Migration is the population movement that occurs as a result of people’s settlement from one place to another, regardless of its duration, structure and reason. Migration can have various causes such as social, political, economic and natural disasters, and migration movements can be handled with various classifications such as voluntary or compulsory, temporary or permanent, and individual or mass (Adıgüzel, 2020). The form of migration movement, which constitutes the reference point of this article, is forced migration. The compulsory state of migration includes all of the elements that will cause a person or a group to “leave their place” due to threats to their lives and livelihoods, whether natural or human.
Refugee literally means a person who takes refuge. With reference to the 1951 Geneva Convention, refugee is a person who is outside the country of his/her nationality because of a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This person is unable or unwilling to return. As a matter of fact, the state party to the convention to which he or she took refuge is obliged not to send the person back to the country from which they came, as there is a risk of torture, and cruel and inhuman treatment.
For the last ten years, forced migration movements have been increasing in the world. Although Türkiye and the surrounding geography have come to the fore with the turmoil caused by the Arab revolts, the flow of forced migration from the south to the north, from the east to the west, continues to accelerate globally. According to United Nations data, the number of people that were forced to migrate by the end of 2021 reached 89.3 million people. 83% of the displaced population comes from low and middle-income countries. 73% of these refugees are hosted in the neighboring country before settling in the target country. Currently, Syria is the country with the highest number of emigrants in the world with a population of 6.8 million forced migrants in the last ten years. Syria is followed by Venezuela (4.6 million), Afghanistan (2.6 million), South Sudan (2.4 million) and Myanmar (1.2 million) (United Nations, 2021).
Countries with Dense Muslim Populations are Emigrating
When the forced migration movements resulting from instability, internal conflict and wars in the last decade are examined, it is observed that the majority of the displaced people come from geographies where the Muslim population is dense. With the Arab revolts that started after 2010, a gradual influx of migration from North African and Central Asian countries, mostly from Syria, to Europe began, and the said migration movement reached its peak in 2015 with one million migrants. As a matter of fact, Türkiye, which is on the critical line of migration due to the conflicts in Syria and political instability in Afghanistan, has faced the migration burden of approximately 5 million people. Although the Turkish public showed a moderate and inclusive approach to the migration burden in the first period, with the economic contraction in Türkiye and the irregular Afghan migration that started in the summer of 2020, anti-foreign sentiment in the Turkish public has gradually increased, and this situation has also been reflected in the attitude of political decision makers. In fact, according to the public opinion survey conducted by Ipsos, in which approximately 18 thousand people from 26 countries participated, Türkiye, India and Sweden are among the countries that most want to close the borders (Independent Turkish, 2019).
The target geography for the migration movements of countries with a dense Muslim population is not Muslim countries, but Western countries such as European countries and the USA, where the level of economic welfare is relatively better. From this point of view, it is observed that the cause of migration is not religious, it is rather the desire to survive as well as economic motivation. In the modern world of nation-centered states, the economy, welfare and perhaps the struggle for survival have emerged as effective factors of mass migrations.
The answer to the question of why people from Muslim countries migrate is rooted in the economic and political turmoil of those countries. When we define this situation as a failure, it can be said that there are three main reasons for this failure. The first of these is that political actors in Muslim countries ignore the principle of transparency and accountability. The second is that impropriety and corruption in Muslim countries deepens the crack. Thirdly, there is no effective working judicial system in most Muslim countries (Chapra, 2008).
Is it an Advantage to Belong to the Same Religion in Social Cohesion? The Cases of Türkiye and Bangladesh
With the migration movement that occurred as a result of the uprisings in Syria in 2010, more than 2 million Syrian population, the majority of whom were Muslims, gradually migrated to Türkiye. Due to the forced migration conditions, Türkiye has accepted asylum seekers by following an open door policy. At the first stage, the opinion prevailed that the influx of migration was short-lived and that the refugees would return after the war conditions were over and the Assad government was overthrown, but the Syrian Government, led by Assad, remained in power with the support of Iran and Russia. This situation both caused the prolongation of the civil war and eliminated the possibility of the return of Syrians from Türkiye.
The disappointment of “not being able to return any more” and the ambiguity caused by the “guest” status in Türkiye lay in the roots of the migration movement from Türkiye to Europe in 2015. In the first years of the Syrian migration, the Turkish society displayed an attitude to tolerate this difficult situation that refugees face to a large extent. However, with the increasing burden of migration and the progress of economic contraction especially after 2017, immigrants are increasingly seen as a “burden”. While the plans for the “harmony” process began to be discussed, xenophobia in Turkish society gradually increased. This situation was reinforced by the immigration of over three hundred thousand Afghans who entered the Turkish territory from Van after the Taliban came to power in the summer of 2021 (Yumurtacı, 2021). Although the target geography of Afghans is Europe, most of them remained in Türkiye due to the strict border measures placed by Greece. Both situations have brought up criticism on the “migration management” from the Turkish public hence affecting the relations between the immigrants and the Turkish nationals. The economic concerns of the inhabited society, rather than the religion of the immigrants, have been on the agenda of the discussions.
According to the definition from the Republic of Türkiye Presidency’s Department of Migration Management, compliance aims to contribute to the socio-cultural and economic development of both the foreigner and the host society, does not aim for assimilation, and it is a volunteer-based policy that allows the host society to live in harmony with the immigrants and to enable the foreigners to develop their skills in economic, social and cultural fields (Presidency of Migration Management, 2022). In short, cohesion is the coexistence of migrant and host communities in sustainable peace and requires both communities to have a basic set of mutually common needs. While one of the most important factors sabotaging a healthy integration process is the “feeling of being in-between”, which is deepened by the discourse of “they should be sent back”, another factor is the increasing xenophobia in the host society.
Many Turkish non-governmental organizations, local administrations and municipalities, observing that it is not possible for Syrian refugees to return, started to develop various projects for harmonization after the acceleration in migration in 2012, and provided opportunities for refugees to live in harmony in Türkiye. On the other hand, it maybe stated that the reaction of political decision makers to the adaptation process is relatively slow.
The Integration Strategy Document and the National Action Plan, which was published by the Ministry of Interior in the eighth year of the Syrian migration, and in which the basic principles and vision regarding integration are expressed, reveal various goals and objectives, but does not show an in-depth approach (Ministry of Interior, 2018). The fact that a large part of the migration burden is covered by the Ministry of Interior, a phenomenon that should be handled multidimensionally under the umbrella of political administration, naturally brings with it a security approach that can disrupt the harmonization process in migration management (Salihoğlu, 2021). However, migration is a multi-layered process in which many ministries must take an active role.
However, another handicap is the increasing anti-foreign rhetoric in Turkish public opinion. The far-right parties, on the other hand, are not a cause of this discourse, but actually a result. In the Optimar Survey of 2022, when asked how do you feel about Syrians, 21.3 percent of the respondents marked the phrase “I feel hatred towards Syrians”, while the combined percentage of those who said “I don’t feel safe” and “I don’t feel safe at all” was 51.6 percent. According to the survey, almost three out of four people have a negative perception of Syrians (Independent Turkish, 2022). This situation shows that the ground for the harmonization process between the citizens of the Republic of Türkiye and the Syrians under temporary protection is getting narrower, the distance is widening and the tendency to introspect is increasing.
In addition, discussions on the Voluntary Return Plan, which Türkiye has created for the return of Syrians under temporary protection, continue. There is a contrast between President Erdogan’s plan to voluntarily return Syrians in Türkiye to the “safe zone” created in northern Syria, which he presented at the United Nations in 2019, and the harmonization process. First of all, Syrians in Türkiye are skeptical of the sustainability of the social and economic conditions of the safe zone. For example, according to the survey published by the Harmoon company in 2022, 80 percent of the Syrians in Türkiye state that they can only return if the current regime in Syria changes. 60 percent of these participants state that they want to go back to their own cities, not to any other place in Syria. 74 percent of the participants in the same survey does not want to return to the Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, Peace Spring regions -i.e. the safe zones- and Idlib regions under another administration, due to the lack of a central authority, the lack of diverse business opportunities and the rivalries between the groups operating in the said regions (Aljaseem, 2022).
A Comparison: The Case of Bangladesh
As a result of the clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar in 2012, thousands of Muslims were killed and hundreds of Muslim homes and businesses were burned. As a result of the persecution in Myanmar, a large part of the Rohingya Muslim population, almost over 1.6 million immigrated to Bangladesh and were placed in camps. Today, the Cox Bazar refugee camp in the region is the largest refugee camp in the world with a population of 600,000 (United Nations, 2021).
It does not seem possible that the refugee population in Bangladesh will be sent back even in the long run. As a matter of fact, Bangladesh is also planning to relocate approximately 100,000 of the refugees to different islands within the country. However, refugees do not want to go to the aforementioned Bhasan Char island voluntarily due to both geographical handicaps (there are concerns that the island, which is only 5 meters above sea level, may come under the sea in the long term) and socio-economic conditions. Despite all the international reactions, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina underlines that the resettlement of Rohingya Muslims to the Island will continue (Akdoğmuş & Citizen, 2021).
The fact that Rohingya refugees are imprisoned in camp conditions that are disconnected from the local society in Bangladesh hinders the ability of Rohingya refugees, who have no means of returning in the short term, to integrate into society, and it also increases the rate of informality in the economy. In the case of Bangladesh, it is possible to state that the imagination of “voluntary return” has not yet produced significant results due to the adverse conditions in the region.
Conclusion
The Muslim geography has been intertwined with the turmoil of migration, especially in the last ten years, due to the instability it has experienced. In this mobility, it is observed that the target Muslim countries carry out harmonization studies, especially at the local and NGOs level, but political decision makers develop discourses that can disrupt the harmonization process. One of them is “voluntary return” projects. For a person to voluntarily return to a particular area, that area must first be sufficiently secure. Indeed, the priority of the right to life is fundamental. Every refugee migrates to protect their right to life. In addition, the infrastructure conditions of the geographies to which the refugees are sent should have the criteria to meet the basic living standards. It is hard to relocate asylum seekers in regions where there are no adequate shelter, health and education facilities.
Repatriation and adaptation constitute two opposite phenomena. It is not possible for asylum seekers who are likely to be sent back to adapt to the social fabric of any country. The long-term economic and social contribution opportunities of the asylum seekers who cannot envision a future in their country of residence are limited, mutual positive relations cannot be established, and ghettoization tendencies appear. Everyone has the right to live in prosperity. Trying to have better conditions is not a crime. One of the biggest problems brought by the rising xenophobia in Muslim societies is that this hostility interrupts the intertwined structure within Muslim societies, breaks the dynamics of harmony, and divides the ideal of the ummah into national fragments with an ultra-nationalist (radical) discourse. Another risk of xenophobia is the possibility of encountering situations that may violate the right to life, which is a fundamental human right, in times of crisis and chaos. It should not be forgotten that every person may face the possibility of emigrating one day, and one day they may find themselves trying to adapt to a geography where they feel “foreign”.
References
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