9 Quotes by Louis Yako about refugees


  • Author Louis Yako
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    We must remember that refugees are almost always people whose homes, family members, and everything they once loved and held dear are either destroyed or seriously at stake…They are simply trapped in a zone in which staying under such circumstances and swallowing humiliation in the “host” countries is unbearable; going home is impossible, because often there is no 'home' to go to anymore; and going elsewhere is rarely an option either. This is precisely what “trapped” feels like.

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  • Author Louis Yako
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    Should we then be surprised that when Western powers destroy a certain country that there will be an influx of refugees? Do we expect these wars to happen and for their effects to simply stay 'over there'? How can we really expect all this to happen while people here carry on doing business as usual? Do Westerners expect to just relax and enjoy a cold crisp beer on their porches on a warm summer night and see no refugees before their eyes after all these wars waged by their governments?

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  • Author Louis Yako
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    Once upon a time, displaced people had a time and a place. They had a place in which they made plans about what to do with their future and their lives. Their time and place were prematurely destroyed and stolen from them. These people were then forced to exist in times and places that are not theirs. They were forced to learn the art of living and flourishing in the same empire that stole and destroyed their time and place back home.

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  • Author Louis Yako
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    The few powerful Western elites…benefit from wars twice: first, by destroying other countries and stealing their resources under different pretexts. Second, by bringing millions of refugees to Western countries and using them as cheap labor. This is where the strong connection between the military-industrial-complex and the refugee-industrial-complex precisely lies.

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  • Author Louis Yako
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    Who am I then? Am I everybody and nobody? Am I everywhere and nowhere? Is a state of multiple existence the only thing that captures my reality and the reality of countless other exiled and displaced peoples around the world today? Is a multiple existence a good thing or is it akin to nonexistence? Am I like God who is everywhere for those who believe in him and nowhere for those who do not?

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