Razan & Sr Lena by Magdalena Blazejewicz
Parallel Story #2
Razan Ibraheem & Sr Lena Deevy
Syria & Ireland
This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement
Born and raised in Syria, Razan Ibraheem emigrated to Ireland in 2011 for further education but became a refugee when war broke out in Syria and she could no longer return home. She has dedicated years to speaking out about the conflict in Syria and works as a journalist who identifies misleading information and debunks fake news. Sr. Lena Deevy was born and raised in Ireland and it was to train as a nurse that she left for North Wales in 1960. She emigrated then to America where she became the Director of the Irish Immigrant Centre. Under Lena’s leadership the center developed into a place inclusive of all immigrants from all walks of life.
Razan’s story is first. To skip to Lena’s story click here.
Razan’s Story
I was born in a Mediterranean city near the Turkish border. Like any other Syrian city, it’s diverse and full of energy. It’s also known for its culture, the music and tasty food. Syria was safe during my childhood. I was a street child, a tomboy! As I grew up, I started to change and discover who I was. I’m still discovering myself today. I graduated from High School and did English literature. That was one of the turning points in my life – it opened my eyes because through literature I learned about other cultures and societies. I learned about Syrian, Arabic, Muslim, and Christian cultures in addition to different cultures from the West. I even studied Irish literature like the work of James Joyce, Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett. After that I did a Diploma in Education in Syria. I wanted to continue my studies after, so I worked abroad to save money. My parents were teachers, so our family regarded education as highly important. Inspired by them I became a teacher myself for eleven years. Eventually I saved enough, and I travelled to Ireland.
I’d already studied Irish literature, and I wanted to go to the best school in English Language Teaching, so after exploring options, Limerick University came back as one of the best universities doing this course. Ireland and Syria share similarities and differences like many places. Land and owning a house are important in Syrian culture, like in Ireland. The family bond is another similarity. There’s also a love for culture, music, and art here. I’d say though that Syrian culture is more diverse, you could go from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and it can be very different in its culture. This is down to different languages, religions, migration etc. That’s why, when I look at the war, I can’t comprehend what is happening now. We had an inclusive society - we had our problems like any country – but when I look at my homeland now, it’s a country I just don’t know. A stranger.
I haven’t been back to Syria since I left in 2011. I can’t tell you how much I dream of the day when I can go back. I never imagined I’d stay in Ireland. My plan was to finish my studies, go back home and start up my own language school – but circumstances were against me and against millions of Syrians. Things changed. So, I decided to stay. It was hard but when I look back, I believe it was the right decision. I’m lucky. It’s been such a positive experience living and working in Ireland. I met the most amazing people whom I’ve learned a lot from. There were challenges, especially at the start, like finding work and accommodation. Integration was another challenge. I believe integration isn’t one-sided. It’s mutual understanding and communication between the hosting society and the newcomers. It’s having all people engage with each other. It’s creating a healthy society where people can express themselves and respect and understand their differences. Learning and speaking the language of the new home is crucial to help people integrate faster. Work and education and social and cultural events are also important.
Another turning point in my life came when I went to Greece in 2015. I was working in social media and I was exposed to these images and stories of people fleeing wars 24 hours a day, people I recognized sometimes, people from my neighbourhood! I was watching all the time and I felt so drained and powerless and I thought – what can I do? I knew I needed to help refugees arrive to safe shores. So, I went to Greece. I volunteered for around ten days – and every day we used to wake at about 2am and go to the beach with binoculars to watch refugees arriving. If we identified any boats coming, we would run to them and give the people food, clothes, water – whatever they needed. The heart-breaking thing was when they arrived, sometimes you’d hear a mother screaming ‘my child! Where’s my child?’ – when they would realise one member of the family was missing. For me, to see the reality of what was happening was important – seeing people as human beings and not just as numbers and ‘refugees.’ At that time, Greece was a transitional country but now the camps are like detention centres.
When the image of the three-year old boy, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach, circulated on social media, we saw a turning point in refugee narrative. There was more of an emphasis on highlighting what was happening on the ground with refugees. But then we started to see key words like refugees ‘flooding’ - a flood is something that implies danger, that causes destruction. The media started to use these terms and if there was one negative story then that became the focus of the media and they would neglect the positive ones, and this was really damaging. The media dehumanised refugees and made them a category of people, not people. They also started using the word ‘immigrants’ to describe refugees – but they aren’t immigrants, they’re refugees! An immigrant is someone who chooses to leave their homeland and travels to another country for work, an adventure etc. A refugee is forced to leave for safety. They’re escaping persecution and death.
What people in Syria are facing now is worse than anything you could imagine, it’s the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War II. Half the population have lost their homes. People don’t have food, water, or heating. There are families living in caves right now and there are women burning plastic to provide heat for their children. There’s no milk or clean water. There’s no mention of what’s happening in the media.
Razan at the UN
Seeing what’s happening in Syria is very hard. When I came back from Greece I was depressed for a while. I thought ‘I have a roof and a warm bed. But what about those people?’ I didn’t leave my room for a week. But after that, I thought ‘Razan, wake up. If I stay like this in my room and do nothing, then what have I learned? What benefit am I to these people?’ I decided I couldn’t stay silent in my bedroom, these stories should be told and heard. I started to speak about it and do interviews and just tried my best to highlight what’s going on. Then I was invited to speak at the UN in Geneva, to talk about my experience in Greece and to be the voice of the people I’d met. They held a conference about providing safe pathways for refugees. It was a call to think outside the box.
In 2016 I received an email from Irish Tatler nominating me as Woman of the Year. I couldn’t believe it. It’s been one of the biggest honours of my life. But it’s not just for me, it’s for Syrian women who are suffering and neglected, who are double victims – victims of the patriarchal society and of the war. They come from war and death, they pull their children from the rubble and watch their children die, but they’re still holding the family together and trying to get a better future for their kids. So, I dedicated it to Syrian women and their resilience. It was a great honour and opportunity to speak about these women.
Razan accepting her Irish Tatler’s Woman of the Year Award
These days, I’m a journalist and I work on verifying content on social media and detect misinformation and disinformation spreading on the platforms. I’m involved in many projects such as community sponsorships in Ireland as well. I am on the Amnesty National Board and I participate in several talks and projects for refugees, women’s issues etc. It’s busy but this is who I am, and it’s what I love to do. I have so much energy and I want to use it. I try my best.
Lena’s Story
I was born in Laois in 1942– the sixth of seven children. My father, Michael, had emigrated from Kilkenny to New York in his late teens and worked in a variety of unskilled jobs. I recall him summing up his determination in this rhyme: ‘Life is a test, give of your best, fight with your back to the wall. Never say die, laugh and don’t cry, get up again if you fall.’ Surely, the mantra of many immigrants in those very tough times. With the ongoing Great Depression, he lost his job. Fortunately, he’d saved enough that he was able to buy a farm in Ireland. Shortly after returning he married a fellow Kilkenny person, Mary Condren, a nurse. She became the local midwife, was much loved in the community and was a great homemaker.
Growing up, my father told us stories about families being evicted and dying in workhouses. This left him with a fear of not being able to pay the bills, so his focus was on making enough money to give us the opportunities he hadn’t had. We all worked in the house or on the farm and had little time for socializing except for annual visits to relatives. Both parents were deeply religious and strictly observant Catholics. My mother’s love and non-judgemental attitude as she discreetly provided clothes and food to those in need really inspired me. Her example shaped my future choices. My father’s avid interest in politics and concern about the discrimination against Catholics in the North inspired my passion for the rights of those excluded from society.
In 1960 I went to Wales to train as a nurse. That’s where I first became aware of racism and discrimination. I remember the racist comments about a student nurse from Jamaica. And I recall an English colleague mocking my accent because I didn’t pronounce my th’s, which made me extremely self-conscious about speaking in public. After qualifying I joined an international religious order, the Little Sisters of the Assumption (LSAs). Its mission was to work with and empower the poorest families. I was introduced to Liberation Theology, a philosophy combining the Christian message with an understanding of the socio-economic conditions that cause poverty, conflict, and oppression. This increased my awareness of discrimination against the Traveling people in Ireland, as well as injustices against peoples worldwide. By the 1970s I was working in a recently developed high-rise housing project on the northside of Dublin, Ballymun. It was a great opportunity to be part of building a new community for young families who had been displaced from poor housing in Dublin’s inner city.
In 1988 I got an opportunity to take a break from the work. My brother lived in Massachusetts, and the LSA were in Boston so it seemed an obvious choice for a year’s sabbatical. I was in my 40’s when I emigrated, and it was an opportunity to learn new skills. I was accepted into the Harvard School of Education where I embarked on research into the experiences of undocumented Irish immigrants. Though living on the edge of great possibility they also lived an underground existence with great fears of deportation, illness, no work, or exploitation at work, unplanned pregnancy, fear of travel etc. As part of my research, I interviewed the founding members of the fledgling Irish Immigration Centre (now RIAN) and was recruited to the team. In 1990, the year I was due to return to Ireland, I was invited to become the IIC’s first Executive Director. I took the job with mixed feelings because I knew Boston would now become my home and I would only be seeing family and friends on occasional visits to Ireland. Travel was more expensive then as were phone calls. The following year, when my eldest brother sadly died by suicide my family could not track me down. Thankfully, I got home for the funeral, but the experience made the plight of undocumented immigrants very real for me.
The early days of the IIC were exciting, but our resources were small, so I cleaned houses to pay my way. We embraced all expressions of Irishness – gay or straight, Protestant or Catholic, unionist or nationalist… it didn’t matter. Our approach gradually attracted immigrants from other backgrounds as we developed immigration legal clinics and other services to meet the needs of immigrants, especially the undocumented. I was in a Haiti justice group at the time, so I knew that, while the Irish were treated very badly, there was no comparison to the way Haitians were treated by the system. The darker your skin the more likely you were to be questioned by immigration officials and deported. At the IIC we developed anti-racism programs for staff and volunteers to become aware of our unconscious biases, how we benefit from white privilege and ways to address racism as we slowly moved to be an inclusive organization.
Integration was a tough issue to negotiate though. Our efforts elicited praise from some Irish but derision from others who questioned us helping these other people, when there were many Irish needing our help. I was in a big meeting one time and there was a group of Irish people there who were very annoyed that the Irish Immigrant Centre was considering working and lobbying for legislation that was inclusive of all undocumented immigrants. I told them that we can’t isolate ourselves, we must work together. That didn’t go down well and I and some of the IIC staff were called traitors. But I’m a strong believer that it’s not either or, it’s both and. We must recognize that we’re all equal people on this journey of life and that we all have so much to learn from and give to one another.
In 2005 I was chosen for a fellowship by the Barr Fellows Program, a foundation that honours the most remarkable and experienced non-profit leaders in Boston, by giving them an opportunity to connect with and learn from non-profit leaders in very different settings globally. One of the organizers called it --a disruptive immersive learning journey --and it truly was! I found myself in Zimbabwe, staying in the home of a woman dying of AIDS; and also in Haiti, living with a woman and her child in a home with no running water – despite me having no Creole or French, and she no English, we still managed to communicate. It was humbling to witness the survival skills of families living in extreme poverty and constant fear of conflict or displacement.
While I valued living in a diverse society like America my growing awareness of systemic racism and understanding of my white privilege brought home the gross inequality in the country I had come to love. I retired from the IIC in 2013 and returned to Ireland in 2014. In my role as coordinator of the LSA Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation program I’ve come to understand the fundamental link between climate change and the displacement of peoples. Also, the gross injustice of the Direct Provision System; the denial of citizenship to babies born to undocumented mothers living in Ireland is an ongoing concern. But I’m so inspired by the great work of so many immigrant-led organizations like AkiDwA. I’m blessed with an optimistic outlook in life; my motto is ‘Bloom where you are planted.’
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