The attitude towards refugees from the Middle East in Bulgaria needs to change

published on 2/6/24 1:26 PM

Silsila Mahbub

Photo: Private archive

The life of millions of people around the world who are facing a series of life challenges - war, hunger, poverty, seems incomprehensible to the Western world, of which Europe and Bulgaria are a part. That is why we accept the stories of such human destinies rather as statisics of something happening far away from us, which will not directly affect us. By saying this, most often we just feed our delusion that everything with us and around us is fine, and we can safely move on. Silsila Mahboub also moved on but just take a moment to compare her first clear childhood memory at at the age of 6 or 7 years with yours:

"I'm visiting my uncle's house in Kabul, along with my mother, father and sister" - so far everything sounds normal, right?

At one point, gunshots are heard outside. Everyone hides in the basement of the house. They spend the whole night there, and when they head home in the morning, they walk through streets strewn with corpses. The reason – the Taliban, who that night simply shot everyone they saw in front of their eyes.

Her life in Afghanistan continues, she adapts to what is happening around her, finds a prestigious job as a journalist in a private media in the country, which she admits she misses today. She was forced to leave in part because of the treatment she received as a woman in Afghanistan and the obstacles she faced, and her rights were too limited and unguaranteed.

Therefore, she decided to emigrate to Bulgaria where her uncle has been living for 35 years. It was he who helped he integrate in the country in the beginning.

"10 years is quite a long time for someone who wants to start his life anew," says Silsila in an interview with Radio Bulgaria, returning to the period of her arrival in this country a decade ago:

"I admit that there were moments when it was very unpleasant, I asked myself why I was still here and I hoped to find another place to live", recalls the young girl. "Sometimes the reason was people's attitude, other times - a problem with documents, with the language, because it's absolutely normal that I can't speak as a Bulgarian does. After all, it's a language I've studied and it's not my native language. When I first arrived here I wasn't sure how long I would stay,so I started to watch various TV series dubbed in Bulgarian. Then I perfected it while working as a tailor and talking to customers in the atelier."

Apart from her practice as a tailor, Silsila Mahbub's days in Bulgaria are also occupied with work to help refugees from the Middle East in this country:

"The Refugee Advisory Council is an organization that we founded two years ago", she tells us. "In it we are seven people from different countries - Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Yemen and we have all already gone through this path of integration once ourselves. Therefore we also want to help others who are in need - find jobs, enroll children in school and most of our contacts are with refugee organizations abroad. When we cannot assist them with a certain service, we refer them to the Bulgarian Red Cross, the Caritas non-governmental organization and the Council of Refugee Women."

In addition to legal and administrative matters, the Refugee Advisory Council helps with the integration of those in need and by organizing various events that present their culture and traditions to a wider circle of people. Silsila finds them extremely useful and remembers the introductory meetings held in her previous work as a volunteer for an NGO:

"Sometimes also Bulgarians come to them who are interested, but, you know, sometimes people just don't need to know the language to talk to each other. Sometimes showing something of your culture is enough for people to understand you. When I worked at Caritas, we had a series of cultural events every November, called refugee month. Many Bulgarians came, they exchanged contacts, there were even cases when neither of them knew the other's language, but at these meetings they would find a way to understand each other."

At the end of the interview, the interlocutor wanted to make an appeal to the Bulgarians in the country with which she hopes that our daily lives will be more peaceful and that we will approach those who are not like us with more respect:

"In Europe, people live in a completely different way than us. That's not bad, but it's nice that the others just get to know us, and not necessarily be against us. When a person is running away from their country, everyone has some reason, because, believe me, no one likes to be faced with a choice whether to stay at the cost of their life or to leave their country", Silsila is convinced and she concludes firmly: "If Afghanistan were peaceful today and I had guaranteed rights as a woman there, I would not be here."

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