Repatriation: Mitigating Reverse culture Shock
Posted on June. 16. 2024
“Seeking safety is a right and it
needs to be upheld for every
person. Protecting people
forced to flee is a collective
global responsibility.”
— Ben Stiller
BY Z. S. ANDREW DEMIRDJIAN
Since humans left the trees about 4.2 million years ago and began to live in settlements, some of them have become refugees by fleeing from one village to another due to war, violence, and persecution –just as these abominable acts of crime happen today by rogue states like Azerbaijan.
Although WWII ended in 1945, the consequences continued for decades after Germany had surrendered. Many millions of people became refugees in adjacent countries. In Europe alone, it is estimated that 65 million people were forced to leave their homes by the war including those who were used by Germany as slave laborers, ex-Prisoners of War, and the millions of citizens of various countries whose homes had been destroyed by bombing and shelling and who were forced to flee the advancing armies.
In the aftermath of WWII, a large segment of these displaced people had to be repatriated. Today, we know a lot from the repatriation challenges of the war-torn Europe.
Luckily, though, most of the refugees of WWII were repatriated. History has it that most of them had experienced a phenomenon known today as “Reverse Culture Shock” (RCS), but after a few years they began to follow their prewar normal, settled life.
Currently, the largest refugee crisis in the world is the Syrian refugee displacement. The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, and many Syrians have fled their homeland since then. The estimated 16.7 million people need humanitarian assistance and more than half of the population remains displaced from home, including more than five (5) million refugees living in neighboring countries. Furthermore, more than 7.2 million persons were internally displaced inside Syria. The country is one of the world’s worst places for humanitarian crisis. Repatriation of the Syrian refugees will be a herculean task.
Presently, due to the Ukraine-Russia war, we have over six million refugees fleeing Ukraine and an estimated eight (8) million others had been displaced within the country by late May 2022.
The on-going conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant reformers are creating a hell of a place to be in the Gaza Strip. As a result, some eighty percent (80 %) of the enclave residents are considered refugees under international law. Many Gazans also have been fleeing to Egypt.
After the Ukraine-Russia war and after Israel and Hamas militant reformers agree to armistice, some of their refugees will want to repatriate. They would be facing a psychological effect on them coined as “Reverse Culture Shock”.
Out of fear of war, violence, and persecution, the entire Armenian population of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has taken to exodus from their homes and homeland. About 100,000 thousand of them sought asylum in the Republic of Armenia.
Basically, RCS is the psychological condition materialized when a refugee repatriates. When a person flees his or her homeland and begins to live in exile, he or she would be adapting to the new environment consisting of physical as well as social-psychological milieu. In other words, the refugee will try to adjust to the host country’s culture by overcoming culture shock.
When this same refugee decides to repatriate, he or she faces the challenge of adjusting back to their former physical and social-psychological environment, namely to their native culture. During the transition, a cultural shock takes place and makes life difficult for the returnee to cope with life.
The repatriation of the forcefully displaced persons, their former government, business, and society including international refugee organizations have the moral and legal obligation to make life easier for the returning of those who want to go back home. Business is no longer in existence for profit only; it has also social responsibility toward the people they serve within a community.
Look homeward Armenians of Artsakh! All over the world, some of the refugees return home and others decide to stay in exile so to speak, but for both, wherever they decide to stay, the honey moon will be over after a while. Also, to bear in mind that culture shock will be longer in a foreign land than experiencing RCS in one’s own native land. As a refugee, it is your choice to stay abroad or return home, it is your destiny, and it is your conscience to consider for your homeland needs you.
To repatriate or not to repatriate? The answer depends on the refugee’s mindset as well as sense of patriotism. The refugee should be cognizant of the fact that the price of staying away from one’s homeland would be too high. One obvious problem would be loss of homeland for an empty homeland would be filled by other ethnic groups.
Another problem is that he or she would be a “marginal man,” who is torn between two cultures; sometimes acting according to the adopted country’s mores; the other times reverting to native cultural and traditional ways. Besides, patriotism demands repatriation, provided it would be safe and secure to do so, to avoid later the compunction of conscience for abandoning one’s native land.
Based on an extensive research, in this article, I shall present some strategies to mitigate the RCS of the refugee returning home. Should the former government of the refugee fail to provide some of the strategies to alleviate the arduous journey back home, the refugee should ask for help from his or her government, business, NGOs, international refugee organizations, and including one’s diaspora.
Ideas have changed the world; ideas new or old can also help the Armenians of Artsakh. So, here are some research-based strategies for repatriation: The first strategy is to make the returnee feel safe and secure from violence and persecution. This is the most crucial strategy by treating and assuring the “retunees” not as traitors, but victims of war between two countries or nations and those bygones are bygones.
The second strategy is to return to them their properties and possessions. If their homes were destroyed during the war, the government should grant them the money or charge them a very low interest on loans to rebuild their homes.
The third strategy is for the government and business to create jobs for them. Ideally, they should be rehired where they had been working prior to the outbreak of war and displacement.
The fourth strategy is for the government to offer subsidy. For example, If a refugee had a business such as a farm, the government should subsidize it until it operates back successfully by providing the farmer with seeds, machinery, livestock, feeds, etc..
The fifth strategy is to ask the government to provide the refugees certain things. Remember the old proverb that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Also note that the government may be anxious to please the returning citizens for the sake of propaganda that the government is multiculturally oriented.
The sixth strategy is for the refugees to become familiar with their rights by studying the international laws governing the repatriation of displaced persons and refugees.
For the psychological wellbeing by mitigating their RCS of the refugees returning to their homeland is vital. Many of the refugees perhaps had nothing to do with the political conflict between two warning countries. Simply put, they had become collateral damage, unfortunate civilian casualties who care and want to live safely and securely as indigenous people on their ancestral lands.
Ben Stiller put it very succinctly when he stated,” Seeking safety is a right and it needs to be upheld for every person. Protecting people forced to flee is a collective global responsibility,” which includes the government, business and society.
Here is one caveat to heed: The case of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 in Soviet Armenia should give us lessons to avoid in dealing with those Armenians from Artsakh who decide not to return home and remain in Armenia.
Here is what happened according to a common narrative: During the Joseph Stalin’s time when Armenians repatriated from all over Syria, Lebanon, Ethopia, France, Greece, and so on in 1946 and 1947, they were warmly welcomed by the local people of Soviet (aka Eastern) Armenia. Later on, however, the honey moon eroded when the locals had found out that the immigrant Armenians were given by the Armenian government free houses, land, stores, stipends, etc., they became jealous of them, which gave rise to interpersonal friction and ostracism..
After some time, whenever some of the immigrants approached the local Armenians, they used to say “We are brothers. We need your help.” On account of this expression of plea, the locals dubbed them as “Akhpars” (“brothers” in Armenian), which to some it became a pejorative word.
When the Soviet Union dissolved, the so-called Akhpars left their homes in droves and moved to various parts of the world, mainly to U.S,., Canada, and France. The moral of this sad story is that the honey moon will be over for those Armenians from Artsakh who decide to stay out of their homeland.
Finally, the refugee should bear in mind that he or she can’t have the best of both worlds. If a refugee truly loves his country, he or she has to make many sacrifices to live, work, and die on one’s own native land; they cannot have it both ways.
Patriotism is love of country, which demands a rather high price to be paid if one wants to practice it. Unfortunately, there is no two ways about it. Some of the Armenians are conditioned to be patriotic and others are self-centered from infancy.
If repatriation fails, the children of the Artsakh refugees will become subject to assimilation when their parents are dispersed in the diaspra. Besides, these impressionable kids are the future population of their native land; without their presence, their country becomes a vacuum to be filled by the plundering enemy. Therefore, repatriation is the essence of the survival of Artsakh.
To keep the enclave of Artsakh Armenian, repatriation is essential. Every Armenian around the world has to assist, advise, and encourage the refugees of Artsakh to repatriate; otherwise, Artsakh will become a tiny footnote in the history of Armenian territorial loses for abandoning ancestral lands to the ever plunders of Armenian territories.