The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CV

This newsletter is the third of six weekly editions in a series about homelessness, vagrancy, nomadic lifestyle, human emigration, and definitions of freedom.

• Click here to read Plight of the Unbound - Part I

• Click here to read Plight of the Unbound - Part II

I am starting this week’s edition with a squinted eye on the Rohingya migration because it is a model from which we may extrapolate the problems of all other homeless people. They are persecuted for being Muslim, just as other refugees are persecuted for something by those who would reject them, be it their religion, ethnicity, or country of origin. Prejudice and racism are the first hurdles most refugees must clear and nobody makes it easy.

Bad actors are also to blame for fueling these prejudices. Much of the Rohingya’s troubles stem from a flood of violence in 2017. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) were suspected of attacking police stations and army bases in Myanmar. A government crackdown on the minority caused a mass exodus from Rakhine state to Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. There are surely other countries, but these are the big ones.

The more you learn about this conflict, the more convoluted it gets.

This map, flow chart, and accompanying article, courtesy of the University of Kent, UK, shows the complexity of their strife. There are a lot of moving parts but what it boils down to is hate. Racism is the catalyst for this entire issue.

The prejudice came from both the Buddhists who would not tolerate the Muslim Rohingya and the Rohingya themselves, who fought against their neighbors, the Buddhists. A tale as old as time. Mesopotamia’s Sumerians and Elamites. Christians and Jews. Montagues and Capulets. Irish Protestants and Catholics. Coke and Pepsi. It is all such a mess.

So what happens when you are born into it? When you are a kid and you only know what is right in front of you? You have no TV or computer and might not even know what those things are. So, your mom or dad, or both, if you are lucky enough to have both of them, or a stranger who you may or may not be able to fully trust, drags you along to someplace safe. So you are told.

Word comes through the grapevine that India might be good. It might be safe out there.

Not so fast, Rohingya! Just because they have Muslims doesn’t mean they want more of them. You might be a threat to national security.

But, we are a small family who never hurt anyone. I don’t understand why we have to leave and why there is no place for us to go.

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. The world is a big scary place. You are free to go anywhere you can get to, but a lot of it is off limits to you. Mainly because you are poor and have nothing to offer. You can’t buy your way in or out of anything. You will take whatever you are given and will be trapped wherever you are until you figure out a way to get someplace else. I know that is vague, but that’s the way it is.

The poor have little to no options to begin with and few resources to rely upon as refugees. There may be aid packages delivered sporadically from charitable organizations, but they are not guaranteed. Do not forget that they began their journey with nothing.

Let that word sink in.

Nothing.

Some people you know may live paycheck to paycheck. If they lost the place they lived today they may be forced to walk away with absolutely nothing of value. Nothing at all.

Think of yourself, now. What if you had to walk away from everything you know? Forget about why, for this hypothetical situation, let’s just say, you must. If you do not leave right now - you will be killed.

So you pack up and go. You have no car. You have to leave on foot, carrying whatever you can carry yourself or put on the back of your ox. By the way, you have no ox.

You must drag everything you possibly can with you to survive and you have no idea what is on the road ahead. That, my friends, is true homelessness.

The Rohingya, who have endured this very thing, are now stuck in camps and what are called no-man’s lands, which offer little in the way of a support system. A great majority of Rohingya are women and children and infirm elders. It took only a few bad apples to spoil their reputations and brand them as a terrorist organization. As they have been displaced and deconstructed they are disorganized, and instead of being terrifying, they are the ones who are terrified.

Refugees must go to wherever they can get to.

For the Rohingya, while India is relatively close, most of them would not know about or understand that India is not a party to the UN 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. Although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been working in India since 1981, the process is precarious and uncertain, and there is no national legislation on refugees. As such, India only helps grudgingly.

Refugees generally do not have the time for, nor the ways and means, to do research on where they may go. They just go.

Muslim refugees have it rough. Many of the refugees from African nations and the middle east are Muslim. Stepping out into largely Christian and Jewish societies can be dangerous for them because they are facing prejudiced values. Bolstered by the senseless attacks of September 11, 2001, Muslims have had to fight the exponential stigma of being branded terrorists. Once again, a few bad apples with chips on their shoulders, who sent some brainwashed fools on suicidal missions, helped to brick up a nearly worldwide opinion that Muslims are bad.

They are not.

Greeks have been rejecting Muslims from Syria for years. One such perilous journey was the backdrop for a gripping drama.

The Swimmers was nominated for a handful of BAFTA awards. *SPOILER ALERT* In their quest to reach Europe, smugglers put people onto a leaking boat to cross a section of the Mediterranean sea under cover of darkness.

Life imitated art a few weeks ago, when a fishing boat with an estimated 750 people on board capsized fifty miles from shore. Hundreds went missing. The Greek Coast Guard is facing backlash for not doing more to help these people and essentially watching the boat sink.

Helping was tough to do. There was a good deal of miscommunication all around and with far too many people on board for the vessel to be safely maneuvered, blame whoever you like, but they would not have never been there had they not been forced from their homes.

The war in Syria is another one of those messes that is extremely difficult to fathom. A ten-dimensional flowchart could help, but it also might confuse the hell out of you to figure out what went wrong, where, and why. Thirteen different factions are involved in the fight for control of the region. Who is allied with whom is confusing. For anyone living there leaving is the most logical option. There are plenty of other places in the world which are no more dangerous or much safer, so, why stay? Many would rather be homeless and on the run than trying to survive long enough to witness peace. Who could blame them for leaving?

In know I don’t. If you don’t have the ways, means, and ability, plus the courage and fortitude necessary to at least try and win a fight, you had better scram and find someplace safe.

This is why over 200,000 migrants show up every month at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The people they are trying to escape are not a single militia. There are multi-faceted threats to outrun. They come from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Columbia, and Venezuela. They are not only Central and South Americans. Some people find their way to this border from Cuba, Africa, and Asia.

Central Americans and others at the U.S. southern border are denied entry for multiple reasons. Yet, their reason for trying to enter the United States is simple. It is safe here. Even with more mass shootings than any other nation on the planet, it is safer here than wherever they are coming from.

Much of Central America is in disarray. Gangster lifestyle has taken a firm foothold. Drug cartels fight for territory. Lawlessness abounds. Where there is law, it is often corrupt. The number one crime in Guatemala is extortion. Victims are kidnapped, threatened, coerced into sexual slavery, and find themselves trapped by people who will kill them if they don’t produce money. Tough to do when you don’t have any.

Read this article about a woman trying to escape Guatemala with her son. 

Yet, it is not entirely unsolvable. It is about money that nobody is willing to give. Not enough of it, anyway, to do anything substantial enough to defy homelessness. Completely eliminating homelessness is a stretch. That will probably never happen. I really mean never.

The moment anyone homeless actually gets a break, they still have to fight for acceptance. How difficult is it for people who do not understand homelessness to accept the homeless?

Extremely difficult. 

You have to change minds, one of the hardest things to change that can be changed. People don’t like changing their mind, their attitude. It took them years to be who they are and asking a person to change their mind is like asking them to change part of their identity.

Maybe the UN needs to push countries a little bit harder to get on board with helping refugees. Maybe they have muscle they do not bother to flex. Some people and countries would be willing to help. For a price.

Aaah! There it is again. It is all about money.

That’s right. If the person footing the bill to help is not rich, completely charitable, and selfless, they either work for the government, or they are in it for themselves. They are in it for the money.

Human traffickers seek out the vulnerable. They dangle the carrot of promise out there and those desperate enough to nibble their way to freedom sometimes find themselves absorbed by prostitution and drugs. Then, they soon suffer a whole new world of abuse and prejudice from those who simply don’t understand how they could have gotten themselves into such a mess.

Maybe they could not help it. They may not have had money.

Thanks for reading.

CLICK HERE TO READ Plight of the Unbound - Part IV

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.