Citizens of nowhere

Despite some caveats, Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee that lets us into the lives of one of the most misunderstood people in the world

This is an angry book written by an erstwhile Iranian refugee now happily settled in America but still seething with rage over the way refugees are perceived and treated. She quotes an American woman saying: “Well, I sure do get it. You came for a better life.” 

Dina Nayeri writes that “her words lo­dged in my ear like grit”. “A better life?” Living in a decrepit Oklahoma apartment block for the destitute compared to which “life in Iran was a fairytale”? To her, the American woman’s remark typified the Western perception of refugees as opportunists.

She weaves memories of her own experience with accounts of other refugees and asylum seekers to tell the other side of the story: What it’s like to be a refugee? To give up the old world and venture into uncharted territory, often with little or no money and dependant on official handouts or other people’s kindness? To be viewed with suspicion, and subjected to humiliation, and prejudice?

The problem with such books is that they end up being somewhat self-serving — and this one is unremittingly so. In its attempt to offer a “new understanding of refugee life” it often descends into a rather unnuanced “Us versus the Rest” account full of self-pity and victimhood. 

Moreover, it presents all refugees as a monolith: All genuine and virtuous whose claims must be accepted at face value. A mirror image of their critics who also see all refugees as a monolith — but as cons, essentially economic migrants, who invent stories of persecution and suffering to be able to live in wealthier countries. 

Ironically, the author’s own London-based grandmother refused to sponsor her daughter and her two children when they were looking for asylum in Britain. “No, I don’t get involved with refugees.” She didn’t regard herself as a refugee as she had left Iran before the Islamic Revolution and “wanted to do nothing with our post-revolutionary troubles”.

The most riveting part of the book is Ms Nayeri’s own story. But it is also problematic as it is likely to feed into the idea of “go­od/bad” refugee that she denounces. While readers will no doubt be moved by her and her family’s harrowing experience, many might question her mother’s decision to uproot them without an obvious compelling reason: Overnight she converts to Christianity while visiting her mother in London and then starts feeling oppressed living in a fanatically Islamic country. 

Was this a good enough reason for seemingly happily married and professionally successful woman to render herself and her two little children (Ms Nayeri was only eight and her brother even younger) homeless and expose them to the risks it involved? 

Ms Nayeri’s account doesn’t suggest that there was ever any threat to their lives; or that escape was the only option. (It’s almost like an Indian Christian or Muslim deciding to leave their country to claim asylum in Europe because they feel oppressed under a right-wing Hindu nationalist government.) 

To her credit, Ms Nayeri does admit that her mother’s account has been questioned by some fellow Iranians. Which led her to question her own story based as it was on what her mother told her.

She’s right, of course, about the anti-refugee prejudice. In the West, resentment against refugees and asylum-seekers has shaped public and political discourse since long before the post-Syria influx plunged mainland Europe into a maelstrom of xenophobia and nationalist populism. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the only European leader who stood up for the migrants allowing some 1.5 million of them to enter the country in 2015, has had to pay a heavy political price following an angry backlash against her decision.

The fact is that outside the bubble of rights activism refugees have few friends. Even liberal opinion is divided on whether it’s possible to offer asylum to everyone who comes along. At any given time, thousands of people are knocking at the door, and most insist on going to countries of their choice rather than wherever they can get protection. 

Even the most generously-inclined country can’t possibly oblige everyone. For example, Britain, arguably the most sought after destination, is already overstretched in terms of housing and other social services, not to mention public appetite for more “citizens of nowhere”, in Theresa May’s infamous phrase. 

A book offering an insider’s insight into the world of refugees was long overdue; and Ms Nayeri deserves credit for doing just that. There are some really heart-rending stories of suffering, shame, humiliation — and the sheer frustration of being trapped in a limbo as they wait endlessly for their fate to be decided. But where the book goes awry is in its premise that a “refugee experience” is enough to make them entitled to asylum irrespective of their motives despite evidence that the refugee route is routinely abused by people desperately in search of greener pastures. 

Despite these caveats, the  book that lets us into the lives of one of the most misunderstood people in the world, and throws light on human capacity to adapt  in the face of adversity, best illustrated by the author herself. 

The Ungrateful Refugee 

Dina Nayeri

Canongate, UK (2019)

£16.99

Pages: 370