TOMORROW, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN refugee agency, will hold its second Global Refugee Forum in Geneva "to build on the significant progress made by governments and other stakeholders".
The first forum was held in 2019. "Significant progress" seems to be too self-congratulatory given the dire straits refugees are in around the world. According to UNHCR figures, there are 36.4 million refugees — a Malaysia, if you will — around the world as this Leader goes to print.
If this is bad, here is worse. There is double that number of displaced people around the world. But UN high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi is right when he said in his op-ed on Sunday in The Guardian that the refugee problem can only be solved if all work together. Put in Grandi's words, "refugees are a symptom of collective failure".
He is right. People become refugees because of forced displacement. Therein lie the root causes. Remove them and we would have removed the refugee problem.
But this requires a drastic change in our approach to our search for a solution. It may even be one which has never been tried before. It hinges on our belief that we give voice to ever so often: all humans are equal. If this is indeed what the world leaders believe, then there won't be a refugee problem.
But the reality is otherwise, as UNHCR figures suggest. Belief only becomes one if it is put into action, not when it is given voice to. World leaders must question themselves for an answer.
Why are refugees being forced out of Palestine, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Central America and Central Africa and some such places? Ethnic cleansing, like in Palestine and Myanmar, and ceaseless civil wars, many of them funded by foreign powers, like in Syria, and regime changes.
Not to mention invasions by Western powers like in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the root causes. We believe the world leaders know this, but they just don't have the geopolitical will to put an end to them. What is worse, they don't even acknowledge them as root causes. This is why the United States vetoed the humanitarian ceasefire resolution proposed by the UN Security Council on Friday.
This is why, too, Britain is pushing through its Parliament the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Call it a "stop the boats" attempt by 10 Downing Street. No, the boats aren't going to stop crossing the English Channel by removing refugees to Rwanda, which the English newspaper rightly labels as "performative cruelty". Wrong removal, London.
Try the removal of root causes instead. Stop illegal invasions and regime changes like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, where Britain played a significant role.
Obviously, the past is beyond us to change. But if reparations are made to those countries which remain in physical and economic ruin, as Afghanistan and Iraq are, then Afghans and Iraqis will return home. No one wants to be a refugee in another land or a displaced person in his own country.
Foreign powers aren't the only culprits. Local politicians, too, need a mindset change. They, too, must treat the people justly. Injustice imposed from inside or outside forces people to become refugees. End injustice and then everyone will be in his right place.