Re-imagining human dignity

Not only do we live in a post-truth world, we also live in a post-decency world. Whether it is the president of the largest economy in the world, or the overzealous worker of a political party in Pakistan, the price of disagreement is an insult, a vile personal attack and public shaming of one’s physical attributes. But for some reason our particular and most deeply rooted wrath is reserved for refugees; those who simply cannot retort back with an insult. My colleagues in Pakistan who have tried to bring up the issue of refugee support have gotten a spectrum of hate directed their way that has ranged from mild personal insults to unveiled physical threats.

There is no denying that Pakistan has shouldered a heavy burden, far more than many other countries. The security implications of refugees are real, and need to be thought through carefully, but imagining that every refugee leaving war and destruction comes with a bad intention, is inherently a criminal and only interested in destroying our culture, security and way of life is neither accurate nor prudent. Replace the word Afghan with Syrian, and our objection at some of the xenophobic governments of Europe or the hateful rhetoric from the US starts to look quite hollow.

Our refugee challenges are old and complex, but there are places that have had these problems for even longer. Lebanon is probably at the top of that list along with just a few other countries. First with Palestinian refugees from the 1940s and then 1967, and most recently with the Syrian conflict the small country has repeatedly faced refugee crises. There is no denying that in hindsight many mistakes were made by successive Lebanese governments but there are also a large number of those who despite the burden of history, and the acute challenges of today, are striving to look for refugees to have a more dignified existence. Providing a decent existence to anyone is not only a very human thing to do, but also necessary to ensure that frustrations do not build among refugees that can boil over and used by anti-state elements for nefarious gains.

One of the most important lessons in refugee support is that handling the crisis requires engagement of not just the military and the political establishment, but also of scholars, scientists, public health experts and even ordinary citizens. In the context of Lebanon, the American University of Beirut (AUB) has recognised the need and the responsibility of an educational institution in understanding conflict, consequences of conflict and post-conflict rebuilding. The university has taken a leadership role to bring students, scholars, practitioners, artists and ordinary concerned citizens from the world over to rethink not only refugee settlement and repatriation but also refugee well-being and human rights. The university’s emphasis has been on not just health, but also refreshingly it includes engineering and innovation, areas which have historically lagged behind in providing support to refugees. The first AUB summer school on humanitarian engineering that concluded last week, was a step in that direction. The school attracted over a hundred participants from not only Lebanon and its neighbours but also from Europe and the US.

The student projects ranged from addressing gender-based violence to oral health, and from better hygiene to better tents. The projects, and the subsequent implementation strategies, were driven not by dreams of making the next billion-dollar company, but by a fundamental human decency that drives us to treat others with dignity.

This underlying emphasis on dignity is our best bet moving forward. It is time to rethink and bring new ideas, and new stakeholders to look at the refugee crisis in the country. Encouraging universities, scholars and students to find solutions beyond hysteria and aggression, will not only provide us with new ideas, but will also help us recognise that investing in human dignity is not only a decent thing to do, it is also a very smart thing to do.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2017.

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