About book Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees (2006)
Refugees and Asylum Seekers have become political footballs in recent years, this book traces the history of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and follows the conditions of people seeking asylum in the world today. There are some personal, tragic and horrific accounts of the violence and persecution that people flee from, and the bureaucratic morass and ill-feeling they encounter when they finally arrive at any given destination in search of, not just a better life, but some semblance of human existence. We hear of men and women tortured and separated from their children or partners, one young man even suffered seeing soldiers playing football with his mothers severed head; this is no book for the faint of heart or stomach. It is harrowing, and all the more so because it is true. Such stories ejected from the pen of a Poppy Z. Brite novel would be macabre but fictional, these are not.The most important aspect of the book is the slow but steady regression of refugee rights when they reach, supposedly more tolerant societies. Australia has lead the world in how to keep the unwanted out and other “western” nations have followed suit making it ever more difficult for people to regain their lost dignity. An important point is made in the disparity of the gender of refugees; it stands to reason that for every male asylum seeker, there is a woman who couldn’t afford to escape, who is burdened with children or simply stuck thanks to a repressive society.If we judge a nation by how we treat the weakest in it, then shouldn’t we judge the world by that same benchmark? As citizens of the world we have failed our brothers and sisters, and continue to do so with sickening gusto. We were happy to let in the victims of authoritarian communism when escaping the GDR or USSR during the cold war, now we refuse entry to those in need. Refusing to let the needy in is as bad as any nation not letting them out, furthermore, while we continue to tolerate and encourage a world so unequal, then we must also tolerate the victims of that world seeking redress.
Reading ”Human Cargo” by Caroline Moorhead has changed me. She explains the history of refugees and their rights. Then she shows us what it means to live between countries by recounting the experiences of refugees as they leave their homelands, and arrive in foreign lands. “Some stories are so heavy only silence helps you carry them” wrote Anne Michaels in “Fugitive Pieces.” These stories were so raw that I could only read a few pages of this book at a time. Refugees from across the world explain how they worry that their memories are becoming “thinned with exile.” They hanker after the past, the comforts of home, the feeling of belonging and community. Now they live in makeshift shelters and cannot work. They become depressed. They worry about those they have left at home. They feel vulnerable and unwanted. They don’t belong anywhere. Is home a fixed place or a narrative? Are movement and migration becoming the norm? In small ways aren’t we all exiles – separated from people we love, longing to belong and craving home comforts? Reading this book has prompted me to think a great deal about what gives me a sense of belonging and security. Making a pot of soup, talking to a friend, re-arranging the cushions on my sofa - all these simple things make me feel at home. I don’t want to forget that for many, these simple things are dreams, not reality.
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DISGUSTED. Having come as a refugee in the US myself, I wanted to read this book, as I enjoyed C.Moorehead's other works. I was deeply appalled by hypocrisy and anti-Semitism in the chapter describing Palestinian camps. Not one word about acts of terror, suicide attacks, innocent people killed and maimed, and the only side being blamed for it all is Israel, and all of author's compassion lies with Palestinians. Meanwhile, the events on the ground tell us about "humanitarian" UNRWA activities, such as storing rockets in UNRWA school (they were caught red-handed at least 3 times - of which we know; could be more), and returning those same rockets to poor suppressed Palestinians, so that more people could be killed. This book is as liberal and "PC" as you can find. I finished this book with a sense of disgust. If I could give it negative stars, I would.
—Helen
