W

hen you hear the name Albert Einstein (1879-1955), what comes to mind? Physicist. E=mc2. Theory of Relativity. Nobel laureate. Genius. But did you know he was also a refugee?

Yup, when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Einstein was already a well-known physicist in his native Germany, having won the Nobel Prize in 1921. Due to the persecution he suffered as a Jew, he fled Germany, sought refuge in the United States and settled in Princeton. Germany’s loss, the US’ gain.

Einstein was known to have a big brain, and apparently also a big heart. Due to the suffering he endured as a refugee, he set out to help other refugees. He was instrumental in setting up what has now become the International Rescue Committee (rescue.org), which is “committed to achieving measurable improvements in the health, education, safety, economic well-being and empowerment of people’s lives”. Sounds like something every human being deserves, right?

Currently, there are a recorded 68 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people in the world. More than ever, we need to continue Einstein’s legacy of trying to make it possible for refugees to have decent lives. Recently, I met a young woman in Jakarta who is trying to do just that for at least some of the 14,000 refugees in Indonesia.

I met Mozhgan Moarefizadeh the first time on July 13, just before she was due to give a talk at @america. I was impressed from day one.

Mozhgan is a 27-year-old Iranian refugee who has been in Indonesia since 2013. Urbane, attractive, articulate, energetic, sophisticated, poised, passionate and multilingual, she exudes a quiet confidence and charisma that belies her years.

To look at her, you would never imagine the struggles she and her family — parents and brother — have had to go through. Like Einstein, they left the country to avoid political persecution with the intention of settling in Australia, a common destination for many refugees.

They made three attempts to get there by boat. However, on the third attempt, she had a bad feeling and warned people not to board. Her premonition was correct: 10 hours later, they heard the boat had sunk leaving only 25 out of 80 passengers alive.

Since then, her family has been stuck in Indonesia, unable to settle in a new country or return to their native Iran. After a long two-year process, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) found them to be genuine refugees with a legitimate claim to asylum. Yet they were still in limbo. They wouldn’t be deported, but they have no legal rights to education, to work, to marry and have children like everyone else.

But just because you have problems, doesn’t mean you can’t help others. “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going” — that’s Mozhgan!

On Sept. 29, I attended the first anniversary event of the Refugee and Asylum Seeker Information Center (RAIC), where Mozhgan gave her annual report. She had co-founded it with Jafar Salemi, another Iranian refugee, who was recently resettled in Canada because of his status as a gender minority (LGBT). The event was attended by various people involved in helping refugees as well as the refugees themselves.

The RAIC (raicindonesia.org)describes itself as a “refugee-led initiative easing the burden of people fleeing persecution through coordinating projects focused on basic needs, health care, information and legal aid”.

One of the first things that the RAIC did was to distribute goody bags containing hygiene products especially to those refugees living in tents or other inadequate housing with limited access to bathrooms, etc. Hygiene is a major problem. The “care packages” contain toiletries, such a simple but needed solution to the serious skin problems many refugees suffer from.

The RAIC also hands out food packages, does monthly eye and general health check-ups, hosts first aid workshops, holds mental health and suicide prevention sessions as well as legal aid and information sessions.

They also try to raise awareness by giving interviews and holding public talks because the main problems refugees face are suspicion, prejudice and hostility from people who don’t understand who they are, with many seeing them as being dangerous and a threat.

Well, if they continue to be ostracized and deprived of their basic rights, they could become that, like anyone else deprived of their rights, refugees or not.

One of the perceived threats from the refugees is that they will take jobs away from Indonesians already in need of work. Trish Cameron, an Australian human rights lawyer and refugee advocate who has worked for several years with refugees, wrote an excellent Indonesia Country Report on access to employment for refugees. She stresses that these fears are ill-founded because the number of refugees in Indonesia is so small.

They can also bring in new skills and knowledge that can actually contribute to their host country. Some are doctors, engineers, artists and teachers who are better off having their skills, time and energy utilized rather than just sitting idle. There are also the potential cultural exchanges which could expand people’s horizons on both sides.

Have we forgotten that Indonesia is also a gado-gado (mixed vegetable salad) nation, which is what creates our “unity in diversity”, the motto as well as the reality of our nation? So, what’s with the xenophobia all of a sudden? It’s fear of the unknown, as is often the case.

But increasingly more and more Indonesians are getting involved in supporting refugees. Not long after the launch of the RAIC in August last year, four people started The Jakarta Refugee Network.

They describe themselves as “a group of organizations and individuals delivering refugee-led programs to create long-term, positive change in the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia”.

What is really important to keep in mind is that refugees, while vulnerable, are not weak, helpless victims. If anything, their struggles enable them to develop strength, resilience and resourcefulness that many of us could learn from and be inspired by.

Many refugee support organizations take a patronizing view that they know what’s best for refugees. Hello! Not so. Refugees can decide and do it for themselves, thank you.

Like the Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox song “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves”, Mozghan and her RAIC, and other refugee-led organizations, clearly show that they are doing it for themselves. As another pop song goes (The Beatles’), “A Little Help From My Friends”, from us, can go a long way.
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