The unfortunate series of events, spread over years in Middle East has led million to abandon their homes and make efforts to move to safer place for their families. UNO has almost 4.8 million registered Syrian refugees alone, the number of refugees around the globe is almost three times this figure. This massive human flow has overwhelmed international aid agencies and neighboring countries.
As a misnomer, ironically multiple bloggers, websites and online newspapers are using migrants and refugees as synonyms. Some have gone a step farther and linked it with the Islamic concept of Hijrah. In this blog I will segregate these terms to be followed on discussion on allied aspects in subsequent blogs.
Migration is a deliberate and well planned movement of individuals to a place of better economic opportunity. Defining Laws of Migration, Ravenstein has highlighted the rules governing general migration within and across state boundaries. In this case the ‘pull factor’ or the attraction as defined by E. F. Kunz is much stronger. Migrants have sufficient time to think, decide, plan and move. Absorption rate of such individuals is directly proportional to volume of economic opportunity at the destination. These migrants can go back to their places of origins if they so desire.
Refugees, on the other hand have been defined as individuals displaced outside the border of their native country under duress. The 1951 Refugee Convention, defines refugee as a person who,
[....] owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.
Therefore, refugees are people who have no choice but to abandon their abodes in a short span of time usually due to conflict. Natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes etc. might force people to become refugees but such a phenomenon are rare. Most of the times people displaced though natural disasters return to their homes as the living conditions improve. In most cases such individuals are not declared as refugees and might only be internally displaced. Right from the outset, refugees are deprived of the luxuries of ‘time’ and ‘decision’. They will almost never find time to decide where and when they might go. Their immediate worry is to abandon their home and save their own and their family’s lives. The ‘pull factor’ as mentioned in case of migrants is almost invisible and rarely in equation. The ‘push factor’ is however the greatest. This serious imbalance between the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors forces international community to initiate action under The 1951 Refugee Convention. Once a wave has been declared as refugee (such as in case of Syrians and Iraqis) it is obligatory on international community to render all possible help.
Finally a few words about the Islamic concept of Hijrah. The word Hijrah is derived from the Arabic word Hajarah which means to part ways, abandon, to break ties with someone, to leave or to migrate. The discussion on the contentious concept of Hijrah is exhaustive in scholarly treatise and is spread over almost one and half thousand years of Islamic history. In subsequent blogs, I will be talking more extensively about these bones of contention and reasons for ongoing debate. The concept is not only misunderstood by many Muslims, but is also misconstrued by many western writers. With the massive flow of Middle Eastern refugees into Europe, the concept of Hijrah has again come up in debates. The real essence of the concept of Hijrah and arguably, how and why it is better than the modern day refugee law needs to be explicated. For now, it would suffice to say that the all the refugees pouring into Europe are not from Middle East (especially Iraq and Syria) nor all of them are Muslims. Therefore calling this massive dislocation as Hijrah is not only inaccurate but is adversely affecting the genuine refugee cause and the process of their rehabilitation.
Note: This article is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views or policy of any particular institution or organization.
Contributor Waseem Iftikhar is a PhD researcher at Centre for International Peace and Stability (CIPS), at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan.