Twice the Trauma: Alma's Story of Fleeing War-Torn Countries - Essay Sample

Introduction

For a young person, the trauma of fleeing a war-torn country is not easy to overcome; it is twice as hard when the person has to escape twice. Such is the story of Alma Ghani, a thirty-five-year-old Bangladesh National who experienced the brunt of war first-hand in Kuwait then later in Syria. Alma lives in Huddersfield in the United Kingdom with her family. In 1991, when she was only six years old, Iraq invaded Kuwait and plunged the country into a war that saw the loss of lives, the disappearance of persons, and the displacement of families. Alma's family was among families that fled Kuwait. Her family lost everything in the war but moved from Kuwait in search of a place to settle. Years later, in 2011, Alma and her family had to flee from Syria to the United Kingdom when the war started. For this paper, I chose to interview Alma because she has experienced the journey of immigration that gives her a broader scope than other immigrants that I interacted with.

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The journey to freedom and safety was not an easy one for Alma and her family. Her parents moved from Bangladesh to Kuwait in search of greener pastures for their family, Alma was just three years old, and she doesn't remember much from the time they moved. The night before the invasion, Alma's family had gone out for dinner, and she remembers adults watching the news on the failed talks with Iraq. The next day, which was August second Alma woke up only to be informed by her father that Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and the Kuwait Emir was missing together with his family. Soon after the invasion and take over, Iraqi soldiers began bullying on the streets, raping women, burning homes and looting property. These happenings were and an indicator that nobody was safe.

Accessing food was hard for people, but sometimes the Kuwait resistance movement threw fish and supplies over the fence for families. When the bombings began, they tried securing themselves in the house and eve moved to the basement of the house. Having to live through the horror of that time was a terrifying experience in her life. Her father made arrangements for the family to leave Kuwait and find safety. Om fourth September, 1991 Alma, her mother, and little sister left Kuwait as had been agreed, leaving her father behind. The Iraqi government was sending buses to pick up foreign nationals and take them to Bagdad, Iraq. Alma's greatest fear at the time was that they were escaping into the arms of the enemy and that they might be harmed during the trip to Bagdad. However, they arrived there safely, and their mother warned them never to mention that they had come from Kuwait. It was supposed to be a secret.

While in Iraq, nobody seemed to care about where they had come from, and so for the two weeks they spent in Iraq, it was a little easy to cope. On September fifteenth, Alma and her family flew to Jordan, where they spent a month as her mother tried looking for a job. When she failed to get a job, a relative paid for three bus tickets for them to move to Syria. They travelled by bus on October 20th to Syria. Having a relative in Syria made the settling easy, and soon her mother got a job at the beauty Salon in the city of Douma. They had been away from Bangladesh for so long, and there seemed to be no plans of going back there. Alma and her sister joined the school and got integrated in the Syrian culture. However, when she was 23 years old, in 2011, exactly 20 years after moving from Kuwait, Syria went to war, and they had to flee again. The family was lucky to get asylum in the United Kingdom.

According to Rubenstein's migration Concept, there are various push and pull factors that cause people to migrate from one place to another. These push and pull factors are such as Economic factors where individuals move from a country lacking employment opportunities to a country that presents employment and economic stability. Another Push and pull factor in immigration is the cultural factor, historically, migration occurred due to slavery, and currently, immigration happens due to political instability in countries. In the case of Alma and her family, they moved from Bangladesh to Kuwait, propelled by the economic push and pull factors. Lack of employment opportunities in Bangladesh pushed them to Kuwait, which presented the family with better economic prospects. Up until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the family had settled into an economically affording life that they did not anticipate to immigrate again to another country.

Their first immigration experience was a voluntary one in search of greener pastures. At the time they first moved to Kuwait, the country was experiencing a significant boost in its economy, and therefore there was a large migration stream flowing into Kuwait. This also puts Ravenstein's Laws of immigration into perspective; his fourth Law states that "Migrants proceeding a long-distance generally go by preference to one of the great centers of commerce or industry" (Ravenstein 1885). Alma's family moved the extended distance from Bangladesh to Kuwait because the country was presenting a lot of economic opportunities that they had been unable to find in their country of Birth.

Political instability in Kuwait came to be a push factor that expelled them from the country and into Iraq. When the war escalated, and there was no safety, the family was forced out of Kuwait as refugees with the aid of the attacking country. Considering Ravenstein's Law that states the process of dispersion is inverse to that of absorption, it is clear that so many people were displaced from Kuwait during the inversion. These people were dispersed into Kuwait's neighboring countries that were settled politically and economically to absorb them. In this case, the family did not have any options than to move into Iraq, which was close to Kuwait and the instigator of the war. In this case, the movement experienced by Alma and many others was forced movement rendering them refugees. During the war, after Kuwait's invasion, people that had migrated into Kuwait were displaced and had to look for alternative safe settlements. The Iraq government-provided buses for those who were displaced by the war and moved them to Iraq in masses. Alma's migration from Kuwait to Iraq reinforces Rubenstein's concepts on migration and Reventstein's Laws of immigration. Their migration pattern clearly illustrates the political push factors that caused them to move to Iraq and that their dispersion from Kuwait resulted in absorption in Iraq if only for two weeks. Failing to fit in Iraq culturally and economically, they had to move again, this time voluntarily and pulled by the possibility of economic freedom in the neighboring country of Jordan.

Living in a Foreign country with no prospects of employment is a common challenge among refugees, and the Ghani's were no exception. For a month, the mother looked for jobs without success, and when they ran out of money and resources in a foreign country, they had to seek help. The economy acted as a push factor and forced them out of Jordan and into Syria, this further reinforces Rubenstein's concept on the Economic push and pull factors concerning immigration. Additionally, it reinforces Ravenstein's Law that women are more migratory than men (Ravenstein, 1885). The Ghani family, consisting of a mother and two daughters, had moved from Kuwait to Jordan and then Syria, all in under one year looking for economic stability and safety. However, the move to Syria was Voluntary with the family hoping to gain the financial security they had lost during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. For the Ghani's, it took time to settle in Syria without the support of the father. Alma and her sister were able to go back to school and integrate into the Syrian culture because it seemed they had finally settled as their mother had got employment in the city of Douma.

However, in 2011, what began as a peaceful protest against the president of Syria due to high levels of corruption in government, unemployment, and lack of political freedom quickly escalated into a full-scale civil war. Alma had graduated from college, and her sister was in the second year. The horrors from their experience in Kuwait were happening all over again but on a scarier level. This political instability in Syria was a threat to their safety and an indicator that it was time to leave. With the intervention of the United Kingdom, Alma and her family got asylum and immigrated to the UK. Their immigration, in this case, was not forced but rather necessary for their safety. This situation further reinforces Raventeins Law regarding immigrants moving towards absorption centers when the opportunity presented itself, they immigrated and were absorbed into the economy and culture of the United Kingdom. The civil war in Syria was a political push factor that saw them flee the country.

With the application of Alma Ghani's immigration Journey from Kuwait to the United Kingdom, it is easy to spot a pattern in the process of immigration. The scholars Ravenstein and Rubenstein comprehensively studied the process of migration and came up with Laws and concepts of immigration that apply across all types of immigration. In the case of Alma Ghani, Economic and Cultural push and pull factors, as illustrated by Rubenstein's concepts, played a significant role in her migration Journey. Additionally, several of Raventein's Laws of migration can be observed throughout her process of immigration from one country to the other.

Work's Cited

Ravenstein, Ernest George. "The laws of migration." Journal of the royal statistical society 52.2 (1889): 241-305. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2979333