I am six weeks in France now. The sense of freedom is remarkable. In fact it's more than a sense, it is the shock of being free again. Free to live as, in today's world, we are meant to live – uninhibited by wire fencing or by police whose job it is to check your papers as you enter a scrubland or quayside pockmarked with tents that has become "home". That is what many of us left behind when we'd the good fortune to be selected by the French government as part of its commitment to address the problem we refugees have become for Europe.
I am living in an apartment in Beauvais. It's a small city of 70,000 people about one hour from Paris by train. It is a fourth-floor, three-bedroom apartment. I share with a Nigerian couple and another man who's alone. He is from Sudan. Their situation is different to mine in that they came to France by their own means and are now going through a lengthy process towards the realisation of refugee status. We are an odd mix; the couple are Christians and the single man is of no belief. We get on well though communication is challenging. My English is good but they've none. We muddle through speaking words of English, Arabic and even the odd word of French. There are lots of smiles and hand gestures.
Interim refugee status
The 127 of us, mainly Syrians, who were on the flight from Athens in July already had interim refugee status as we landed on French soil because we came from the camps in
Greece
and had been processed by the Greek authorities and the French embassy. When we landed in Lille we stayed there for one night before we were split into small groups and transferred to cities and towns all over France. Only seven of us were brought to Beauvais and, by a stroke of luck, that included two of my close friends Ali and Ahmed. The days are long. I’m trying to write and I’m teaching myself French through an internet course. On September 15th we will start formal lessons. The government will provide 200 hours tutoring.
It’s surreal to be again living in an apartment, to be free to come and go as I choose, free to eat what I want when I want and to be trusted to behave as a moral, sensible adult who will live his life in a community conscious of the needs of others to be allowed live their lives as they choose. The mutual regard and trust that is the very bedrock of community. It is hard to profile what this feels like when, for most people in the west, what I find so remarkable is so mundane, so not worthy of comment and yet, for me and my peers now in France it is the most dramatic and welcome change to our fortunes.
Our backdrop is different. Our context is fleeing a war as bloody and destructive as any in modern times and fleeing, not for the possibility of a more secure or safer world, but fleeing for our lives. Literally. I felt that loss of personal freedom all the more because, prior to the war I had been working and living in the Gulf. Over those years my life was no less stable or free than that of a young Irishman working and living in the UK or the United States.
Like so many of them, I had the excitement of my own life overseas – laterally with my wife – but nearby the unique heartbeat of home in Syria. I could visit regularly and home was, anyway, made more accessible by modern communication that allowed daily texts and weekly Skype calls with family. That is where the similarity ends. Our world was shattered by a war that history determined should be played out now in Syria with enormous casualties and long-term consequences none of us can foretell.
There’s a shadow over me. It might be more accurate to say that it follows me – in the sense that the wave of anxiety about my wife and children creeps up on me when I’m least expecting it. I have periods in every day when I’m optimistic and thrilled by the luck I’ve had and the prospect of what lies ahead but then, from nowhere, the darkness washes over me. It’s more devastating when it hits at a point of low resistance and when my mood has been upbeat and optimistic.
I ache to see my wife and daughter. My son is over a month old and we have not met. I can, though, speak with my family and do so nearly every day. I have written here before that my loss is nothing relative to so many of my friends. What is the pain of many months of separation when others with me will never be reunited with family, never speak with them again never mind, as I do, talk with them three or four times a week? Never. The finality of that word is chilling.
Secure citizenship
My relative very good fortune drives me on towards the ultimate goal. With full refugee status I will be able to bring my family and we will then be able to settle in France and, ultimately, secure French citizenship. I will be able to get employment. I have said before that it is only at that point the decision to leave my wife and child behind in
Turkey
as I boarded the dingy for Greece will be proven to have been correct. It’s only at that point that the shadow that sits lurking over my shoulder will be banished for good.
Mustafa is a pseudonym adopted to protect the identity of the author, who is a refugee from Syria. He spoke to Fintan Drury