The document discusses refugee camps and proposes that they could be ideal spaces to model alternative ways of living for the rest of the world. It notes that while refugee camps aim to meet basic needs, they often lead to boredom and lack of purpose due to crowding and lack of opportunity. The document suggests refugee camps could focus less on security and survival needs, and more on giving refugees opportunities to engage in meaningful activities and pursue their interests in order to support well-being and psychological health. It poses refugee camps as potential places to test more self-organized communities with less emphasis on traditional structures like work, school and money.
10. [image – refugee camp image page]
..typically described as settlements of people who have escaped war in their home country and
have fled to a country of first asylum, but some camps also house environmental migrants and
economic refugees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugee_camp
11. Camps with over a hundred thousand people
are common, but as of 2012 the average camp
size is around 11,400.
12.
13. Refugee camps are generally set up in an
impromptu fashion and designed
to meet basic human needs for
only a short time. Due to crowding and
lack of infrastructure, some refugee
camps are unhygienic, leading to a
high incidence of infectious diseases, including
epidemics. If the return of refugees is
prevented (often by civil war), a humanitarian
crisis can result.
14. the Kilis camp in Turkey – not so much..
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/magazine/how-to-build-a-perfect-refugee-camp.html?_r=0
15. which is great.. a perfect, hygienic, crime free, .. refugee camp..
but even so..
16. By global standards, the Syrian refugees, who have been in camps for up to three years,
are new arrivals. Even so, they know what it means to put their lives
on hold. “Ninety percent of the guys here are delaying marriage,” Muhammad Deeb,
21, told me. He has set up a clothing shop in a small tent, stocked with merchandise his
uncle gave him the money to buy. Other refugees in Kilis, who are not
allowed to work outside the camp, have also started businesses
of some kind. There are canary stores, falafel stands, bicycle-repair shops and tea
shops. There is a tent-size department store selling clothes, glasses and rugs; a coat shop;
a jeans shop; a general store; a little joint with two slushy machines churning in two
colors (red and orange); a tiny gaming cafe with three computers where a 15- and a 16-
year-old sell access to playing Counter-Strike. But these typically offer little if any extra
income. At one barbershop, I stopped to ask for a price list, and the proprietor said it was
free.
17. In Syria, he says, in a village of 5,000, there would normally be two weddings a month.
Here among Kilis’s 14,000, there’s one wedding a month. “We have no respectable
jobs, no house, so no girlfriend,” he said. For now, that’s fine with him. He still expects
that the revolution will triumph, and he won’t live here long.
Currently, the number of years a refugee lives in a refugee camp is, on average, 12.
“We hoped it was one month or two months,” one family told me, as we sat in their
trailer. “We wake up, we sleep, we wake up, we sleep, we eat food, we always watch
TV to see what’s going on. We’re all very bored. There’s no purpose in a life
like this. One day is like another.”
18. Besides the comforts, and the cleanliness, and the impressive facilities of
the Kilis camp, there is one important thing to note: Nobody likes
living there.
“It’s hard for us,” said Basheer Alito, the section leader who was so
effusive in his praise for the camp and the Turks. “Inside, we’re
unhappy. In my heart, it’s temporary, not permanent.”
“What if it was permanent?” I asked him.
Quickly, he answered, “It’s impossible to accept this.”
19. The U.N.H.C.R.’s Batchelor acknowledges that despite the high level of
assistance in the camps, “the emotional protection has
become quite a challenge.
“In a noncamp setting,” Batchelor went on to say, “if people are able to
keep themselves engaged, that provides a healthy outlook, helps
establish local integration, keeps alive their skill sets if they repatriate.”
The longer a refugee resides in a camp, the harder it
can become to sustain psychological well-being. But
camps remain the default solution.
21. Some refugee camps exist for decades and
people can stay in refugee camps for decades,
both of which have major implications for
human rights. Some camps grow into
permanent settlements and even
merge with nearby older communities, such as
Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon and Deir al-Balah,
Palestine.
22. Refugee camps may sometimes serve as
headquarters for recruitment,
support and training of guerrilla
organizations engaged in fighting in the
refugees’ country of origin, often using
humanitarian aid to supply their troops.
Rwandan refugee camps in the Zaire and
Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand
supported armed groups until their destruction
by the military.
23. 2015 – Kenya wanting to close refugee camp in Dadaab after the killing of 148 at
Garissa Uni College .. believing Dadaab to be a breeding ground for al-Shabaab..
24.
25. perhaps we focus less on security ness (ie: by dispersing/controlling 350000 lives)
and more on authenticity ness (ie: freeing up 100% of humanity)
perhaps our best bet at peace:
26. perhaps we focus less on survival needs
and more on soul needs
(ie: what would keep all of us …. usefully/happily preoccupied)
can we trust that? can we trust us?
perhaps we can’t not…
27. Worldwide, refugee counts are at their highest
since the Rwandan genocide.
(whether we are talking literal and/or *figurative refugees, no?)
*refugee camp as holding place (from earlier refugee quote), perhaps we include such
camps/institutions/technologies as: work, school, norms, disorders, labels, slums, prisons, … anything
that might fall under the encampment of manufactured consent .. ie: this is for the best and the best we
can do..
29. which would beg we be brave enough to acknowledge the irrelevance of many tech’s.
perhaps ie: money, work, school, war, ..
in order to get at the depth/root of …
32. perhaps refugee camps are ideal spaces/opportunities
to model (for the rest of the world) that another way is possible.
a way toward/of antifragility
through embracing/facilitating
uncertainty/daily-curiosities.
33. if the change we seek is so basic as to affect/take all of us..
seems it should be as accessible as learning to walk/talk was.
on the need to
34. and rather than waiting for enough people willing to play this game.. ie: to take time off
for 6-12 months to give it a try/model.. (1 year to: be 5; try commons)..
we realize there are - already – enough - eclectic people in spaces..
who might just love the freedom/luxury to self-organize.