Survival of Abu-Ghraib Jail

This entry is part 10 of 10 in the series Survival of Abu-Ghraib Jail

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Multiple Stresses of Exile

The settlement process into a new country is a long journey and an endless process involving both adaptation and acceptance. It usually takes the individual years to adapt into his or her new living environment.

Many Faili Kurds refugees gradually try to rebuild their life in Iran and become relatively successful in their new country. Yet, some of them, particularly the older people, keep struggling for the rest of their lives because they do not have the skills, experience, and flexibility to cope with the major changes.

To be accepted into the new society, normally refugees need to change their thinking, behavior, habits, social norms, and their former way of life. However, this was a very difficult task for the Faili Kurds people, because they left behind them in Iraq all their life time earning and belonging.

The displacement of the Faili Kurds to a new country was a companied with many challenges and stresses. They were faced with multiple strains, dealing with their grief and loss, have no money or income, have no place to live, and no government or institution to advocate for them. The young Faili Kurds were faced with learning a new language, adapting to a new set of cultural norms and values, and being oriented to many new systems such as employment, health, and schooling system.

The experiences of being a refugee in a foreign country, created ongoing traumas for the Faili Kurds young people such as, fear about their future and not coping, isolation and the sense of not belonging in the new culture, injustice, exposure to ignorance and lack of understanding, racial prejudice and new humiliations. For the Faili Kurds youths refugees, their ethnic identity and nationality were very important to them.

A number of Psychological studies have found that the strong sense of ethnic identity is related to higher self-esteem, fine self confident, and good self expression. However, refugee youths who experience discrimination, humiliation, isolation, and injustice will have a compromised sense of pride in their culture of origin and limit their aspirations and achievements.

The process of identity formation may be challenging for refugee Faili youths because they are trying to learn a new language, dealing with a new culture, negotiating with new sets of rules and norms, and relating to peers.

Our displacement to Iran placed a huge stress on us (Faili youths) and on our personality. During that process, there was a change in our family role and responsibility. Because we were able to master the Farsi language faster than our parents, thus, we were forced to work and support our families.

In my case, I had no father to support me and my family, because he was still incarcerated in Iraq, thus, my four brothers and myself were forced to work in order to support 17 people in my family including three of my ants with their children. We used to work ten hours a day in a sewing company with less than a minimal wage. We were unable to go to school, because we had to support our family.

We (youths and children) encounter many challenges and obstacles during the process of integration into our host society. The severity of our struggles was often dependent on our age of arrival to Iran. That the older refugees youth were when they arrive in Iran, the more difficult it was for them to integrate into society. The level of proficiency in both their Kurdish language and the Farsi language pronunciation had a strong impact on their social role and settlement process.

When we lived in Iran, we were forced to adjust to a new culture and language, as well as new surroundings and peer expectations. However, this was very difficult for us (Faili youths) to achieve it without family stability and economic security, which we did not have at that time.

Our inability to adapt successfully to the norms of society, often results in us having problems at our work places, at our social gatherings, at our neighborhoods settings, and at our school surroundings. This situation created a greater risk for us in terms of delinquency and behavioral problem. In my case for example, I had a lot of rage and mixed feelings about the whole situation.

I used to get into fights with Iranian guys almost every day. I had to join Martial Art classes to get rid of the anger and the frustration that I was experiencing at that time. My level of irritation and frustration was so high, that I used to work-out at the Jim four hours a day after my work and two hours a day at home.

Within six years of working-out, I was able to obtain my third Degree Black Belt in Karate, and brown Belt in Jujitsu. However, when I lived in Iraq, I was a very peaceful person and very kind, but the stress of incarceration and the refugee displacement changed all that.

In addition to our living challenges, schools were also a source of potential acculturative stress for refugee Faili Kurds children and adolescents. While parents are struggling with meeting their basic family needs, Faili Kurds children were confronted with negotiating a new school environment and integrating into new peer networks.

Faili Children and adolescents who were struggling with identity formation were experiencing psychological difficulties in the context of dual cultural membership, particularly those who were discriminated against and were receiving negative messages about their race and nationality.

Faili Kurds Refugees were discriminated against because of their language limitations, their racial origins, their ethnic background or cultural practices. Faili Kurds females tend to experience fewer incidents of discrimination and humiliation in school than the Faili males do.

But they were often more easily accepted by Iranian female’s students and teachers, and they normally perform better academically than the boys. Faili Males, on the other hand, report more racial incidents in terms of bullying and violence.

Many of the Faili Kurds students encounter significant challenges coping with the school system. Some of them performed poorly in class, suffer from behavioral problems, or drop out of school altogether. Some of the principal factors underlying these problems include school policies and the discriminatory attitudes of teachers. This environment has proven to be a negative one for Faili refugee’s students.

It has led to their poor attendance, fostered feelings of hostility towards school and other students, and produced an increase in their delinquent behavior. Also their vulnerability to violent attacks at school had a detrimental effect on their school climate, which can affect the students’ readiness and ability to learn and undermine their relationships with peers and teachers.

These stressors complicated the Faili Kurds students’ adjustment to new schools and community settings, taxing even the most robust Faili refugee’s adolescents’ coping capacities and leaving them vulnerable to academic failure.

As a result, a large segment of the Faili Kurds refugee youths dropped out from school and they joined Al-Bader militia and they went to war against Iraq and many of them died in that war. My youngest brother who was 14 years old at that time was one of them.

One day he went to school in the morning and he never came back home that day. My mother and I, we were very worried about him, and we were looking for him everywhere, but one of his friends came to our house and told us that he joined Al-Bader Militia and he went to war. After being in the war for three years, he was severely injured and harmed his left hand for ever.

the experience of the refugees Faili Kurds youths in the school system often includes discrimination from other students and teachers, daily hassles related to language inadequacies, and peer related hassles to intergroup issues such as friendship and etc. Furthermore, the parental pressure on their children to succeed academically in school can inadvertently heighten their anxiety about school success.

Prejudice and discrimination were detrimental factors that affected the settlement of Faili Kurds refugees. The stereotypes of any kind that tend to label individuals as a sort or kind, without allowing them an opportunity to be themselves. Negative stereotypes were especially injurious because they can be demeaning and hurtful.

Discrimination can occur on many levels and in many ways. Often it results from the intentional exclusion and singling out of certain groups from the mainstream society; at other times it can be caused by a basic lack of understanding and ignorance on the part of those who are prejudiced.

All forms of discrimination, intentional or otherwise, can negatively affect the settlement, and integration process of the Faili Kurds refugee’s into society. I remember one day going to the bakery to buy some bread for my family, the store owner gave me the damaged bread, but I refused to take them, then he said “You guys eat anything so take it”.

At that time, I got so angry and wanted to smash his face, but I controlled myself and walked away after I took my good bread and I told him few bad things about himself and his race.

For immigrant and refugee youths, social relations can provide them with a variety of protective functions, such as, a sense of belonging, emotional support, tangible assistance and information, cognitive guidance, and positive feedback, but we did not had any of that. The relationships that we had in the community, work places, faith institutions, and in the school system played a crucial role in promoting our socially positive, negative, or competent behavior in our community settings.

In conclusion, numerous elements, such as depravation, discrimination, humiliation, economic inequality, and institutional barrier or systemic discrimination, acted as obstructions for Faili Kurds refugees. Living in low-income households did not provide the environment that is conducive to our growth and learning, since many of the Faili Kurds families consume less income earning than the dominant group.

For the record, the Iraqi institution which called Majlis Al-Alaa under the leadership of Mohammad Baqare Al-Hakeem that was established in Tehran around 1982, did not offer any support to the Iraqi refugee and particularly to the Faili Kurds refugees living in Tehran and other parts of Iran.

Basically, we (Faili Kurds and Arab refugees) were left along to our fate and we were neglected, but others such as religious figures had a good living condition and they were enjoying the money and the resources that was issued to Iraqi refugees.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.