: neutrality, impartiality, and independence. A humanitarian crisis is thus the absence or challenge of these principles and conditions.

The panel then proceeded with speakers sharing their experiences, a moderated discussion, and ending with a question-and-answer (Q&A) segment. This review consolidates the speakers’ sharing with their discussion and Q&A responses.

From Corporate Law to Pomegranates: Ms Gabrielle Tay’s sharing

Ms Gabrielle opened the speaker segment by sharing her advocacy work as the founder of Action for Women, Greece. An unlikely journey, she shared how her background in corporate law meant a complete lack of involvement in forced migration prior to 2015.

That changed for her in 2015 when she began reading about “what was happening on the doorsteps of various European countries”, following an inflow of refugees from the Syrian war.

“I started reading about people sleeping at the train stations in Hungary. People were just walking through Austria, through Germany. I’ve never ever witnessed anything like that,” Ms Gabrielle added.

That knowledge spurred her to start Action for Women, Greece, a women’s rights organisation dedicated to “working towards a bright tomorrow with women and girls displaced by conflict, violence and persecution.”

She also runs the Pomegranate Project, an initiative to provide refugee and asylum-seeking women in Athens with “a safe place to shower” and other forms of protection and empowerment.

Sharing a specific encounter, Ms Gabrielle met a refugee that was “the splitting image of [her] father,” a moment above all that sparked her empathy for the cause. “The biggest thought for me was that this could have been my father…if not for the fact that we (in Singapore) are blessed by the circumstances of our birth and our nationality,” she added.

Ms Gabrielle’s approach to humanitarianism is centred on grassroots movements: “powered by civil society, not taking a single cent from any government”. In so doing, her organisation’s approach has always been to give back autonomy to “participants” that Action for Women receives. She believes firmly in the need to be agile and independent in addressing crises; but not forget foundational principles. “If we acknowledge that seeking asylum is a fundamental human right that applies to anyone regardless of nationality, that is a good start.”

“Because you are human and you care”: Dr Hakim Young’s sharing

Dr Hakim Young is a Singaporean medical doctor who has been involved in public health, humanitarian and peace-building work in Afghanistan for over 20 years. Sharing his vast experiences, he outlined the human(e)-centred values he has upheld over the years.

Human Impartiality: to be human with one another based on unconditional love
Human Neutrality: to craft a vision where all humans count; to recognise everyone’s humanity, vulnerability, and dignity unconditionally.
Human Listening: to provide direct relational humanitarian support for locals to decide and implement aid
Human Family: to recognise and act as an international community, across borders

When asked about his motivation for humanitarian work, Dr Hakim shared how it is always important to place oneself in the shoes of the people facing the crisis, to empathise and listen to everyone involved. When he embarked on humanitarian work, he had to question every single assumption he held previously.

He added that there is a tendency especially after encountering disappointments and betrayals, to develop a fear and distrust of the Other. This, in turn, leads to assumptions being made based on that fear and distrust. To overcome that, he invokes an analogy that calls for a little reimagination:

On committing to a cause, Dr Hakim adds that: “there are too many things that can be done, so find what suits you according to your time and pace. Even if it’s a weekend, a few hours, or one hour, just don’t give up.”

“If we can’t imagine ourselves on the moon, maybe we can imagine ourselves going back to when we were children. If there’s a problem, the children in a classroom will almost immediately work together to solve the problem. Or if they’re playing together, it doesn’t matter what’s their race.”

On being intentional: Ms Bernadette Iyodu’s sharing

Ms Bernadette is a lawyer by training from Uganda in East Africa. She is currently a Rights in Exile Programme Coordinator at AMERA International, a UK-based organisation. But her first brush with displacement began way back, when she was in Primary 1.

“Growing up, I vividly recall getting displaced in my home district, having to go through three different cities, seeking asylum with my family. I did not understand much but I could read from all the adults around that it’s not a normal life to be in, at that point. I couldn’t go to school for a year, and when I did, it was interrupted with episodes of civil and political unrest resulting in missing school for weeks and months, and sleeping under your bed for safety at night.”

Years later, after she gained legal training, she came across an advertisement by the Refugee Law Project. They needed legal officers to help with their legal team to represent refugees. At that point, she wondered what being a refugee meant: “I have never been a refugee but I know what it means to be an internally displaced person.”

For Ms Bernadette, that déjà vu and connection to the plight of displacement continue to guide her humanitarian work. That is why she emphasises the need to be “intentional” – to constantly find out more information about crises around the world.

In doing so, Ms Bernadette urges humanitarian work to be delivered on the basis of needs rather than by the level of media coverage. She highlights how there are “over 20 neglected crises” worldwide that have yet to receive as much attention as the Ukrainian crisis.

Ms Bernadette relayed a heartfelt anecdote from a Syrian refugee who was refused entry by Poland and subsequently gained asylum in Germany:

“There’s a big difference between Syria and Ukraine. Those who fled Ukraine went to safe countries with governments that received them as heroes. In Syria we had to flee the bombs to humiliation. Nobody deserves war, destruction, and exile from their homeland. But the difference in treatment just hurts so much. The blood that comes out of all people is the same colour.”

Through this anecdote, Ms Bernadette shared her concerns in differentiating between “local” and “global” refugees, or those of one’s in-group versus out-group. She calls into question the distinction between what is local and global, reiterating her vision for humanitarianism to be borderless and needs-based.

Selective Empathy versus Solidarity: Mr Amoz Hor’s sharing

Lastly, Mr Amoz Hor rounded the panel by situating the topic within its broader history and locating Singapore’s place in it. Mr Amoz highlighted a fundamental tension between solidarity in offering aid and selective empathy in conditioning said aid on various demographic factors, such as race.

Building from his analysis in the Washington Post, he reiterated the importance of resisting “building solidarity based on something as exclusionary as Whiteness”.

An example he shared is how Whiteness in the United States was initially restricted to Anglo-Saxons. Through the 1800s, non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrants fought against what they called wage slavery in the United States — not on the basis that freedom was a universal right, but on the basis that “only [Blacks] are slaves” and only Chinese labor is “servile.” Comparing this to the Ukrainian crisis, he warns against the rhetoric that specific demographic groups are more befitting of aid than others.

He lamented that humanitarianism is a difficult topic to bring up in Singapore today, even to those closest to us. Instead, Singapore’s dominant narrative is about “how we escaped third world conditions and became a first world country”. In so doing, third word problems seem distant and far away from Singapore and Singaporeans.

Reflecting on what Singaporeans could do to change this, Ms Gabrielle had mentioned how seeing her father’s splitting image in a male refugee brought home our shared humanity. Similarly, Amoz suggested drawing connections between present day refugees and the family histories of what Singaporeans were escaping when they arrived on this island.

“Perhaps, instead of thinking of the third world as our past, we should see it in our present.”

Tan Jing Ling recently graduated from Sciences Po and the National University of Singapore, where he pursued a dual BA in political science and social science. Jing Ling volunteers with the Advocates For Refugees – Singapore (AFR-SG). He was in the working committee of Refugee Awareness Week 2018 and 2022 as the campaign editor.

For more information about RAW 2022, please visit our platforms:

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Navigating Forced Displacement as Digital Natives

AFR-SG — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 04:00:03 +0000

On 9th September 2021, Advocates for Refugees – Singapore convened a special session, “Young and Resourceful: Navigating Forced Displacement as Digital Natives”. The session was held on Day 3 of the Forced Displacement and Urban Management Conference, organised by the Resilience Development Initiative Urban Refugee Research Group (RDI UREF) and the Indonesian Civil Society Organisation for Refugee Rights Protection (SUAKA).

by Caitin Fernandez and edited by Aleithia Low

Young and Resourceful: Navigating Forced Displacement as Digital Natives

We were honoured to have Hasan Al-Akraa, Mozhgan Moarefizadeh, Mohammed Faruque, and Lin Yanqin as our speakers, with Sarah Bagharib as the session’s host. With this amazing line-up, the session tackled questions concerning our speakers’ personal experience of using social media to highlight refugee-first narratives, create opportunities and garner support as well as how they’ve learnt to carefully navigate these online spaces.

The defining feature of this special session was the interactive elements: We warmed the audience up with a simulation activity, in which they were asked to place themselves in the shoes of a Rohingya male refugee trying to find a job in Malaysia. At various stages, participants were asked to make decisions on which pathway to take, with each leading to a different outcome.

This feature reminded our participants that while no two refugees share the same experience of forced displacement, they face resource constraints at each point and have to make hard decisions; furthermore, while access to social media can be a boon, the pitfalls are plenty.

After introducing our speakers, we allocated participants to four breakout rooms. The shift to a more intimate setting allowed our speakers and participants to explore more sensitive topics, guided by our volunteer facilitators. After fifteen minutes, each breakout room got to hear from another speaker-facilitator pair.

Following this, we wrapped up the session with a persona quiz, which helped audience members to identify their strengths and how they could potentially work as an ally with displaced communities.

Reclaiming Agency through Social Media

In each breakout room, our speakers explained how social media helped them reclaim their agency and slowly change the public’s perception of refugees. In attempts to elicit sympathy and donations, international media and some organisations portray refugees as helpless victims whose plight ought to be pitied. However, this depiction hardly does justice to the resilience and capabilities of refugees.

Social media platforms have become conduits for refugees to reclaim their agency in the public space; they are not simply waiting for help, but are instead tirelessly working with limited resources to survive and carve a better life for themselves, families, and community.

Omar’s Film School was founded by Omar and Faruque, two Rohingya brothers who have spent decades displaced in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. In Cox’s Bazar, they used their own funds to start the film school: these media lessons started with the immediate need to educate the other encamped refugees about COVID-19. Looking beyond that, through videos and photographs, the film school has helped to communicate important health protocols and aims to empower its young people, and provide a record of their cultures and traditions in order to preserve Rohingya culture, as they have been forced out of their home communities.

Social media has been an excellent platform for the film school and its students to showcase the stories of refugees in the camps. Mohammed Faruque also shared that social media has enabled the Rohingya to document and share their everyday realities with an international audience. Amid Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya, Facebook and Instagram have become important and free platforms to house films and photographs about the Rohingya culture for future generations.

Galvanising Local and International Support

For many of our speakers, social media has become a crucial tool to galvanise the refugee, host, and international communities to create social change.

Hasan Al-Akraa, a Syrian refugee based in Malaysia, founded the Al-Hasan Volunteer Network (AHVN) to serve refugee and underprivileged communities in his host country. Social media has been instrumental to the organisation’s work: they use social media to raise awareness on the refugee situation in Malaysia, reach out to potential volunteers and donors, and update their followers on fundraising efforts for mutual aid requests.

Hasan stressed that it is important to be transparent, especially with fundraising through social media. He found it crucial to upload receipts, provide a breakdown of how the funds are used, and provide timely updates on social media. Having these layers of transparency helps the organisation to build trust with their followers on social media, and makes it easier to engage them in the long run.

Faruque, co-founder of Omar’s Film School, explained how his film students’ photography in Bangladesh have been featured overseas in exhibitions. Social media has opened doors for the film school, with one man from the United Kingdom starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for the refugee community. They are currently in talks to launch future GoFundMe fundraising campaigns to secure funding for the film school.

Building Friendships, Trust and Taking Action Together

In addition to short videos and photos, podcasts and digital story-telling have emerged as immersive tools in online advocacy. Our speakers reminded the audience that these mediums are most effective when the voices of refugees are placed at the forefront.

Mozhgan Moarefizadeh, co-founder of ‘The Wait’ podcast, explained that audio is extremely powerful for both the audience and interviewees. Mozhgan found that audio helped audiences connect with the stories of refugees and their emotions. Likewise, when she and her team interviewed the refugee community in Indonesia, they would pour their hearts out because “it is rare to find someone who wants to listen to you.”

The podcast was incredibly successful in raising awareness about the struggles of refugees in Indonesia, and also unlocked many life-changing opportunities for refugees who came forward in the podcast. For example, some received sponsorship for resettlement applications.

Lin Yanqin, a senior producer from Our Better World (OBW), a digital storytelling platform based in Singapore, emphasised that it is important for storytellers to connect with an individual’s or organisation’s ethos and aspirations. For example, OBW regularly communicates with beneficiaries or volunteers at a local level, and often engages locals to write their own stories.

When building the narratives, it is also important to tell a story in a way that encourages viewers to take action in a meaningful way. For example, if an organisation needs to urgently fundraise for their initiatives, OBW would craft a narrative that encourages donations rather than volunteering.

Beyond publishing stories, OBW emphasised that it is important to cultivate meaningful relationships with their story subjects. They have forged friendships and continue to work collaboratively to pursue long-term goals.

Coping with Backlash and Harassment

Refugee issues are very sensitive topics in this region. Thus, our speakers have often been on the receiving end of backlash and harassment. After the release of ‘The Wait’ podcast, Mozhgan had to contend with both internal and external criticism and harassment. At times, she could not leave the house alone because of harassment. Our audience was shocked to hear that Mozhgan has faced exclusion within the refugee community as her advocacy has caused some of her family members to be denied services.

Mozhgan remarked that it is not always possible to ignore criticism because it can potentially jeopardise her organisation. To mitigate this risk, Mozhgan often runs more sensitive content by a lawyer before she posts. She reiterates that the welfare of the refugee community is of greater priority than posting sensational (and potentially harmful) content.

On the topic of mental health, Hasan also spoke about the toll that advocacy takes on one’s mental health. Whenever he feels overwhelmed or exhausted, he takes a step back and a break to engage in his hobbies.

As an ally, Yanqin explained that hate-baiting comments towards refugees have no space on OBW’s social media platforms. If there is no intention for meaningful dialogue, such comments are intentionally hidden from public view.

Reflections

For many young people, donating regularly to organisations may not yet be financially viable. Instead, social media is another way for them to contribute to the movement for refugee rights.

Throughout the session, the audience was very receptive towards the speakers’ personal anecdotes and demonstrated support for their work. After hearing from the speakers, many of our participants shared that they felt greatly enlightened and empowered to engage in advocacy for refugee rights.

While many people entering the field of forced displacement have high aspirations and want to create massive change from the get-go, our speakers reminded us that we should instead focus on taking smaller steps to create ripples of change.

To do this, allies should responsibly consume online content and be careful of which resources to share on social media. They can address misconceptions about refugees, counter apathetic attitudes towards the struggles of refugees, and amplify refugee voices and issues on social media. All of these can be a great boost for refugee-led organisations in the region.

We are extremely grateful for the support of our volunteers and partnership with an amazing panel of speakers and host, and the opportunity to convene this special session with RDI UREF and SUAKA.

You can support refugee-led organizations:

Al-Hasan Volunteer Network, Malaysia
Omar’s Film School, Bangladesh
Refugee and Asylum seeker Information Center, Indonesia
Refugee Emergency Fund, Malaysia

For more information about the Conference, please visit conference.rdiuref.org or visit RDI REF’s platforms:

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‘Human Flow’ drips its way into Singapore’s impermeable borders

AFR-SG — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 20:05:00 +0000

Like a cage in search of a bird, Ai Weiwei locks the Singaporean film-goer in 2 hours of cinema-turned-refugee-camp in his experiential film, a hymn to life in an unlivable world.

By Tan Jing Ling

There is a sublime beauty to Human Flow in how it depicts space, freedom and movement. But it is a beauty that I cannot bear to swallow.

For a country whose borders have been closed to refugees since 1996, Human Flow is a passport to places even the Singaporean passport cannot access. Shot across 20 countries, Ai brings to the big screen a tragedy that the world has closed its eyes to: the global refugee crisis.

Human Flow opened in theatres in 2017, at a time when many parts of the world were rapidly closing doors on refugees. All art is political, and this documentary film by artist and political activist Ai, is as much an aesthetic production as it is a political statement. To make art out of tragedy seems cruel, but it is one way to breathe life into a dying crisis.

And breathe it did into the air of The Projector’s Redrum theatre, as the 145-minute film closes the gap between my privileged-air-conditioned-Singaporean-cinema-seat and the atrocities that refugees face. Brought face to face with individuals who lived on deaths, with homes built on dust, and with camps full of scarcity, Ai portrays things just as there are: inhumane.

The film opens with a wide-angle shot of a rubber boat at sea, crammed to each centimeter by orange lifejackets wrapped over touching bodies. This references Ai’s earlier art installations about the refugee crisis: Reframe which wrapped Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi in rubber rafts, as well as Law of the Journey, a massive lifeboat installation in Prague.

Above the surface of the sea, the first words of the film are unspoken: “I want the right of life, of the leopard at the spring, of the seed splitting open – I want the right of the first man.” Ai is quoting Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet’s Hymn to life.

It is through quotes like this that Ai makes his moral and political stance apparent in the otherwise speech-deprived film. Rarely does a film speak so much by saying so little. Except for the interviews conducted, Ai’s world is short of words but extensive in imagery. Ai sets the audience on an uncomfortable journey, with nothing but pithy quotes from poems and media article headlines to navigate one’s way.

The lack of a narrative proper makes the lengthy film hard to follow. Switching back and forth between many different countries, Ai leaves the audience lost and disoriented. Yet, that is the point: the film is not about refugees, but about us in safe harbours, being unable to comprehend the sheer torment of being a refugee; us making policies and decisions that we would never subject ourselves to.

This is Ai’s subtext: being a refugee means losing, amongst all things, control of one’s narrative. To watch human flow is to experience what it is like to be a refugee – a stark contrast to the clearly defined narrative and privileges of being a Singaporean.

This, two hours of experiential film, is more than enough to reduce the audience to silence, gasps and tears, yet it can hardly be compared to the eternal agony refugees experience. Two hours of emotional turmoil for film-goers is to refugees a permanent reality, 24/7, 52 weeks a year, for an average of 26 years.

Such arresting statistics and media headlines punch the audience in the moral gut each time they appear onscreen. The New York Times photoessay “The Migrant Crisis, No End in Sight” was accompanied by literal scenes of families walking arduously from nowhere, to nowhere. Ai’s use of poetry, headlines and statistics, across centuries and across countries, proves that ‘human flow’ is a perennial problem, one that we can read of and measure, but choose to disregard.

Yet, it is not the statistics that hurt, but the individual stories. One scene shows Ai interviewing a refugee woman, seated with her back facing the camera, shaken to a puking ball of tears when asked seemingly ordinary questions about her life. Another scene shows a man weeping at a cemetery, with nothing but a few photos left of his loved ones who were drowned by the journeys they made across the seas. While the film relies on Ai’s cinematographic choices to capture the tragedy of movement, it is these raw stories that depict the reality of being a refugee.

Unlike other visual documentary films like Ron Fricke’s Samsara, Ai does not detach himself from his subjects. Ai features himself in several scenes interacting with refugees or filming in the background. One scene shows Ai temporarily exchanging passports with a refugee, with Ai saying: “I respect you and I respect your passport.”

Ai’s inability to detach makes the film contentious: is the film really about the refugee crisis, or is it about Ai’s role in the refugee crisis? Does Ai treat refugees as objects of his aesthetic endeavor, or as dignified human subjects? Is Ai, from drone shots to close-ups, too far from understanding, or too close for comfort?

There are many other ways to read the film: there’s Ai’s position as a political refugee of China and his identity vis-a-vis the refugees in his film. There’s also the shared oppression of animals and refugees, with caged birds and a Palestinian tiger who lost her home. The space and distance between refugees and countries, between refugees and freedom, between refugees and the audience. There are many possible conclusions to draw from such a film with a loose narrative and grandiose intentions. Regardless, Ai has created a film that once seen, cannot be unseen, and transcends ideological and geopolitical borders.

With a sold-out show and panel discussion for the film held during Singapore’s Refugee Awareness Week 2018, the refugee crisis seems to have reached the shores of Singapore in spite of its closed borders. One drop at a time.

As Ai aptly invokes from the Dhammapada in the film:

Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean,
nor by entering into mountain clefts,
nowhere in the world is there a place
where one may escape from the results of evil deeds.

Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow will be screened in Singapore at The Projector on 22 July and 25 July. For tickets and more information, click here.

Tan Jing Ling is an undergraduate of Sciences Po and the National University of Singapore, majoring in social science and political science. He has been volunteering with the Advocates for Refugees – Singapore (AFR-SG) since 2017 and was in the working committee of Refugee Awareness Week 2018. In his free time, Jing Ling enjoys films and local theatre, and occasionally writes reviews about them if he gathers the will to.

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Same same

AFR-SG — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 20:51:00 +0000

Throughout the play, one crucial point that I was repeatedly reminded of – was that we all share in the human condition; we all are involved in the same fragility that human life brings. We pride on our varying distinctions, we strive for advances and opportunities, and even bear superiority towards those we consider ‘other’. As we left the theatre, I kept asking myself: “How can we see that we are one human race, and that our similarities are far more than our differences?”

I appreciate how so many themes and issues were introduced in a play that is warmhearted yet deep: the struggles of migration and immigration, the challenges of living in a foreign place, and the quiet yet devastating effects of climate change. But as mentioned, one learning that struck out to me was how fragile we all are as human beings, whether it be to conflicts, discrimination, or the repercussions of our damage to the earth.

I am reminded of the scenes where characters sought comfort in material well-beings and certainty: such as the imminent sale of the house, the security a new well-paying job offers, or even struggling to get the air-conditioning working. As disaster loomed, it made me realise how these comforts we seek are much smaller than the impacts we generate: how natural disasters can damage even the safest buildings, how careers are never permanent, and how seeking physical comforts can contribute to global warming.

I do believe that our future generations will definitely bear some, if not all of the consequences of how our actions and inactions are scorching the earth. It may be quite soon that Singapore will experience climate changes that we never expected, and witness how climate change can induce displacement in our very own backyard. How would we react or respond if our neighbours from neighbouring islands seek refuge? Or as probable, how would we respond if we had to seek refuge from waters drowning our home?

The only answer or solution I might have, is that we do not wait for disasters and threats to force us to recognise our human fragility and hence find consensus with others; we should start recognising our similarities, and finding solidarity in times of harmony and peace. As I inferred from the play – we can only strive towards hope if we tightly hold on to our ideals, and work together towards a better world.

I vividly remember Abdul Hakeem, a Libyan friend of mine I was teaching English to when I volunteered in a refugee camp in Hungary. His catchphrase during lessons every day would be putting his two thumbs up, and then going “this word Arabic, this word English, same same. All same same!” Whenever I see differences between nations, between communities, and between people I meet, this cheery memory occasionally comes to mind: aren’t all of us same same?

by Christopher Toh

For synopsis on Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies: http://pangdemonium.com/productions/dragonflies

The post Same same appeared first on AFR-SG.

This is home – truly?

AFR-SG — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 20:39:00 +0000

Whenever I am asked why I have chosen refugee law as my major research interest, I always say that I am drawn to the “home” being something fleeting, transient, impermanent – and this is precisely what the characters in Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies struggle with (and in so doing, they struggle with others and themselves). The main character, a recently widowed Leslie, learns that he cannot inherit ownership of his family residence given his lack of United Kingdom citizenship; after having left the country for his birth country, Singapore, he finds out that the storms and floods caused by climate change have destroyed and washed away that residence. At that juncture, he expresses regret at having buried his late wife’s ashes under a tree in that residence, because there are now no guarantees that a piece of land will always be there (and this actually made me contemplate having my own ashes scattered in the sea when I die!). Leslie’s loss is made more poignant by his imagined conversations (mostly one-way, with him doing the talking) with his late wife, Sandra, interspersed throughout the play, such conversations providing him solace in a disorienting world as he struggles to fit back into Singapore with his blood family. The washing away of the land containing Sandra’s ashes (further separating her from Leslie) sadly parallels many families torn apart today, with thousands dying in the perilous Mediterranean Sea while escaping persecution in the Middle East and Africa in the hope of seeking asylum in Europe, all held hostage to the whims of Mother Nature. Leslie’s commitment to Sandra to take care of her daughter, Maxine, sees Leslie and Maxine move together from England to Singapore and then to Kolkata, with their (quasi-)familial bond being the only constant across all three locations in Dragonflies. Hence, “home” for Leslie is less about a location or land, than it is about a person, family, Sandra, and Maxine: this was, to me, the main takeaway from Dragonflies.

By Matthew Seet

For synopsis on Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies: http://pangdemonium.com/productions/dragonflies

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