Refugees at Work

Not all 68.5 million migrants identified by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) live in camps. In the US, for example, asylum seekers can receive work permits, if their cases are not resolved in 180 days. In July, 2018, one asylum seeker from Sudan was given a court date in 2021.

     What do refugees do while they are in limbo? Some drive cabs or work in nursing homes. But refugees who fled a civil war in Ethiopia mobilized family members to bring their home town food-associated hospitality to a restaurant they opened in Washington, DC. Creative employers, such as the Palestinian and Yemen business partners, Nas Jab and Jabber Nasser al Bihani, look for asylum seekers who have skills they can employ. That way, they found chefs for their Komeeda restaurants in New York, NY; Austin, Texas; and Washington, DC.

     The UNHCR adopted an idea from a French catering company, Les Cuistots Migrateurs, that organized a festival to attract immigrant chefs for restaurants in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, and Rome. UNHCR-sponsored festivals have led to numerous international dining experiences.

• Women cook native dishes at Mazi Mas in London.
• Home cooking from Syria is on the menu at the New Arrival Super Club in Los Angeles.
• Detroit is opening Baobab Fare, a Burundian restaurant and market.
• The Sushioki chain in Durhan, North Carolina, advertises the cooking of refugee chefs.

Who can resist trying Zimbabwean chicken stew and crisp baklava triangles with vanilla ice cream?

   

Muslim Perspective: Conclusion of a 3-Part Series

What was the Muslim perspective after World War II? At first, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen agreed with Britain's suggestion to form an Arab League to protect their independence from outside threats, especially from the Soviet Union. But a common opposition to the new Israeli state proved to be a stronger unifying force. Muslim countries that had no part in murdering Jewish prisoners in the Holocaust were unwilling to recognize Israeli independence. They responded with a declaration of war, when a UN resolution ended Britain's Palestinian Mandate and created the new state of Israel on May 15, 1948. The United States, with the largest concentration of Jewish people outside of Israel, went to the aid of Israel.

     After Mohammed's death, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims took different directions and became bitter enemies (For an explanation of the rift, see the section, Mohammed's Legacy, in the earlier post, "This We Believe."). Both Muslim sects had splinter groups determined to annihilate Israel, and, by extension, Israel's ally, the United States. The new fundamentalist Shi'ite regime that took over in Iran in 1979 permitted militants to hold 62 Americans in the U.S. embassy for over a year. Israel viewed exiled Palestinian Sunnis and Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shia in Lebanon as terrorists. To rid its northern border of the threat posed by both groups, Israel supported the 1982 raid by Maronite Christian militias that resulted in a refugee camp massacre.

     Seen as an ally of the Israeli forces behind the 1982 raid, the United States became an Hezbollah target. After a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives into the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in April, 1983, Iran directed another suicide operation that killed 241 at the U.S.Marine barracks there in October. Tel Aviv, which had destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, pressured Washington to see that Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear bomb would not succeed.

     Only because of a blatant invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 was President George H.W.Bush, with UN backing, able to assemble the international force that took just four days to defeat Iraq and liberate Kuwait. In other circumstances, the U.S. was a target in 1993 for Muslim terrorists who set off a bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York and for the terrorists, trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, who bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. With a successful "business plan" in hand, the Muslim mastermind behind these attacks traveled to Sudan in 1995 to remind Osama bin Laden how effective suicide bombers could be against Americans. (For additional information about the Muslim perspective, see the earlier post, "Why Do They Hate Us?")



   

Muslim Perspective: Part 2 of a 3-Part Series

In a continuing effort to learn more about the Muslim perspective, the second part of a 3-part series follows:

After defeating Napoleon, England was not willing to stand by while massacres and atrocities by Turkish oppressors in the Ottoman Empire led to revolts that gave outside powers reason to intervene. France's Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar both vied to protect Christians living under Turkish rule. Tsar Nicholas I, who called the Ottoman Empire's Sultan the "sick man of the East," was intent on liberating fellow Slavs in Bulgaria and other Balkan areas that the Turks controlled. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which also saw an opportunity to expand into the Balkans, annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Britain had no interest in the Balkans, but London was determined to prevent Russia from interfering with its profitable spice trade in India and, eventually, its access to Middle Eastern oil. Knowing that revolutions in 1848 had weakened both Austria's and Hungary's ability to prevent Russian expansion toward Constantinople and the Dardanelle Straits, Britain was willing to prop up Turkey and to join France in what became known as the 1856 Crimean War.

     Although the Ottoman Empire survived the Crimean War, a little over 20 years later, Russia forced the Sultan to recognize the independence of his Balkan possessions in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. The Ottoman Empire's North African territories were victims of the European scramble for colonies in the late 19th century. France claimed Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and, by 1869, opened Egypt's Suez Canal.

     Britain, which viewed France as its major colonial rival in Africa, saw the canal as a vital link to India. When Egypt's Turkish ruler needed funds to pay interest on the European loans that had financed canal construction, England eagerly bought shares in the Suez Canal Company. As a result of Britain's financial interests, Egypt became a British Protectorate in 1882. Throughout half of the 20th century, Great Britain continued to maintain a strategic military base in the Suez Canal Zone.

     During World War I, Britain captured Palestine, Iraq, and Iran. It was in 1917 that Lord Balfour, Britain's foreign minister, first raised the possibility of carving an Israeli state, what he called "a small notch," out of Palestine. By making Palestine a British Mandate on September 11, 1932, the League of Nations took the first step to implement Lord Balfour's plan. After World War I, the UK also won League of Nations support in its dispute over the Mosul oil fields in northern Iraq, but England's position in the Middle East deteriorated following World War II. In 1951, Iran's government nationalized the joint Anglo-Iranian oil company on the Persian Gulf at Abadan.