Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2015, Blaðsíða 14

Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2015, Blaðsíða 14
14 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 14 — 2015 Politics | Bright?Iceland | Becoming Biljana Boloban Nationality: Serbian Age: 21 Year of arrival: 2001 Biljana arrived in Iceland with her moth- er, father, and younger sister, who was five at the time. The family were refu- gees even in her earliest memories, she says. Thus, coming to Iceland—where they didn’t have to fear for their safety— felt wonderful. She describes in particu- lar the persistent memory of her first Icelandic shower—how amazed she was at the abundance of hot water, and that it didn’t come from a bucket. Biljana was immediately enrolled into the third grade, which marked the very beginning of her formal school- ing. After briefly struggling with the language, she came to her own in upper secondary school, when she moved from Keflavík to the capital area. She tells us of untold hours acting as the family’s interpreter, mediating at doctor’s appointments and translating every letter that the fledgling household received. She and her family have since made several trips back to Serbia, but happily call Iceland their home. Living in Kópavogur with her boyfriend, Biljana is currently studying to be a social worker and moonlighting at a short-term place- ment house for special needs children. On adjusting to life in Iceland “As a child, whenever I heard sounds that reminded me of explosions I’d run into hiding. Even the sound of a car engine starting would set me off. Needless to say, New Year's Eve was a horrible time for me, with all the fireworks going off.” On her self-esteem “I had a very broken self-image, and a difficult childhood. The other kids had lived very ordinary lives, and nobody understood who I was or what I was go- ing through, so I felt like I was worth less than everyone else. However, my confi- dence grew the more I understood the language and what was going on around me.” On being separated from her family “I remember that when I left Serbia, I was smaller than my grandmother. And when I came back, I had grown quite a bit taller than her, which came as a shock to me, because I’d always envisioned her larger. My grandfather later died while we were in Iceland, and we couldn’t af- ford to attend the funeral, which I found very difficult. There are so few left of our family, and not having a chance to say goodbye felt rough. Life in another country meant that I always missed someone.” Halldór Nguye Nationality: Vietnamese Age: 61 Year of arrival: 1979 Halldór Nguye was 25 when he became one of the first resettlement refugees to arrive in Iceland independently, catch- ing a flight to the country after spending four months in a refugee camp. His first impressions of the country came during the drive to Reykjavík, which to him ap- peared like the moon’s surface. He ini- tially shared a living space with two oth- er Vietnamese refugees in a three-storey house on Reykjavík’s west side. He says that he wasn’t provided with contacts or resources where he could seek help or information, but did receive a six-month crash course in Icelandic and a job gut- ting fish. After studying to become a mechanic, he worked as one for the city for fifteen years before switching fields to work as a translator for the Vietnamese commu- nity, even creating a digital Icelandic- Vietnamese dictionary. Halldór has visited Vietnam on nu- merous occasions since relocating to Ice- land, and maintains a relationship with his family there through the internet. However, he says Iceland is where he be- longs. On racism “It existed everywhere in the world, but I didn’t take it personally. Most people were kind and good to me, and I haven’t ever regretted coming here.” On the Vietnamese community “When I moved here, there were forty of us living here, and we formed a commu- nity of sorts, although some eventually moved to Canada. Now, roughly half of us are left, and we don’t have that much contact with each other. We do run into one another every now and again, of course.” On his life now “I wed an Icelandic woman and had three children with her before we even- tually divorced. I then married a Viet- namese woman, with whom I have one daughter. We now have four grandchil- dren. I feel very wealthy.” Final words “I just want to thank Iceland for allowing me to come to the country.” Irek A. Klonowski Nationality: Polish Age: 70 Year of arrival: 1982 Irek was headed for a skiing holiday in Switzerland with his wife Ewa and their daughter, when martial law was declared in Poland following a surge of massive protests. Rather than returning to the potentially hazardous situation at home, they sought refuge in Austria. Well educated, Irek and his family were deemed highly eligible for refuge—he says an informal enquiry into what Ice- land had to offer quickly turned into an unconditional offer of admittance. Two days later, they were on a plane to Ice- land. The family was initially put up in a hotel, as they secured an apartment to let in Reykjavík. Until his retirement, Irek worked as a food processing scien- tist, while his wife was employed at the national hospital, before moving on to work on individual and mass grave exhu- mation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (for which she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, as part of the 1,000 Women joint application). Irek and his family have since visited Poland many times, and he’s stayed in touch with his brother, who found ref- uge in Australia. He says that of 26 Pol- ish refugees that immigrated to Iceland in the early ‘80s, his family are the only ones to have remained in the country. When they arrived, Irek says, they en- joyed widespread sympathy from locals who were up to speed on what Poland was going through—in the 21st century, however, the Polish have a different rep- utation. He thinks there’s nothing really ex- citing about his story, maintaining that he and his wife are just ordinary retir- ees, who enjoy life and meeting their two grandchildren. On his first impression of Iceland “It was completely different from what I expected. We came from Austria, where it had been 30°C and sunny—and when we got here, it was 7°C. Everything was green and in bloom in Austria, but not even the Icelandic moss was green when we came.” On the Red Cross “We only had the clothes on our back when we arrived, so we had to start over completely. We received some things and furniture from the Red Cross. They planned and executed everything re- ally well, and they assisted us for sev- eral months, arranging for our Icelandic courses and such. We were well taken care of.” On refugees “I would ask Icelanders to be kind to refugees. It’s incredibly difficult to come to Europe, so please welcome them—so- ciety will in the end benefit from it.” Jovana Pavlović Nationality: Serbian Age: 22 Year of arrival: 1999 Jovana was six years of age when she came to Iceland with her family, set- tling in Ísafjörður. She says she had a hard time assimilating—although her family was indeed fleeing the Yugoslav wars, they didn’t arrive in Iceland as formal refugees, and were therefore not afforded the same services and support networks others enjoyed. She was bullied by her schoolmates in Ísafjörður, making her feel like a second- class citizen for having a darker com- plexion and coming from a different cul- ture. However, she later connected with the refugees that came to Iceland, finally feeling a sense of belonging. Jovana and her family eventually moved to Borgarnes, but she now resides in Hafnarfjörður, and studies political science at the University of Iceland. She says that while the prejudices she experi- enced as a child have become less promi- nent alongside Iceland becoming a more multicultural society, she still feels that prejudice is a very real problem in Ice- land. On moving to Iceland “There was this feeling of insecurity when we were fleeing, this ever-present fear that you never forget. It doesn’t take a lot for me to tear up when I think about it, even though it was many years ago. We came to Iceland seeking security, and that’s it. At first I couldn’t under- stand why we came here, and it wasn’t until I was fifteen years old that I actu- ally understood that we had escaped a war zone.” On assimilation “When people talk about accepting groups of foreigners into their society, it’s not just about the foreigners accept- ing the society, but the society accepting them back. When we got here people didn’t accept us—rather, they pushed us away. I think that’s a problem in Scandi- navia—people aren’t welcoming to out- siders.” On refugees “I feel the discussion about refugees often goes along the lines of talking about them as being riddled with prob- lems, but that’s an incomplete picture. There’s never any talk about what their lives were like before that—they’re just reduced to being refugees. I remember when we came to Iceland; our neigh- bours showed my mother a fridge, like she had never seen one before. Refugees are just regular people in extraordinary situations, people who need help.” Words by Alexander de Ridder & Gabríel Benjamin Photo : Archival Iceland Becomes You Four successfully resettled refugees relay their stories “We came to Iceland seeking security, and that’s it. At first I couldn’t understand why we came here, and it wasn’t until I was fifteen years old that I actually understood that we had escaped a war zone.” President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson welcomes a group of refugees from former Yugoslavia to Ísafjörður, 1996
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