Imagined Realities: The 2010s Refugee Crisis in Fiction by Sara Rani Reddy

Gary: Fiction and reality do not have hard boundaries. What people perceive, regardless of truth, informs actions. Depictions of issues regarding ethnic, religious, sex and gender-based groups have played a huge role in shaping public opinion, law and government. Of ever-increasing importance in the modern age is the refugee crisis. Following the failure of the Arab Spring and the collapse of both Syria and Libya, over 1 million refugees entered Europe in 2015 alone. The refugee situation has become so prominent that it has now spilled over into popular fiction as artists struggle to depict an ever-present reality. In today’s episode scholar Sara Rani Reddy discusses the French graphic novel Alpha: Abidjan-Gare du Nord and the Netflix film The Swimmers and what they tell us about French and European perceptions of the mid-2010s refugee crisis. Sara Rani is a French MA student at Columbia University. Her research interests include French and Francophone literature and film; migration studies; the intersection of French and science; and language acquisition and pedagogy. She was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Luxembourg from 2021 to 2022, and a Stamps Scholar at the University of Notre Dame, earning a B.S. in Chemistry and French in 2021.

Sara: My name is Sara Rani Reddy.

Today, I’m going to be talking about Patterns in visual storytelling and the refugee crisis.

In the ongoing debates about migration policy and border restrictions, and even what term to use to describe those seeking asylum, there is inherent judgment and racism faced by travelers fleeing their home country in search of a better and safer life. Visual storytelling is a powerful tool to combat this judgment that refugees have historically faced.

In the introduction to his book The Borders of “Europe”, Nicholas De Genova argues that one image in particular was a turning point in the debate: “Then, on September 2, 2015, social media briefly became captivated by haunting photographs featuring the corpse of a drowned Syrian boy, soon identified as Aylan Kurdi, washed ashore in Turkey after a failed attempt to reach the Greek island of Kos left at least 12 people dead.” [1] The strong visual elements of the photos depicting this young boy Aylan’s death, initially showing him face down in the sand, then later being carried in the arms of a Turkish paramilitary officer, led the public to overlook the politicized landscape of illegal migration and to focus on the needs of refugees in similar life-threatening conditions.

In a study published in 2017, titled “Iconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disasters”, researchers investigated the behavioral effect that these particular photos had on the public in the weeks after its circulation online. [2] The researchers interpreted data from Google search trends as well as the number of donations and amount of donations made to the Red Cross fund for Syrian refugee aid, concluding in their study that the public was previously unmoved by the rising death toll in Syria but appeared to care much more about the crisis after seeing Aylan’s photograph. Thus, this singular visual representation of the life-threatening circumstances refugees face, found in the images of Aylan, was effective in fueling public emotion and action, although according to the donation trends, this sudden surge in the action of donating money did not last more than six weeks.

In an NPR interview, the lead researcher of the study, Paul Slovic explained: “​​It's not that people are not compassionate. But that compassion has to be aroused, and the data shows that the photograph helped do that” [3]. Throughout the decades-long refugee crisis from the Middle East and Africa, authors and filmmakers have tried to arouse this compassion by depicting the struggles of refugees through the power of visual artforms to evoke public sympathy.

To better understand the intersection of the refugee debate and the influence of visual storytelling on public opinion, this episode explores the characters of Alpha and Abebi in the 2014 French graphic novel Alpha: Abidjan-Gare du Nord by Bessora, illustrated by Barroux,
as well as the characters of Sara and Yusra Mardini in the 2022 Netflix film The Swimmers [4,5].

We will look at the patterns in the powerful images of these characters created with the goal of raising awareness of and inspiring compassion for the struggles of refugees. I will be quoting from the English translation, Alpha: Abidjan to Paris, translated by Sarah Ardizzone, published in 2018 [6].

In Bessora’s first graphic novel, the title character Alpha narrates his experiences traveling from the Ivory Coast to Paris to find his wife and son, Patience and Badian, who have set out on the treacherous journey of le migration clandestine or illegal migration six months before.This book has been praised by many different organizations, as it was published with the support of Amnesty International and was the recipient of the PEN Promotes Award and the Doctors Without Borders Prize. [7]

The images in the novel add a deeply emotional force to the story and produce a paradoxically realistic dimension to the novel. They have a relatively simplistic style but still they illustrate aspects of the story that can’t be expressed in words. With this artistic style, the illustrator, Barroux, is trying to invoke the same means a refugee might have, as an article on the Pen America website describes Barroux’s artistic decision to use “a limited palette of markers, which the artist bought cheaply in a pack, imagining how one traveler might try to document their life” [7]. These visuals are the key to the viewer’s experience of the graphic novel and their understanding of aspects of this refugee story.

One of the key characters who provides this representation of the refugee experience is Abebi, a Nigerian woman who begins traveling with Alpha. Abebi weaves in and out of Alpha’s life during their journey amid many struggles, such as relying on prostitution to make money in refugee camps, experiencing physical abuse and being diagnosed with AIDS, until her death resulting from a complicated unplanned pregnancy and delivery.

In the beginning, Abebi enters Alpha’s life under false pretenses: “she tells me that she met Patience and Badian. She recognized them right away when I showed her the photo. But she won’t tell me any more. The price of her story is the trip.” [8] This image on this page, introducing the viewer to Abebi, has a large empty stretch of land looming in the background, as if to illustrate that Abebi has nothing left behind her: her only hope is to keep going forward, and her only hope to keep going forward is Alpha. Barroux drew this first image of Abebi straight-on, with her head directly facing the viewer, almost as if to say that her only hope also lies with the viewer.

After months of traveling with Alpha, the group reaches Morocco, when Abebi’s health takes a turn for the worst - she goes into labor and her condition deteriorates quickly. As she lays dying, Abebi reveals her lie to Alpha: she never met his wife and son. In image on this page, we see Abebi in pain, and Alpha by her side, holding her hand, looking concerned [9]. His compassion for Abebi, which has grown over the course of their perilous journey together, outweighs any anger at her lie. Despite all their struggles and conflicts, Alpha stays by her side until the end. The images portraying Abebi’s death reflect both the high death toll of refugees during their journey and the deeply compassionate relationships between people forced to band together through life-threatening hardships. Barroux encapsulates this singular compassion in this image.

In a series of simple sentences, Alpha relays the outcome of the delivery: “The child is born. It doesn’t cry. It’s a little girl. And she’s dead. Abebi never regains consciousness.” [10]

We see the dead, nameless infant, alone, surrounded by darkness. The viewer gets a sense of the isolation of refugees who have died alone, just like Aylan did.

Alpha somewhat takes on the role of Abebi’s next of kin, collecting her few personal belongings. And it is at this point in the graphic novel that Barroux and Bessora gently interrupt the story with one last image of Abebi [11]. Unaccompanied by words, as if to serve as a moment of silence, the story gives a visual memorial to this young woman, showing a close-up of her face, similar in scope and size to the first image of her discussed earlier. Now she is painted a ghostly white, shining brightly against a dark black background. Just as she was at the beginning, she is looking right at the viewer, but this time, with a hint of a smile on her face, representing the tender memory that stays with Alpha.

After this, Abebi disappears from the reader’s view, while Alpha continues to talk both to Abebi and about her in his narration, particularly after realizing that his only chance to get to Europe now is in a small boat during a storm to avoid Spanish and Moroccan patrol boats. On the last page of the story before the epilogue, Alpha realizes that they have survived and reached Europe. His last words are: “I’ve made it, Abebi, we’ve made it.” [12] At this moment, when his tumultuous and life-threatening journey to Europe ends, Alpha has Abebi in mind. Abebi, in life and in death, ends up becoming the source of Alpha’s strength and resolve to complete his journey to Europe. Once he gets there, he looks at the horizon, thinks about his future, and remembers those who never made it that far.

Abebi’s importance transcends the boundaries of the story as evidenced in the teacher’s guide provided by Amnesty International UK in their educational series “Exploring Human Rights Through Books.” [13] This document, filled with questions and activities for students, shows how the book focuses the viewer’s attention on the patterns and perils of the refugee crisis. The guide asks questions such as “What rights has Abebi been denied which lead directly to her death?” This document moves students towards the discourse of human rights, and the violations of these rights. Thus, Abebi also functions as a vehicle for the viewer to consider who or what is responsible for the conditions refugees must overcome.

There is a distinct connection between Abebi and Aylan and their significance to understanding the refugee crisis which lies in their appearance. In the previously mentioned interview with the researcher for the study regarding Aylan’s photograph, Paul Slovic discusses one particular feature of the photo that he believes contributed to the global outpouring of sympathy: “we don't quite see his face … so you can project onto him the face of someone you know.” [3] Similarly with Abebi, Barroux’s simplistic style of illustration gives the viewer a vague image of Abebi’s face, with enough details for the viewer to recognize her as a character but also enough room for imagination so that the viewer can project onto Abebi the face of someone they care about. This visual ambiguity, as used with Abebi and Aylan, is just one technique that can be used to elicit emotional responses from the viewer, as we see a different approach in the recently released Netflix film, The Swimmers.

Based on the incredible true story about Sara and Yusra Mardini, this film also aims to produce a compassionate response in the audience. Both Mardini sisters are avid swimmers, with Yusra in training to qualify for the Syrian Olympic team. In 2015, the violence in Syria forced the sisters to flee and attempt to reach Germany before Yusra’s 18th birthday to qualify for a policy that would allow their parents and youngest sister still in Syria to get visas to fly to Germany. During their journey, while on a flimsy inflatable boat piled with refugees, the engine suddenly stalled, and the boat began to sink. Sara, followed by her sister Yusra, jumped into the water, tied the boat’s ropes around themselves and swam, pulling the boat for over three hours in the Aegean Sea until they reached the shores of Greece.

The film goes on to show the sisters’ journey from Greece to Germany and beyond. Yusra ends up qualifying for the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and Sara decides to leave Germany to return to Greece and work as an activist helping refugees arriving on the shores just as she once did.

During a pensive scene of the film, the two sisters face the internal struggle to accept that they are refugees. In this moment, Yusra has a chance to join the Refugee Olympic Team but does not want to give up her dream of swimming for Syria. Sara tries to convince her sister to join the Refugee team. After a series of wide shots showing the two sisters in the same frame, the camera cuts to a close up of Sara as she sighs and declares, addressing no one in particular, “I’m Sara Mardini. I have no country anymore.” [14] In this moment of the film, the audience is confronted with two young women, trying to find their place in the world, who in turn are confronted with the fact that they are refugees. This moment of vulnerability in the film is a key turning point in this migration story, as Sara and Yusra aren’t battling an external conflict in the form of border authorities or other threats to their safety but rather the internal turmoil of realizing what they have lost. This scene brings a level of specificity to Sara and Yusra - making them unique and stand out in their newly accepted identity as refugees.

The movie presents the sisters as high achieving swimmers and heroes for saving the refugees in the boat, and the audience therefore rightly regards them as being remarkable. Thus, the movie shows a triumphant and emotional true story of two sisters who overcame incredible odds as refugees and succeeded in accomplishing their goals and making a difference in the lives of other refugees.

If Abebi and Aylan are blank faces for the viewer to fill in with people in their lives, Sara and Yusra become outstanding hero figures that the viewer admires. If Abebi and Aylan are humanizing templates to transplant onto the faces of the millions of refugees across the globe, Sara and Yusra become exemplars, underdogs who have won by making it to Europe and to the Olympics, in Yusra’s case. They’ve captured the audience’s heart and therefore become poster children, if you will, for refugees. In the stories of Aylan, Alpha, Abebi, and the Mardinis, a pattern emerges in how these strong examples of visual elements are used to spread awareness and elicit compassion regarding the refugee crisis.

But the path from strong images of refugees to increased public compassion is a two-way street, and there are innumerable examples of negative images being used in the public discourse, leading to increased suspicion and disapproval of refugee populations. One example of the use of visuals to demean refugees can be found in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s use of Aylan Kurdi’s image in a cartoon that depicted two immigrants as sex-crazed criminals who harass European women, asking, and this is a translation, “What would little Aylan have grown up to become? A groper in Germany.” [15] This image was published approximately 4 months after the photos of Aylan first circulated in September 2015. The cartoon responded to a string of sexual assaults during New Year’s celebrations in Cologne, Germany, allegedly committed by men of Arab or North African appearance, though authorities warned the public against assuming asylum seekers were involved. [16]

It is imperative to discuss the perspectives and agendas of these various forms of visual representation of refugees, as Heather Johnson states in her 2011 article “Click to Donate: Visual Images, Constructing Victims and Imagining the Female Refugee.” She writes: “representations are fundamentally political. They tell us how to interpret our world … the representation of the refugee is a key component of how we write refugee policy, and how that policy is interpreted, supported and contested.” [17] While considering the equally influential use of visual elements to create prejudice against refugees, one must ask: what is the end goal of these visual stories in soliciting public sympathy?

So far, the scope of these calls to action generated by powerful images in photos, graphic novels, and films have focused primarily on gathering donations for charities to help refugees.

But to make a lasting difference, these visual artforms must stir the public to call for a change in policy. For example, the previously mentioned Amnesty International teaching guide regarding Alpha encourages students to look for ways to take action, listing a link to view different projects and campaigns they can join, including the “Write for Rights” annual campaign, through which people around the world write messages in solidarity with those who are being denied their freedoms, and to pressure authorities with the power to stop the abuses being committed. [13]

Among the activists for whom Amnesty International is advocating, we find a familiar name: Sara Mardini. After returning to Greece to volunteer as an aid worker, Sara joined the nonprofit organization Emergency Response Center International, or ERCI, providing support to travelers washing up on the shore just as she and her sister once did. In 2018, Sara and other aid workers from ERCI were arrested by Greek authorities, on various charges, including human trafficking and espionage. These charges were quickly decried by human rights groups as the baseless criminalization of humanitarian work. [18] Sara spent 106 days in detention before facing trial. [19] In January of this year, the espionage charges against Sara and her fellow aid workers were annulled. [20] But rather than the charges being dismissed to recognize the importance of humanitarian aid to refugees, the charges were dropped due to procedural errors. Namely, key court documents were not translated for the defendants without knowledge of Greek.

But Sara’s legal troubles resulting from her work are far from over. In February, a prosecutor appealed the court’s decision, opening up the possibility of new charges and a new trial. [21] While donations can help fund legal campaigns in support of aid workers like Sara who face criminal charges as a result of their work to rescue refugees, true and meaningful change in this crisis can only come from applying public pressure to government bodies who set and enforce migration policy.

Stories such as Alpha: Abdijan-Gard du Nord and The Swimmers, draw attention to the use of powerful visual media that can drive the public to reflect on their own biases and move them to make a meaningful impact on this global crisis. These stories and the pattern of their visual techniques which evoke the viewer’s sympathy lead us to ask some important questions.

First, does someone need to be extraordinary, like Sara and Yusra Mardini, and earn our sympathy and action, or are we called to action because someone-anyone's-human rights are being violated? We are also led to wonder what it means to be sympathetic to the refugees in these stories? What is it that we are called to do to make change happen?

It all boils down to policy-making at the government level - yes, it is imperative to have donations to provide supplies and housing for refugees once they arrive, but these visual stories can inspire us to go further and demand change so that people like Aylan, Alpha, Abebi, Sara and Yusra aren’t forced to climb into feeble boats on their way to finding a better and safer life.

Thank you.

Bibliography:

[1] Nicholas De Genova, The Borders of “Europe”: Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), p. 2-3.

[2] Slovic, Paul et al. “Iconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disasters,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (January 2017), Vol. 114, No. 4, pp. 640-644.

[3] Diane Cole, “Study: What Was the Impact of the Iconic Photo of the Syrian Boy?” NPR, 13 Jan. 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/01/13/509650251/study-what-was-the-impact-of-the-iconic-photo-of-the-syrian-boy.

[4] Bessora and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan-Gare Du Nord. (Paris: Gallimard, 2014).

[5] The Swimmers, directed by Sally El Hosaini, (Netflix, 2022). https://www.netflix.com/title/81365134.

[6] Bessora, and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan to Paris. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone, (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018).

[7] Juliann Nelson. “Alpha.” PEN America, 13 Sept. 2018, https://pen.org/alpha/.

[8] Bessora, and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan to Paris. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone, (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018), p. 46.

[9] Bessora, and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan to Paris. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone, (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018), p. 100.

[10] Bessora, and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan to Paris. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone, (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018), p. 101.

[11] Bessora, and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan to Paris. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone, (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018), p. 102.

[12] Bessora, and Barroux. Alpha: Abidjan to Paris. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone, (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018), p. 123.

[13] “Exploring Human Rights through Books–Alpha,” Amnesty International UK, Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/2018-02/ALPHA%20Teachers%20notes%20WEB.pdf?XfnRBmH8KfMaJw59m67kDH4fmJATNEXs=.

[14] The Swimmers, directed by Sally El Hosaini, (Netflix, 2022), 1:48:15. https://www.netflix.com/title/81365134.

[15] Tim Hume. “Outrage over Charlie Hebdo Cartoon of Dead Toddler Alan Kurdi as Sex Attacker,” CNN, 14 Jan. 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/14/europe/france-charlie-hebdo-aylan-kurdi/index.html.

[16] “Germany Shocked by Cologne New Year Gang Assaults on Women,” BBC, 5 Jan. 2016, bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046.

[17] Heather Johnson. “Click to Donate: Visual Images, Constructing Victims and Imagining the Female Refugee,” Third World Quarterly (2011), Vol. 32, No. 6, 2011, pp. 1017.

[18] “Greece: Rescuers at Sea Face Baseless Accusations.” Human Rights Watch, 5 Nov. 2018, https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/05/greece-rescuers-sea-face-baseless-accusations.

[19] Helena Smith. “Refugee Activist Facing Greek Court Left ‘in Limbo’ after Trial Postponed.” The Guardian, 18 Nov. 2021, theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/18/refugee-activist-facing-greek-court-left-in-limbo-after-trial-postponed.

[20] “Espionage Charges against Sara Mardini and 23 Other Human Rights Defenders Were Annulled.” Front Line Defenders, January 20, 2023. https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/espionage-charges-against-sara-mardini-and-23-other-human-rights-defenders-were-annulled#:~:text=Espionage%20charges%20against%20Sara%20Mardini%20and%2023%20other%20Human%20Rights%20Defenders%20were%20annulled,-About%20Sara%20Mardini&text=On%2013%20January%202023%2C%20Mytilene,%2C%20Nassos%20Karakitsos%2C%20Sara%20Mardini.

[21] “Greece: Prosecution Appeal Prolongs Ordeal of Rescue Workers Seán Binder and Sarah Mardini.” Amnesty International, June 7, 2023. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/greece-prosecution-appeal-prolongs-ordeal-of-rescue-workers/.