Analyse af 'The Go-Between' om flygtninge

There are plenty of reasons today for people to travel the world. People travel all the time. People who are going on a business-trip, people who are going on a vacation, and people who just want to see the world. However, there are still people, who are forced to move away from the place, where they live. In some countries in the world there are issues that can mean that they have to move to another place. This can be war, hunger, poverty etc. that can have the consequence that people have to seek asylum in another country.In this story we follow a guy, who’s a refugee from Nigeria, he doesn’t tell us why he has to leave, but we know that he has to, and that he wants to go back, even though he can’t. In the text he says: “I would like to go back. I want to go back. But I have to go forward I can’t go back. Back is not possible for me”.In the story, Ali Smith tells us about how the main character is trying to get to Europe and seek asylum there, because he would be able to get a job there. The problem is that when he reaches Ceuta, which is a Spanish province in the north of Morocco, he can’t pass the border. If you’re going to get into Ceuta, you have to pass a fence by help of ladders, because it’s not legal to get into Ceuta other ways, if you don’t have a proper passport. The protagonist tried two times to cross the border, and both times he lost some part of his body. The first time he tries to climb the ladder, the top of his ear got cut off, and the second time he loses his third finger, when he tries to get into Morocco underwater, because apparently there also is a fence. According to the Charter of United Nations Human Rights from 1945, article 14, which says “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”.That does not fit with the welcome the police gives the refugees from Africa, when they tries to get into the Spanish territory. First of all the police shoots at them, and second they use violence on the foreigners. That is against the law and should not get tolerated any place.The short story is one of the stories who was written to the book “Freedom – Short stories celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in conjunction with Amnesty International in 2009. Amnesty International is an organization who works to protect the human rights, and took Article 1 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “All human beings is born equal and free” and embraced it. When we meet our main character, he’s a boarder-crosser, who tries to help people cross, even though he still hasn’t crossed it himself. He describes himself as a person who can do a little bit of everything. He can do a bit of doctoring, and a bit of translating. He helps people in need, e.g. a man whose legs were broken under a train, a dying boy and a girl who was raped, and helps them communicate with the French doctors. When we met him, he lives on a roof, only a bird fly away from Spain, where he lives with other refugees. Unlike the others, our protagonist seems like he rather go home to his country of birth – Nigeria - than go to Spain. He describes the other refugees as only thinking about how they can get to Spain, and how great it will be when they finally get into the country. He calls it ‘the Spanish blindness’, especially because they paid all their money for a boat, that never will come, but they kind of ignore the fact, because of their hope and dreams. I think maybe the protagonist hopes that one day he can return to his home-country.In the short story it seems to me that he tries to explain that he’s not like the other refugees, because he can speak a lot of languages, and can communicate with both the asylum seekers from all over the world and the French doctors. The fact that you’re able to speak to other people in their language, or just to communicate, makes it possible to provide contact between both parts, and that’s a huge help if you want to get in another country.Based on how Ali Smith wrote the short story, it’s clear to me that either English is not his mother tongue, or either he will make it easier for people to read the text.His phrases are short, and he doesn’t use very difficult words, and that makes it easy for the reader to understand what he means. It’s a good thing, when you want everyone in the world to get your point of view. His focus shifts quickly, and it’s like he hasn’t finished a subject but move fast to other things. I think Ali Smith wrote the short story, to open our eyes for the horrible conditions refugees must deal with today. It’s horrifying that even though we live in 2013, there are still so many people who get treated so badly. The short story is very critical to the society today, and I think he wants us to know that not everyone in the world live in as good conditions as others.