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NECESSARY ADDITIONAL EDITS MADE ON JUNE 13: Deleted outdated (bordering insensitive) terms for some refugee groups after seeing a cultural exposition discussion by pro-refugee activists on Twitter.

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Western media tells the story of middle-eastern refugees using the perspective of their own citizens. This only creates an echo chamber of hesitancy and even discrimination. The west must put the refugees' perspectives first. Tell their story as effectively and genuinely as possible. They must exhaust all means for their audience to fully grasp where these people came from and what their culture is. They can only do that by amplifying DP voices first in their refugee news features.

In short, healthy intercultural communication must start with the media and that would hopefully trickle down into the public sphere and would then, encourage more refugee-positive government legislation.

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European Sentiment on Middle-Eastern Refugees

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European Sentiment on Middle-Eastern Refugees

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A report by the UN Commission on Human Rights say that DPs are very likely to experience harassment, violence, and even abduction while in their host countries. In addition, research from Vallejo-Martín (2020) reports that one reason this is the case is because locals from host countries feel threatened by DPs out of concern for their own employment and out-group morality. A deeper analysis of the treatment of Europeans towards refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, however, add racism to the mix.

According to a study by Poushter, many believe that the influx of refugees will increase the likelihood of terrorism and impose a burden on their countries. A median of 59% across 10 European Union countries voice concern about the prospect of increased terrorism. Additionally, many Europeans believe refugees are a burden to society because they take jobs and social benefits that would otherwise be available to citizens of each nation. Majorities in Poland, Hungary, Greece and Italy say that a large number of refugees leaving places like Iraq and Syria are a major threat to their countries. Furthermore, it has been found that negative views of refugees are tied to negative views about Muslims and a belief that growing diversity isn't making their countries better.

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The Ukraine Crisis has seen refugees seeking shelter in various countries in Europe, primarily Poland who has hosted the most. European citizens are very welcoming to Ukrainians. They are familiar with them. They see them as “one of them.” They stand in solidarity with their co-Europeans (Langford).

Europe has provided extreme and immediate aid to millions of Ukrainian refugees who came together in massive numbers inside a small timeframe. Europe’s hospitality with the Ukrainian refugees proves they have the means to provide DPs with adequate aid and even benefits, the only thing missing is their full desire to help the “other.”

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A Shared Experience: The Refugees' Endless Plight

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A Shared Experience: The Refugees' Endless Plight

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Refugees travel thousands of miles just to find a host country and their plight does not even end there. These people still have to undergo complicated bureaucratic processes that don't even ensure they'll get asylum, and of course, they have to find a job to sustain their families once they are inside. Not even a third of DPs have stable jobs according to UNHCR data, and the few that do still have to deal with what DPs are all very likely to experience: prejudice and hate.

Refugees are left with no choice but to live in places where they may never be fully accepted and safe, but they have to endure because their only alternative is to go back.

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In today's context, it is not enough to simply be educated about the complex issues at play to put an end to the crisis. Negative rhetoric should be abolished altogether and effective and proactive intercultural communication should be done. As intercultural communication students, understanding the cultural differences that lead to conflicts in this refugee crisis helps us realize how stereotyping and prejudice perpetuate the oppression of minority groups - and in turn, we must translate this into rallying for responsible and non-discriminatory media practices. Building genuine international solidarity begins with the rehashing of the media's perspective toward refugees coming from non-European countries.

Now, more than ever, the world must come to its senses, open its borders, and realize that people are people and that the struggle of the refugees is our struggle--a shared responsibility.

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Chambers, Stuart. “Islamophobia in Western Media Is Based on False Premises.” The Conversation, 21 Jan. 2021, theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-western-media-is-based-on-false-premises-151443.

Harding, Luke. “How Much Longer Can Germany Keep Its Doors Open to Refugees?” The Guardian, The Guardian, 14 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/13/how-much-longer-can-germany-keep-can-their-doors-to-refugees.

Keita, Sekou, and Helen Dempster. “Five Years Later, One Million Refugees Are Thriving in Germany.” Center for Global Development, 4 Dec. 2022, www.cgdev.org/blog/five-years-later-one-million-refugees-are-thriving-germany#:%7E:text=Germany%20has%20maintained%20high%20levels,the%20right%20thing%20to%20do.

Koppedrayer, Kay. “Hindu Diasporic Consciousness.” Psychology and Developing Societies 17, no. 2 (2005): 99–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/097133360501700202.

Mustafa-Awad, Zahra, and Monika Kirner-Ludwig. “Syrian Refugees in Digital News Discourse: Depictions and Reflections in Germany.” Discourse & Communication, vol. 15, no. 1, Feb. 2021, pp. 74–97, doi:10.1177/1750481320961636.

Poushter, Jacob. “European Opinions of the Refugee Crisis in 5 Charts.” Pew Research Center, 20 Aug. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/16/european-opinions-of-the-refugee-crisis-in-5-charts.

Rienzi, Greg. “Other Nations Could Learn from Germany’s Efforts to Reconcile after WWII.” The Hub, 4 June 2015, hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2015/summer/germany-japan-reconciliation.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ed. “UNHCR’s Refugee Population Statistics Database.” UNHCR. UNHCR, The UN Refugee Agency, June 18, 2021. https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Germany.” UNHCR, 2021, www.unhcr.org/germany.html.

Vallejo-Martín, Macarena, Jesús M. Canto, Jesús E. San Martín García, and Fabiola Perles Novas. “Prejudice and Feeling of Threat towards Syrian Refugees: The Moderating Effects of Precarious Employment and Perceived Low Outgroup Morality.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 17 (2020): 6411. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176411.

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Among the general population of western countries, the othering of middle-eastern people is common. This is fueled mainly by the right-wing Islamophobic propaganda that the western media subscribes to. They generalize all 1.6 billion Muslims and other groups in middle-eastern countries as prone to committing terror acts, a rhetoric that started to spread after the 9/11 attacks on the United States of America (Chambers).

Additionally, a study by Mustafa-Awad and Kirner-Ludwig observed how media frames Syrian refugees in German, British and American digital news, the frames most associated with them in 2015 are “humanitarianism, political responsibility, security, dehumanization, financial burden, and integration.” These aspects can easily be connected with how the citizens and the governments of European host countries treat middle-eastern DPs living in their territory.

It goes without saying that in the height of globalization and transnationalism, most of the world relies on western media for credible news and information. How most of the western media frame middle-eastern refugees in their features contributes to the poor treatment of DPs and only helps locals from host countries find a justification for their hate.

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Diasporic Consciousness in Refugee Communities 

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Diasporic Consciousness in Refugee Communities 

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Diasporic Consciousness, coming from the term “diaspora” which refers to settlements of people sharing the same ancestry or ethnicity living a great distance from their homeland. In this sense, diasporic consciousness describes the shared experience members of diasporic communities partake in such as individual members shifting between the different conditions and localities that constitute their identity (Koppendrayer, 2005).

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Historical Wounds: Germany's Collective Guilt and Active Refugee Aid

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Historical Wounds: Germany's Collective Guilt and Active Refugee Aid

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Human Flow showed the hesitancy of wealthier countries in accepting refugees into their border (especially in Europe). But one rich country stood out across the documentary: Germany. This can be said as part of their efforts to reconcile with the world and easing the nation’s collective guilt and historical wound from their government’s atrocities in WW2 (Rienzi). Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that Germany received over 1.24 million refugees in 2021 (most of them from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq), making it the biggest host country for refugees in Europe. Since the war in Syria began in 2015, they have consistently brought in millions of refugees and many appear to be thriving in the country. This is thanks to the government's easing of both border controls and bureaucratic processes for asylum seekers (Harding). Now, more than half of the refugees from the Syrian conflict have found jobs. It must also be noted that German public support for immigration has remained high (Keita & Dempster).

Although this is Germany’s case, countries should stay active in helping refugees even though they don’t have a “worldly debt.” Germany is simply an example of how decades of active refugee aid is fiscally possible and can even be beneficial for the local economy.

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Europe has a history of offering sanctuary to refugees. The 1951 Refugee Convention was established as a response to the urgent needs of refugees generated by World War II. Since then, Europe has received people seeking asylum as they flee conflict, persecution and human rights violations.

Currently, Europe hosts 13,176,000 displaced persons (or DPs). Most came from either Syria or Ukraine. 3.7 million of them fled from the Syrian conflict, while 1 million fled from the Invasion of Ukraine (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

Despite Europe's welcoming history, recent studies show concerning numbers on the sentiment of the European public towards growing refugee numbers. For so many years, Europe has been a haven for DPs, now, it goes without saying that there is an intercultural communication crisis happening that is affecting public opinion on and policy-making and government support for refugees.