What is a Refugee?

by William Maley

In Australia, growing alarm about the arrival of asylum-seekers set in around the time of the Tampa affair in 2001, and has led to the country imposing increasingly draconian anti-refugee policies. In Europe, the recent arrival of over a million refugees and asylum-seekers has provoked a sense of panic across that continent and beyond. William Maley’s illuminating introduction offers a guide to the complex idea of ‘the refugee’ and sets the current crisis within the wider history of human exile, injecting much-needed objectivity and nuance into the debate. Arguing that Western states are now reaping the consequences of policies aimed at blocking safe and ‘legal’ access to asylum, What is a Refugee? shows why many proposed solutions to the refugee ‘problem’ will exacerbate tension and risk fuelling the growth of extremism among people who have been denied all hope. This lucid book also tells of the families and individuals who have sought refuge, highlighting the suffering, separation and dislocation on their perilous journeys to safety. Only through such stories can we properly begin to understand what it is to be a refugee. PRAISE FOR WILLIAM MALEY ‘With the crisis about boat people out of sight for the present, it’s time to calmly consider what refugees are … Maley discusses this global epidemic with facts, cool accounts of the laws, and careful compassion for the individuals caught in the rip-tide of war.’ The Adelaide Advertiser

Genres: Nonfiction, Social Justice

210 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2016

Reviews

[Sumallya Mukhopadhyay · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is a Refugee?
William Maley

The title of the book is highly speculative. Given the modern day problem concerning refugees, one feels that the book might provide answers. We do not get answers in the book. In fact, Maley does little to define who exactly is a refugee. His is a straightforward argument that interrogates the State disrupting the sacred bond it has with its citizenship. In other words, Maley opines that the refugee problem is a problem of nation-states being created, having borders, legitimizing the borders and through bureaucratic surveillance controlling the borders.
The book starts with individual stories. It ends with a story of Fazel. These are the faces that Maley wants us to focus on. Also, wants the host nation to understand that refugees can be resourceful and energetic, for they bring in the potential to self-settle themselves in a foreign territory. It is a State’s desire for national purity and homogeneity that impede the process of imbibing refugees within its folds. Other-ing the refugees only paves way for other extra-statist factors to play critical roles in the refugee movement process. Smugglers help individuals traverse the borders as a direct consequence of state’s indifference/inaction towards the refugee. The failure of the state enumerative system to detain an undocumented refugee’ results in him/her being demonised. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris, assumption is that the terrorist are refugees from Middle East.
Maley ends with the humanistic proposition to have open borders. Borders, by their very nature, are closed. To open the borders amounts to not having any. It follows thereafter that we should be questioning the concepts of nationhood and nationalism. Hopefully scholars involved in studying the refugees will deliberate on these concepts soon.

[Scribe Publications]

This book is an eye-opener. It is an elegant, expert account of the history of refugees, their formal rights, and their shrinking prospects. It will leave no reader unmoved, and no conscience untroubled.
Philip Pettit

William Maley has done the world a great service — introducing one of the key questions of our times with rich insight and clarity. His book is a thoroughly readable and essential exploration of refugee issues. I learnt a huge amount from his writing, and I highly recommend it.
Patrick Kingsley, Migration Correspondent, The Guardian

This is truly a book for its time?… It shows that now, more than ever, it is immoral to remain silent.
Julian Burnside

With the crisis about boat people out of sight for the present, it’s time to calmly consider what refugees are … Maley discusses this global epidemic with facts, cool accounts of the laws, and careful compassion for the individuals caught in the rip-tide of war.
Adelaide Advertiser, Four Stars

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Refugees are symptoms of a system of states that has failed properly to live up to its responsibilities." This quote pretty neatly sums up the perspective that Maley brings to this primer on refugees. Maley appears to be that strangest of creatures these days, an unreconstructed Keynesian, whose outrage at the attempts by modern states to ignore, demonise and even further persecute refugees stems as much from his sense of violation of a sacred compact: that of the individual and the state, as from his undoubted humanity.
I share very few assumptions about the development of international law, and the essential advantages of capitalism, but that did not stop me learning a great deal from this book. Maley systematically outlines the history of European migration law, the changing attitudes towards refugees, and finally, the frankly immoral and unbearable modern practices designed to make it as difficult as possible for the victims of persecution and/or failed states to find safe harbour in the wealthier half of the world. He speaks with palpable anger about the Australian government in particular, but few government get off. Those who simply make it impossible for anyone to apply for visas, for example.
The book is a quick, and an important read, with much fact and explanation. An important primer for those uncertain of how to resolve what can appear a much more difficult problem than it is, as well as a handy collection of facts for refugee supporting activists.

[Sonny Percival · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maley does a commendable job on providing a comprehensive and compelling case for why the humanity of refugees lies interminably locked behind our own well varnished yet inaccessible doors of both domestic and international politics.

I chose this book due to a desire to learn more about the intricacies of defining and challenging the European refugee 'crisis' that takes centre stage in this work. In that sense, I certainly met my match; Waley's terminology at times threatened to engulf me in its complexity and requirement of pre-ascertained knowledge on subjects such as the Westphalian system, the first UN Commissions to protect refugees, and the modern conception of the Responsibility to Protect.

Although I consider myself keenly interested in international diplomacy, my lack of familiarity with some of these topics certainly hindered my ability to progress deep into the ramifications of some of the author's suggestions. That was a shame for me. And I could not recommend sections of this book to somebody similarly unfamiliar. Because although Waley makes some effort to guide the reader through the definitions of 'intervention', 'humanitarian', etc and different Charters and Commissions, it did end up becoming slightly too much for me towards the finale. I am at fault here, but I'll leave it up to you to decide whether I am partly saved by the fact that I was after all reading a text which offers itself as an introduction via its title.

Anyway, roughly speaking the book can be divided in two: definitions and history of the conceptualisation of the refugee, before our modern realities of refugee crises and all their horrendous complexities become the real focus. I got on better with the first half. I learnt plenty about how our understanding of this concept has both ancient and modern underpinnings, and found the sections on the Westphalian Peace, 1930s German Anti-Semitism, people smuggling and the shocking Australian policies against refugees to be particularly insightful.

As mentioned, it was the second half where shit metaphorically got real. Waley's descriptions of refugee situations in regards to military interventions like Iraq and Afghanistan were insightful but to be honest, knowledge seemed to be again a prerequisite which was less appealing. There was even a line which read practically: "The injustices of the occupation of Iraq are well documented." Tell me your thoughts! I understand that given these events' significance in understanding modern day refugee crises and interventionism it makes sense to outline them, but the connection to how this affected refugees in the human context that Waley says is his central motif was not well excavated enough. It is a testament to the multi-layered and unpredictable qualities of these affairs that Waley ascribes to the situations in Syria and Afghanistan (written in 2016) that the writing is beginning to show its outdatedness.

This book is definitely a good entry point for understanding some of the many challenges facing refugees in the twenty first century. I suppose the fact that the terminology, bureaucracy and seeming state-endorsed cruelty seemed to dwarf me as the reader at times is not a bad mirror device. I would have liked more inclusion of the humane aspect from Waley. Although there are nice occasional individual stories dotted within, including a gut-wrenching one in the conclusion, I think that could have been the factor to bring some of the more immaterial, jargon-like sections to life.

One thing for sure, is that Waley and all of his colleagues far and wide in the business of demanding more attention for any individual who falls into this unbelievably nightmarish situation deserve more of our time and respect.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maley cuts right to the heart of the matter, past political facades -- yet stays extremely grounded, focused on the current refugee matters in light of the context of history and international relations and law. Yet, it is not inaccessibly academic. Highly, highly recommend. Extremely informative and thought-provoking, presented in an accessible way.

[Danny Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very informative, if somewhat dry, overview of the basic definitions and causes of refugee crises around the globe.

[Carol Ryles · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...refugees are human, just like us. The problem is that all too often we fail to treat them as human, something that says more about us than them."

Written by a Professor of Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific college of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, this is an illuminating, accessible and essential read for anyone wanting to understand the issues surrounding refugees -- issues that are by far more complex than the media would have us believe. All too often we are bombarded with claims that refugees pose a threat, as if hoards of "illegals" are crowding our sovereign borders seeking, not safety from war and persecution, but wealth and a better way of life -as if wanting these things is a kind of theft, as if the presence of outsiders will make us vulnerable. Maley argues that "by reframing these issues, [ie, acknowledging the many benefits that can be gained from accepting refugees], strong leaders can adopt and promote strongly humanitarian policies"

This book explores refugee laws, what defines a refugee and what are the desperate circumstances that cause people to flee their homes and seek refuge in hostile states. It addresses the impediments that keep refugees from safety, the history of exile and displacement, reasons why the 21st Century is distinctive, the misinformation and mythology, the mismanagement, cruelties and the possibility of alternative and humane solutions.

[Mills College Library]

305.90691 M248 2016