Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Turning the Dream Around

With migration comes a myriad of touching stories; a never-ending list filled with dreams, desperation, hope, suffering, strength and death of countless people. For many of the migrants, the land left behind becomes a painful thorn in the flesh, but there are also other migrants who turn pain around, making a new dream out of it: a dream of hope for their people. Although the dream of Jamal Anejdam is not built miles away from home, but in his native country.
Jamal Anejdam is a dark-skinned, small, young man casually dressed in black. He wears trainers and tops his look off with a black txapela; typical from the Basque Country, where he now lives since about 10 years. When he reached Bilbao back in 2001 he was one of the hundreds of under-aged migrants that come to Spain every year looking for a better life. Before that, he endured a difficult journey from his hometown, in northern central Morocco, where he left his parents and a handful of brothers and sisters.
A story typical for millions of people; Africans crossing the Mediterranean into 'Fortress Europe'; Mexicans crossing the Rio Grande heavily guarded by vigilantes determined to deny them their part of human existence; Tamils and Burmese making the dangerous crossing to Australia (to be detained and "exported" to Christmas Island...).
Anyway, read Jamal's full story here. Good stuff!

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