A Syrian Refugee's Story by Marcia Vilaca https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k Made with ♥ en-us 2020-06-30 00:19:45 UTC 2020-07-01 23:50:17 UTC hello@padlet.com marciavilaca https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/643448110 2020-06-30 00:19:45 UTC https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/643448110 janainaabud https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/644166306 A question of empathy and solidarity

The famous quote of Rudyard Kipling talking about the importance of telling the history by telling stories should usually be associated with his love for literature. However, a less reminded meaning has to do with empathy. Actually, when historians talk about relevant events, they commonly fail to communicate their impact if they do it coldly. As journalists know well, telling a story is better achieved if you coloured it with real and concrete examples of people or animal which really live the facts.

This is the first lesson left by the film documentary Welcome to Canada. The story of Mohammed, a Syrian refugee who fled the civil war in his country because of political repression, is truly touching. Watching his story, we really put ourselves in his shoes, because his emotions and behaviour are so human. Our empathy emerges when he talks about his remaining relatives, the torture he suffered and his will to help other refugees.

Through Mohammed’s life, past and present, we have access to many lives: 4.8 million exactly, which is the quantity of Syrians refugees in the world. As Mohammed declares they are entire families lost, without a country, without a house and without job. That is why Mohammed offers his language services, his advice, his introduction to a new reality, his ears, and his friendship. This is the second lesson: solidarity.

To sum up, a single documentary leads us to values that should be universal: empathy and solidarity. These values come as history lessons, tragic ones which come from war and persecution. Furthermore, it makes us acknowledge the virtues of widespread information and a fair government like Canada’s one.

Janaína Abud

]]> 2020-06-30 16:49:34 UTC https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/644166306 Yes, I agree with the British author when he says that we tend not to forget history when it is told in the form of stories. For me, whenever I study History it is a story that has been told, a real story of people who lived under such circumstances, who faced this or that situation. In Mohammed's documentary we see a story been told, it is not one more refugee in Canada, one number, he is a man who misses his family and that is really touching. For this reason, I do think that documentaries like this can impact people's lives more effectively, and I hope we can be sensible and supportive with the refugees' situation. https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/644950965 Kelly]]> 2020-07-01 12:56:47 UTC https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/644950965 matheusmomomanieco4 https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/645333283 lt is often easy to become desensitized to historical struggles of a community when exposed to them without proper contextualization and meaning - specially one different from our own. It's comfortable to look at the content depicted in history books as facts and events long forgotten and outgrown by contemporary societies, and to think that we, collectively, no longer hold responsibility for them. However, through this perverse logic, we are not only led to forget that these events did not take place in a distant past, but also that those processes of violence and exploration were exactly what built the very foundations of our societies as they are today. 

In agreement with Kipling, I see History as a science dedicated to preserving and telling the stories of humanity.  In this sense, the questions that should lead our critic analysis of this problematic are not exactly "how these stories are being told" , but rather "WHICH stories are we telling" and "WHO tells these stories". In this decade humanity, is facing probably the biggest humanitarian crisis-  in regards to refugees - to date. And unfortunately, history is being told by those who see human lives as disposable sources of profit - and in the case of refugees, as liabilities. As we fail to face the problem for what it really is, the struggles of these communities, that were violently expelled from their lands, separated from their families, friends and culture, are condemned to the limbo of history, and ultimately erased. Stories like Mohammad's, that are part of the few that are able to be voiced, teach us how unfamiliar to us those life experiences are. And if those voices are not heard and supported, nothing will ever change.]]> 2020-07-01 20:21:40 UTC https://padlet.com/marciavilaca/m8nqhx21uilgga3k/wish/645333283