THE CICAK.com

Who are you calling “refugee?”

By POH SI TENG

Without warning, entire cities were swept and submerged in water. The catastrophic furore left thousands dead and many more displaced. Those who were alive had to seek safe shelter on higher ground or in neighbouring states. They became refugees overnight.

Yes, “refugees.�

However, I’m not talking about the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I’m referring to those affected by December’s Asian tsunami, which at last count killed 200,000 and left hundreds of thousands displaced in 13 countries.

Would it still be politically correct to use the r-word then?

Lately, there has been a lot of controversy in the United States regarding the word “refugee,� and whether it is applicable to the Hurricane Katrina victims. Some Americans across the country are angered by its use. Even President Bush has asked the media to drop it.

Some critics argue that “refugee� has a negative connotation and refers to the storm victims, many of whom are black, as second-class citizens.

“It is racist to call American citizens refugees,� said Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader, at the Houston Astrodome.

In response to the outcry, several mainstream newspapers such as the Washington Post, the Tulsa Daily World, the Miami Herald and the Boston Globe have restricted its use. Some news organisations have adopted words such as “evacuees,� “survivors� and “displaced people� instead.

This is a good attempt to redress prejudices related to the word. But if its use is taboo in reference to Americans, then why not others who have been similarly afflicted elsewhere in the world?

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word “refugee� as “a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution.� Webster’s II New Collegiate Dictionary offers: “One who flees, usually to another country for refuge, especially from invasion, oppression or persecution.�

Therefore, a tsunami survivor who fled his or her home in search of a safe haven within the country is technically not a refugee — though it should be noted they might have received aid from one of any number of relief agencies with the word “refugee� in its title.

As a Penangite whose hometown was hit by the towering waves, I can see the injustice.

In a Lexis-Nexis search of U.S. newspaper articles published from December 2004 to April 2005, the words “refugee� and “tsunami� in the same article returns thousands of hits. That’s still true if you add the word “Indonesia.� It falls to just a few hundred if “Malaysia� is part of the search, probably because of the relatively low number of casualties there.

However, my brothers and sisters from Thailand, Indonesia and other neighbouring countries were not spared either from the destruction or the misnomer.

“(Americans) don’t want to call themselves refugees because they have a higher standard of living,� said Krishna Panna Praditya, 22, an Indonesian student living in Australia. “That’s arrogant. Disasters happen all over the world, even in the United States.�

When it comes to people from developing countries, the U.S. mainstream media and government appear to have no trouble, conscience or guilt labeling victims as refugees. They use it liberally, again and again. But when it’s about their own citizens, it’s a different ball game altogether.

This time, they were called out on it. But if it’s not right to call those who fled New Orleans “refugees,� then it is also wrong to pigeonhole all tsunami victims on the other side of the globe. That’s a double standard that should be avoided.

A different version of this commentary was published in the Duluth News Tribune.

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POH SI TENG is the director and managing editor of theCICAK. Visit her site.