Abstract
This paper analyses in Warsan Shire’s poem Home why refugees have to leave their home. In so doing, it first explores the root causes behind particularly the displacement of Somalians, which becomes an inspiration for the poem and also argues that these causes may actually be similar ones which could be seen one way or another behind any act of the displacement anywhere across the world. Secondly, the paper responds to the criticisms which accuse refugees of leaving at once their home when they face any difficulties in life. In this sense, the poem becomes the voice of “refugees” and tells the world that “refugees” will not take all the risks in very dangerous and difficult journeys without any reasonable causes. As the paper discusses, what is also equally important is that “refugees,” though exposed to very hard conditions of living during the journey and in the host country, are also labelled as “Other,” which immediately brings about a negative condition, in which they are humiliated, discriminated and categorised as “us” and “them, making it difficult for refugees to integrate and eventually belong to the indigenous society. Finally, the paper debates that it is not the guilt of refugees who leave their home but the ones who create intolerable causes for their displacement from their home. The paper suggests that we are all responsible - United Nations, politicians, world leaders, writers, intellectuals, and academics and so on all over the world - not only for revealing the root causes behind the displacement of people from their home but also for annihilating them all together for a humanely world and living.
Highlights
This paper analyses in Warsan Shire’s poem Home why refugees have to leave their home
What is more offending and degrading for those displaced on move than losing their home is that they are labeled as “refugees,” which immediately creates a negative connotation or a sense of “Otherness” in the mind because labeling is a kind of categorization, derogatory, and at same time exclusion – “us” and “them”, always causing refugees to feel themselves “Other” in social, cultural, social, political and economic life in the host country
Main possible reasons behind such attitudes may be the perceptions that refugees are seen as economic burden on the host countries, that they are automatically labeled as terrorists if they come from the Middle East and Asian countries, and that they take the jobs of the local people, and that they are unable to integrate into the indigenous society and that they create security problem, cultural chaos and spoil the order and harmony of life in the indigenous country (Ferris, 2007; Kreichauf, 2015; Kublitz, 2016; Dennison & Geddes, 2017; Trilling, 2018; Pocock & Chan, 2018)
Summary
This paper analyses in Warsan Shire’s poem Home why refugees have to leave their home.
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