Dont hide behind your good intentions

[Applause]

hi

my name is marie and i work for doctors

without borders

as migration and displacement expert

doctors without borders offers medical

humanitarian assistance

in over 70 countries worldwide

we help treat people when disasters hit

their homes

we vaccinate thousands of children

against measles

1.3 million last year alone

we assist mothers to give birth over 300

000 last year

we fight against outbreaks of cholera or

malaria

we help treat life-threatening diseases

like tuberculosis or the damaging

effects of snake bites

we assist survivors of torture or sexual

violence

and we support some of the 80 million

people worldwide

who are forced to leave their homes due

to violence or threats of persecution

this is the part i myself focus on most

80 million people displaced most of them

stay in neighboring countries or never

even leave their own country

hiding in dire conditions in urban

settings

others are stopped by closed borders or

deterrence strategies of countries that

don’t want to receive refugees

they leave families unaccompanied

children pregnant women to live in vast

refugee camps for years i

live and walk in germany and here

some people seem to have the impression

that all of the world’s displaced people

wait

just outside european borders however

not even 15 percent of all the world’s

refugees actually come to europe

and europe doesn’t exactly receive them

with a warm welcome either

i’ve been to the refugee camps on the

greek islands and i’ve seen the shameful

conditions people have to live in there

trapped in uncertainty with no one

really feeling responsible for them

caged in a camp the size of a small town

consisting of thin tents and makeshift

shelters

in the mud a european slum

160 people sharing one toilet

200 people sharing one shower and if

this wasn’t enough

you’ll all have seen the news last week

the largest refugee camp on the island

of lesbos maurya burned down leaving

over 12 000 people

to live on the streets you cannot

imagine

the pain that these people have to

endure while at the same time it is

incredible to see how brave and

resilient so many of them are

coping every day with the sheer

brutality and harmfulness of borders

like my colleague who walked me through

the slum of moria for hours

he’s a refugee himself lost most of his

family to war

arrived in lespos three years ago as an

unaccompanied child

and now he works for doctors with our

borders as health promoter

and he’s the most dedicated colleague

you can imagine

always smiling making others laugh

caring for others listening to people’s

needs

whether they just arrived in a camp and

need orientation

or whether they’ve been stuck there for

months or years and

fight against losing the last bit of

hope medical teams of doctors without

borders

work just outside camps like this in

small clinics

we treat whatever illnesses the refugees

suffer from

most medical conditions are either

caused or worsened by life in these

camps

going wherever people face such

boundaries in their search for

safety and health is what we do it’s

even in our name

doctors without borders

but despite our name also we frequently

face boundaries so today i also want to

talk to you about these boundaries

boundaries that lie

within ourselves within the humanitarian

system

within myself personally actually as i

painfully realized when i started to

prepare for this talk

but to get to these boundaries i need to

tell you a little bit about where i come

from

like many good stories mine begins late

at night in a bar in berlin

where a friend of mine introduced me to

a friend of his who had just set up a

small school project

for syrian school children in lebanon

these children had barely just crossed

the border into lebanon with their

families and were now living in

little huts scattered over farmland they

didn’t have enough food to eat every day

not even think of getting

getting any formal school education

at that time it was now almost six years

ago

i was working as a media lawyer

negotiating licenses for commercial tv

and radio companies my job was

all about whether or not cable companies

should pay

more or less money to broadcasters

i had traveled the middle east quite a

bit and

i followed the news and the war in syria

but i

have to say that the full extent of the

disaster unfolding in and around syria

was not really present in the german

public back then

in winter 2014 the media was

busy reporting on the euro crisis

and aid packages for greece

in any in any case talking to this man

in the bar

about these syrian children stuck in my

mind i just

couldn’t get rid of the pictures of all

these families along the syrian border

so two months later i

went there i bought a plane ticket and

got on my way to pay this project to

visit

and what i experienced there right at

the border to war torn syria

was completely overwhelming here was i

coming from my safe job as a media

lawyer in germany

and there were them children who just

wanted to be children parents who did

everything they could to support their

families

and an increasingly overwhelmed lebanese

society

seeing all this made me feel powerless

and at the same time terribly privileged

back in germany i knew i couldn’t go on

with my life as it was

i knew i needed to quit my job

but then what i wanted to become

as loud a voice as possible for people

on the move

i had no idea how i could manage such a

transition or what my personal value

added would be

so i wrote to all the people i had ever

met who worked with refugees and

bluntly interrogated them i took my

remaining annual leave

for intensive courses and asylum law and

international humanitarian law

and as lost as i felt in those days i

did feel that i was on the right track

and i will never forget the energy all

set free in me almost

six intensive and eventful years later

i’m standing here

introducing myself as migration and

displacement

expert for doctors without borders i

don’t talk about tv licenses anymore

now my job is to advocate for the

well-being of our patients worldwide

it is exhausting work but it also makes

me

very happy to have the chance to work

towards the change we need

so i’m happy with my work maybe even a

little proud at times

when i started to prepare for this talk

i collected ideas and information the

most

impressive figures in data about the

reality of life of people in the movie i

wanted to present to all of you

i collected individual stories that had

been told either to me personally or to

my colleagues

each story a piece and mosaic of both

great vulnerability

and great resilience

i wanted to be a loud voice for our

patients

this talk would be the perfect stage for

them all

so i thought but the more i tried to

summarize

their stories for my talk the louder

feeling of resistance grew inside me and

the painful question came up

how can i be a loud voice tell the

stories of people who’ve suffered so

much

who are so much less privileged than i

am why me

a white woman with a german passport

with all the privileges and

zero experience of displacement myself

how can i call myself a migration and

displacement expert even

is that good enough

am i not reaching the boundaries of my

good will

am i hiding behind my good intentions

in a blog entry by my colleagues charity

camo and aaron yeagen i

recently found the clear answer to my

dilemma

and i quote it is not okay

to help fight the effects of conflict

poverty and disease globally but to

remain

blissfully unaware of the racial

privileges and exclusions

that color the world around us

as i said when i started my job my goal

was

to give people in need a voice but the

more i talk to people in refugee camps

the more i understood

these people don’t need me to give them

a voice

they have a voice they just need to be

heard

society and politicians need to become

willing to

listen to them listen to

people like my colleague in moria

so i started to change my view of what i

was doing i started to understand myself

not as the voice of our patients but as

their messenger i listen to people’s

stories

and i relay them to politicians not

because the people couldn’t tell their

stories themselves

but because they don’t get the chance to

talk to the people who make decisions

so i go meet politicians and

try to make them understand the

consequences of their political

decisions for our patients

i confront them with what i’ve seen on

my visits to our medical projects around

the external european

external borders of the european union i

confront them with

data that my colleagues collect and that

so clearly indicate the devastating

effects of deterrence policies

i challenge them to act again and again

i use my legal background

to analyze their political arguments and

identify their flaws

i use my strategic skills i gain when

negotiating media contracts in my former

life

to sharpen our political messaging

i use my german citizenship to confront

my own government

make them aware of their accountability

to our patients

make them understand the responsibility

that comes with their power

i explained to them how policy changes

really could improve the lives of our

patients

i tell them that deterrence measures at

borders are not okay

that they need to stop promoting and

feeding social boundaries

stop hindering people from finding

safety and shelter stop criminalizing

solidarity stop

cementing hierarchies and privileges

like this i find a way how to use my

privilege in a useful way obviously i

still struggle about the question

how to deal with the boundaries of my

own person

yet i truly believe i must take

responsibility for my privileges

this applies to me personally it applies

to my organization

and to the aid sector as a whole

but most importantly and this is my deep

conviction

and why i chose to talk to you about

this today

it applies to our whole society

sometimes people contact me and ask me

what they can do to help

how they can get engaged i tell them

what i came here to tell all of you

first of all be aware of your privileges

follow your call but don’t fall into the

trap of

wanting to do something good and then be

celebrated for it

take responsibility do not hide away not

even behind your

best intentions go where your fears are

dare to confront the unbearable double

standards that we’ve created

especially for people on the move

challenge

structural discrimination look around

you and you will

all find examples of it show real

solidarity with people in need of help

and at the same time do not pretend that

we can be some sort of

white savior who can bring salvation to

anyone anywhere in the world

be an ally not a savior get engaged

but be humble about it get engaged

not out of pity but out of genuine

solidarity

and then embrace the lessons

that less privileged people can teach

you

thank you