I am a fan of Bill Easterly, author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth" and "The White Man's Burden". He is the most consistently interesting and provocative development economist I know. Strafing the aid industry, as he does, takes courage: it offends most right-thinking people and is apt to make you unpopular except with bigots and misanthropes (and Bill is as far removed from those last two categories as anyone could be). The great man has just started blogging. Add "Aid Watch" to your bookmarks.
One of his first entries is about an invitation from the UNHCR to a "Refugee Run"--in Davos, if you can believe it. "Experience life as a refugee!" At first, Bill says, he thought this was a joke, as one would. I had to google for myself. Apparently, it isn't.
During the coming World Economic Forum, we will co-host a very moving event in which people "step into the shoes" of the world's 40 million refugees. For a moment in time, participants will be thrust into another environment where they face an attack from rebels, a "mine field", border corruption, language incapacity, black-marketeering and refugee camp survival. Following the event, a debrief will invite the participants to discuss the refugee situation and explore ways to assist, should they wish so. Invitations are being extended to WEF participants, Davos residents, schools, visitors, families and individuals.
I see that fewer bankers than usual are attending this year, perhaps because of all the attention being paid to corporate jets and pointless extravagance. Also, who can any longer listen deferentially to a banker's opinions? But what a missed opportunity. It could have been "A Run on the Banks"--with financiers pushed into an actual mine-field and "rebels" firing live ammunition. No idea is so good it cannot be improved on.
The ‘Refugee Run’ is certainly something completely different and having taken part in one myself it has made a big difference to my understanding of what it’s like to be a refugee.
I appreciate it’s hard to get the full picture of what the Refugee Run is about from an invite but let me share with you what it was like for me – not a Davos VIP but a twenty-something from London, and someone who certainly puts stock in their fellow human being.
Prior to taking part in the Refugee Run my experience of refugees was not a very personal one – it involved watching the news, scaremongering in the media and seeing refugees as a mass of people. I don’t have the opportunity to fly to the refugee camps of Sudan but I do want to understand more about the lives and realities faced by so many.
None of this prepared me for that 1 hour glimpse into what refugees face day in and day out. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ was turned on its head. Some of the ‘soldiers’ were played by refugees themselves. Afterwards one of these ‘soldiers’ shared his story about fleeing from Congo and living in refugee camps in Malawi. I’d never heard first-hand, and with fresh eyes what a refugee camp is really like. Women being raped on the way to the toilet, daughters sold into prostitution, those that were meant to be protecting you in fact harming you.
The feelings of powerlessness and stress in the experience were exacerbated by the knowledge that for me it would be ending and I could go back to my own home after. That night I slept very badly waking every few hours dreaming I was being forced at gun point from my home. I felt both relief realising I was in my own bed but also great sadness picturing those for whom this is real. I’d never dreamt this from a book or news report.
I am not pretending I have experienced the full extent of being a refugee and I thank God that I don’t have to. I just happen to have been born in a country where I’m not forced to flee. This experience prompted me to speak more to refugees around me and to respect their dignity and rights more fully.
So what I'd like to say to Mr Easterly is: why not give the Refugee Run a try?