Shawkat Al-hakem

Refugee Story Shawkat Al-hakem

Middle east, is a mysterious world for many Europeans, when Middle east is mentioned all thoughts tend to think that it is a primitive world, there are no female human rights, full of wars and extremism, there is no one knows the real people there and how they live. There are many educated people there who follow the world news and their young males and females love and befriend each other like in Europe, but in hidden ways, because of the Islamic culture and rules, lives always find a way, the sex instinct exists everywhere and the young males there try to satisfy it with the opportunities available to them regardless of all the difficult conditions that their governments create like wars and economical crisis, still life goes on. The period which I will speak about is between (1961 - 1993) where there were no modern technology like the Internet, YouTube, twitter or mobile phones, only simple ways of communications like typical landline phones and writing letters and through that people get introduced and talk to each other and use TVs to follow the world news. The story shows a view on the bloody Iraq-Iran war which lasted for eight years and claimed one million lives and a view on the first gulf war, it is the story of a man who was born in a country full of violent political events and cut his way in life by leaving his native country in Iraq to Jordan then to Yemen and finally to settle in a foreign country to him England searching for safety and peace.