Title: In a Place Called Little Palestine, People Feel Afraid. And Forgotten.
Author: Shruthi Bharadwaj
This week’s reading on the “American racial reckoning” had me thinking a lot about the conversation about social media that we have been having over the course of the semester and especially over the last few weeks. In large part, it was social media that and reposting and infographic economy that fueled massive changes in American corporate culture and in the market more largely. For maybe the first time, I saw in action the economics of PR and the monetary payoff of maintaining an image of corporate social responsibility. It was apparent even on our campus – I am a SPIA major, not a Woody Woo major as I would have been if I entered Princeton a year earlier. I lived in First College, formerly known as Wilson College. Years before, student staged a sit in of Nassau Hall to ask for the same and were ignored. The social media storm changed everything. It could be argued these are performative changes, but it does mean something to the people that live in these buildings and work for degrees under these names. That said, affirmative action was also repealed this year. Arguably, this campus saw more conversation about the names of buildings than a monumental Supreme Court decision that changes the fabric college campuses forever.
I say all this because when I see the DEI phenomenon similarly. It is not meaningless in my eyes. Just the validity assigned to issues that fall under that category is worth something. There is very real pressure in corporations to make hiring decisions that reflect equity of opportunity and representation in a way that there was never before. But at the same time, is it like adding a little bandaid over a gaping problem without the proper infrastructure to handle it? As they write in the Niemen Lab article: “Griffin said OPB learned the hard way that reporters will feel as if they’re failing if OPB doesn’t build the editing infrastructure alongside them. That’s why OPB decided to put reporters covering public health, policing, and legal affairs under a social justice editor, to ensure those beats are being edited with an eye toward how those issues intersect.”
This idea of follow-up of DEI practices with actual infrastructure s something that I’ve felt personally felt deeply at Princeton. It is one thing to be invited and another to be included and practically involved and it is imperative to not only recognize this difference but act on it across social, news and other institutions.
Moving to the Bass works, the discussion about international law further underscored the rather disheartening themes that we’ve been reiterating this semester. International accountability struggles to become anything beyond a triumph of the victor, even when the victor is on the side of justice. Douglas MacArthur was “the effective dictator of Japan” as the New York Times said. Until the international arena finds a way to achieve diplomacy beyond muscle flexing, the space for justice or even basic human decency is bleak.
Universal jurisdiction is an interesting proposition for international justice. On the one hand, it provides an opportunity to bring accountability for crimes against humanity in a way that would not have been possible in the country where the crimes may be occurring. On the other hand, it feels hypocritical for Western imperial countries to make these judgments when they are sitting on crimes of aggression, as the podcast points out. Further, these judgments are made into the abyss with little meaningful consequences except for bridging to justice for low-ranking perpetrators within a huge system of unspeakable cruelty.
In a world where indifference is the political status quo, at least beyond the mark of a performative tweet or a virtue-signaling announcement, I am moved by the argument that legitimizing war crimes in a court has significant value in that it makes it harder for other countries to continue about business as usual. The court proceedings and their coverage keep public attention, otherwise short-lived, on the case. Sometimes, it seems among the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute atrocities that occur in war, we lose track of the magnitude of each hurt. To organize it all, spell it out, and prove it makes it real on the public record. How can a government, while maintaining its public image, continue to make trade deals when these truths are in the news?
Further, acknowledging these experiences by a legitimate judicial power means a lot to survivors. As the New Statesmen article captured, “This is not a Syrian issue, but a European issue.” If the thousands of Syrian refugees in Europe, most of whom fled Assad, begin to lose faith in accountability and start to believe that “justice is fake” and nobody cares about their suffering, then “they will easily turn to extremism.”
Further, it reminded me of a scene from the reading from weeks back, where a Yazidi survivor in Germany saw her captor in a Berlin market. If for no other reason, universal jurisdiction has immense value in protecting her, the refugee, from that fate in their new safe haven country.
As The Reveal News piece notes, though human rights statutes have been in place for decades, only one individual has actually been prosecuted under these stautues. However, that hasn’t stopped civilians from taking action. Reveal News’ discussion brought forward the example of civilians seeking accountability in the Sri Lankan civil war. A privately hired investigator in America found Rajapaksa. Victims utilize the Al Capone method and try war criminals for lesser crimes than genocide and tortue, with Sri Lankans filing cases in civil court due to a lack of action from the government on criminal prosecution. Linking this to my original discussion on the value of judicial validation of atrocity, I do think the Al Capone strategy keeps offenders in public attention and levies some some semblance of consequence, but does it minimize the actual crimes against humanity? They will still be left unacknowldeged under this model of justice, which causes me to pause when considering is this is a good alternative/method of resistance.
For my article reporting out of Berlin, I want to write an article that updates German efforts to resettle Yazidi women and which parts of the program have worked or may not have worked. In August 2020, Time Magazine released an article titled “A Radical German Program Promised a Fresh Start to Yazidi Survivors of ISIS Captivity. But Some Women Are Still Longing for Help” – I imagine my article as a continuation of the analysis and reporting done in this article, but three years later. The world has changed significantly since the release of the original article, with growing anti-immigrant spreading across Europe, worsening refugee crises around the world (meaning there are more refugees in Germany), and the economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. While these circumstances may prove challenging for Yazidi women in Germany, there is also growing hope. German courts are holding the perpetrators of their people’s genocide accountable. For my own piece, I want to interview women on their thoughts on the ongoing prosecution of crimes against Yazidi women and understand what it means to them to get legal justice. From there, I want to zoom out and consider the successes and failures of the Yazidi resettlement program in Germany and how Yazidi women feel about their future in their new country. If possible, I’d also love to get in touch with people working on the cases to understand what legal challenges may lie ahead.
The following quote from that article particularly stood out to me as something to expand on:
“Before she left Iraq, Hanan said she was given a piece of paper with information about what awaited her in Germany. “I wish I could find that paper now,” she says, “because the promises they gave us, they didn’t keep all of them.”
I want to speak to women about their experiences with the German resettlement program, the resources it offers, and if the quality is dipping as anti-immigrant sentiment rises in Germany. The German program and the figureheads it produced, such as Nadia Murad, have been widely lauded and used as an example in other countries, but it is not without fault. Specifically, I’d be interested in what therapy and mental health services have looked like for Yazidi women, given how much cultural sensitivity training it may require. The Time Magazine article also mentioned gynecological issues that Yazidi women dealt with during their time in captivity were not being tended to. At the time, the article reported that poor psychosocial care was the greatest misgiving Yazidi women had with German resettlement. Finally, I want to investigate the future of Yazidi women in Germany. From my understanding of the conservative nature of Yazidi culture, I imagine that forging an economic future for themselves when many had to leave their male family members behind (or may have lost male family members) may be a challenge. I want to learn more about small businesses they may run, where they may be seeking employment, and the education rates for young Yazidi women growing up in Germany.
Last month marked two years since President Joe Biden withdrew American troops from Afghanistan takeover of the nation by the Taliban. According to the Biden Administration, 70,000 Afghans were evacuated by the U.S. military in August. In addition, The Biden Administration added staffing and expanded the budget of the for the Special Immigrant Visa program that relocates Afghans who aided American soldiers and diplomats in Afghanistan.
However, a recent report released by the US Department of State reveals that these reforms have fallen disastrously short.
The report found that efforts to improve the SIV process in anticipation of the Afghan withdrawal began in February 2021 – in addition to the expanded staff, email processing software was employed, and a new consular was established in Doha, Qatar,. These improvements, however, were no match for the influx of SIV applicants that followed the fall of Kabul in August 2021. “The number of Afghan SIV principal applicants awaiting COM approval increased by 1,416 percent from October 2021 through December 2022, from 4,029 to 61,114, respectively,” the report notes. Applications were spiking as the Taliban crackdown intensified in Afghanistan, but there were no additional personnel hired to deal with this increase in applications after February. As of August 1st, 2023, nearly 35,000 SIVs had been issued – but more than an estimated 152,000 SIV-eligible applicants remain stuck in Afghanistan or otherwise in limbo waiting for their visa to be processed.
Belonging to the latter group is Muhammad Idrees Ghairat, a scholar at the SPIA Afghan Policy Lab at Princeton University and an Afghan refugee. Ghairat, a former employee of the United States Institue of Peace in Kabul, applied for his SIV in April 2021 – four months before the US withdrawal. In May, he was given a case number and asked to submit a supervisor letter of recommendation, but he did not receive any further updates on his case. On August 15, 2021, when Kabul fell, Ghairat was among the 70,000 immediately evacuated, aided by the fact that he had a case number in hand—but he still did not have a visa. In December of 2022, after arriving in the US, he found out via the online SIV portal that he had been denied for an SIV because his recommendation letter was “not verifiable.” “My supervisor stopped working for the US Institute of Peace when Kabul fell,” he explained. “When they contacted her by email, it was to an email that is now not working.”
Ghairat has appealed the decision, but it has been pending for more than 8 months. In the interim, he is in the US on humanitarian parole, a visa that only allows you to be here for two years. His parents and disabled sister are still stuck in Afghanistan. “You don’t know what’s next, or what’s happening,” Ghairat says. “The Taliban are threatening family members. The emotional and psychological stress – my family has insurance but no access to healthcare in the Taliban government. It is very frustrating.”
Despite these circumstances, Ghairat is hopeful about his future. “I am still confident in my case because my office is still functioning; my employers know me personally. They can send in any verification evidence that the process requires. But what if you don’t have a direct supervisor or if you are a subcontractor?” he asks.
Ghairat strikes at a crucial point. “The Afghan immigrant visa process is incredibly layered,” says Jenna Jaffe, Congressional Immigration Specialist. “I have yet to see a program category with a higher threshold to meet – and you must meet every criterion 100%.”
Jaffe explains that after an SIV application is submitted, the most significant hurdle is clearing the first step: obtaining Chief of Mission (COM) approval. COM approval is the Department of State’s process of applicant employment verification and letter of recommendation review. Ghairat is currently awaiting COM approval as well. “60% of applications get stalled or do not pass this phase, and in many cases, not because of any fault of the applicant,” Jaffe says.
Jaffe gives the examples that it is not always possible to get a letter of recommendation from an applicant’s supervisor. “I’ve worked on cases where the applicant’s supervisor has passed away. What then? You would think the government would keep a list of its contractors – they don’t, or they won’t share it.”
The COM approval is part of the “enhanced vetting” process touted by elected officials and even the secretary of Homeland Security as a way to stop “bad actors” from entering the country. “But there is no data to support that enhanced vetting is catching any bad actors.” Jaffe says, “For example, many of our security systems are not built for non-European names, whether in spelling, length, or naming conventions.”
Jaffe explains that there are many ways that there could be multile acceptable transliterations of the same Arabic name – “but if there is an inconsistency in our system, the applicant is denied.” Jaffe says that enhanced vetting doesn’t really work, and ultimately, it only makes life impossible for both Americans and Afghans.
Looking forward, the Department of State’s report outlines plans to hire a hundred additional personnel to support SIV processing. They estimate that this has the potential to allow the government to process all the applications currently stalled in the COM phase within the next three to five years.
Jaffe appreciates any extra help but does not see a way forward in this system long-term without greater reform. “The Department of Homeland Security needs to be meaningfully restructured,” she says. “The government has no vested interest in people understanding the immigration system, and the vast majority of the public points their anger and fury at people who have nothing rather than at Congress for failing to create a functional immigration system.”
This week’s readings captured unspeakably vile realities of the genocide against the Yazidi people, so much so that it feels disrespectful and silly to try to summarize them for reading response. So much cruelty is enacted by power-drunk people for the sole reason that they can. Why is it that we can revel in somebody else’s excruciating pain? How can we see another as so dehumanized that we can inflict such torture as is described in The Bee Keeper and the Zaman piece? Dehumanization is easy to recognize when it is used to justify horrific acts. But on the topic of dehumanization, this particular quote from the Zaman piece landed particularly unwell with me: “[The Yazidis] typically experience less of the racism endured by other migrants. This is because ‘the German taxpayer understands that their situation is unique, that they have truly suffered’ and therefore takes pride in offering them a haven, Blume explained,” writes Zaman.
“Truly suffered” – they have “truly suffered” – what does that mean? In my view, this is no true kindness or reduced racism. To look at a group of displaced people and decide not to be racist to them because they have “truly suffered” is dehumanization too. It reminds me that people of color will, in perpetuity, convince the white ruling majority that their suffering is real. They are asked to rehash, perform, confess, and cry while the white jury looks on and decides if it is true enough to reap pity. The pragmatist in me realizes that this is just how it is, and it is ultimately best that they are safe and housed away from harm. The human in me is disgusted. To this end, I do not find the closing comments of the Zaman piece shocking – “we have to hurry. The welcome coming atmosphere of 2015 is no longer here,” interviewee Minnayi says. How could the welcome last if it was never based on real respect or empathy as much as it was self-serving pseudo-heroism?
This brings me to the question posed for this week’s discussion: should journalists sensationalize tragedy to spur action? My response is that I don’t know that it is a meaningful action that will be spurred, especially as it relates to migration. Sympathy brought on by sensation is performative and shallow and only followed through with if it causes no discomfort to the giving party. That is, if people are not educated fully and brought to view others as human – deserving of peace not because they have performed a trauma circus for them – but because we trust them and welcome them because we truly see them as equals. I’m not convinced that journalism that centers on sensationalism can ever encourage a society of equals – is it the practice of consuming sensationalist media itself not somewhat grounded in an inherently patronizing lens? Journalism speaks to the public directly and shapes their view of people they do not know. It seems to me that journalists have a duty to educate rather than sensationalize, although I do not know where that line is in the case of such atrocities.
This week’s readings, particularly Asmat Khan’s series, had me deeply thinking about what it means to be an American citizen. About ‘we’s and ‘they’s – how we think about Americas greatest feats as a operation by us, we, and how when the government is killing countless Afghans and continuing to pretend if its attacks are precise, calculated or vaguely meaningful, it is something ‘they’ are doing. Khan mentions confirmation bias as he describes how senseless violence is enacted by the American armed forces, “‘Men on motorcycles moving “in formation,” displaying the “signature” of an imminent attack, were just men on motorcycles,” Khan writes. People see what they want to see. They act on what they decide they’ve seen. The blood spilled is, however unfortunate, unavoidable collateral damage. We fall victim to this confirmation bias time and again – HW Bush in Iraq, the armed forces in Afghanistan, and the American public looking at it all. History belongs to the victors, but reality belongs to what you decide you want to see. In real time, the aggressions enacted by America against innocent Afghan civilians is not only brutal, but careless. A detail that particularly struck me was that American armed forces are so ignorant to local cultural practices, such as families sleeping in during the month of Ramadan or staying in to avoid the heat, that they would declare areas free of civilians and ready to attack without checking if anyone was inside the homes. What is the explanation for this carelessness, after years of being stationed in this country? Because they are in the name of “protecting America” and because the slain children are not “ours,” the public buys that these civilian death couldn’t be helped.
Another example – they bombed bakeries, schools, civilan hospitals because they allege that ISIS uses these sites actively since they are traditionally protected by the laws of war. When surveillence drones miss children in the hospital at nights, miss neighbors huddling together to protect themselves from the bombs, when the bombs go off – we can shrug and look away. “It was necessary” – we buy into the confirmation bias that this is warranted. We can look at the numbers of the innocent dead and not find it evil because we decided we are fighting evil, not being it. In an age in which we are bombarded by tragedy and death and deeply desensitized, we are hardly bothered by deaths of those who aren’t our own. And if we are bothered, we do not want to think of our country – the great leader of the free world – as capable of inflicting such harm. This was the great war on “terror” – who is to say that what Khan captures here isn’t terror? Is it a journalists place to say? If a journalist says it, will they be believed? In an age where people get to self curate their news and dismiss what they don’t want to see as fake news, the ultimate breeding ground for confirmation bias amongst the masses, how can journalists contribute to real accountability?
“It is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real-time that is what it is.” It is with this quote that Allan Little begins his article on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it was a line that struck me deeply. Especially in the throes of the pandemic, the awareness of the world fundamentally and forever changing around me was a sensation that I felt keenly and somewhat anxiously. Considering that yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11, it comes to mind that for most Americans, watching the Twin Towers fall 22 years ago was another one of those moments. It is, however, much easier to have this awareness when monumental change and tragedy are happening at your doorstep. Before beginning this week’s readings, I unfortunately don’t think I really was able to comprehend the real gravity of the war. “This is a third seismic event.” Lindsey Hilsum writes, naming 9/11 and the fall of the Berlin Wall as the two prior. “At the time of writing, we are in the perilous moment of not knowing if the war will widen, and bring NATO into direct conflict with Russia. Whether Ukraine will survive. Whether Putin will survive. Anything could happen.”While Western countries have been looking the other direction – the US involved in its domestic political drama, European countries blinded by Russian gas dependence – Putin has been making frequent moves reminiscent of the Bosnian invasion by Serbia. He is following the same model of invalidating Ukrainian identity and statehood followed by military siege. As the the US and EU respond with economic sanctions and war continues on, we are at a junction in which the international financial map can be redrawn – primarily based on how China may move through this landscape — on top of the devastation human and political consequences of war. Putin’s nuclear threats bring back a sense of brinkmanship to international relations that has not been felt since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The rules of international relations conduct are not only changing but may even dissipate.
Falling consequence to this dissipation of international rules is the adjudication of rape as a war crime. Rape and sexual violence in a civilian context is severely under-prosecuted, in an ordinary military context is even further silenced, and amidst war, it is heartbreakingly weaponized. Further, victims of rape during war are traumatized beyond belief and struggle with feelings of shame around deciding to testify. If they decide to testify, the odds of finding justice are slim to none. Brigitte Messe was only 15 years old when the Red Army raped millions of women in the final days of the second World War. “She believes mass rapes were revenge taken out on the bodies of German women,” Amos comments. Mass rapes were widely acknowledged but never formally acknowledged in Germany, and expressly denied as ever happening by Russia. When asked what she might tell a young Ukranian woman who might find herself in a similar position, she said, “ I would tell her to forget about it if she can. I think even nowadays, it’s something you want to forget.” When will women’s bodies stop being considered collaterally damaged property?
