Customer Reviews

Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees

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This book might prove to be a groundbreaker in the world's understanding of refugees and their struggles. Caroline Moorehead interviewed many refugees who have suffered through a myriad of challenges, with coverage of many different refugee environments as well. Some examples include a shipwreck of boat people off of Sicily, Liberians facing discrimination in Cairo, and the warm welcome but lack of opportunity found by some Sudanese in Finland. Moorehead finds that there are many gray areas in the social problems that cause people to leave their home countries and drift into hopeless exile, and the millions of refugees in the world cannot be easily categorized into mere economic opportunists vs. people facing immediate threats of violence or warfare. The most remarkable aspect of this book is the common theme found in the lives of all sorts of refugees, notably the crushing feelings of aimlessness caused by the interminable limbo of asylum procedures, and living a stateless and unwanted existence with no known future improvement.

Moorehead is prone to big statements at times, and borders on melodrama and guilt-tripping when trying to emphasize the human worth of the refugees. This is a problem in the long chapter on the Palestinians especially (though the previous reviewer is advised to see the forest for the trees). Some readers may also wonder about the accuracy of some of the refugee stories described herein. But regardless, the true strength of this book is that Moorehead was most concerned about allowing displaced people to tell their stories, without grandstanding or over-interpretation, and her dismissal of easy answers or big political pronouncements is especially refreshing. Hence, we learn about the continual struggles faced by millions and millions of people around the globe, who do not deserve to be ignored, locked up, or forgotten. [~doomsdayer520~]

I just finished _Human Cargo_ and feel torn with my read. It is a depressing, albeit powerful read. Yes, she does make some erroneous statements that others noted including referring to El Cajon as being west of San Diego. It's actually East. She also noted that San Diego and Tijuana could be one city, which is woefully inaccurate. A map would show that she forgot about several cities between the two, even if this was a mere metaphysical type descriptor.

What I'm most troubled with is that the increase in xenophobia and tightening of borderc compounded with the increase of refugees or asylum seekers really paints a sad picture. I'm glad I read it and her audience is definitely a general or lay audience.

The stories about some of the refugees were absolutely haunting. Thankfully, next in my queue is a Baldacci book. I need a lighter read this next go around.

I read a few chapters of this book, and it struck me as well written and interesting. But then I got to the chapter on the Palestinians. Here the author talks about the Israeli Haganah lining up Palestinian families and shooting them dead. According to my Dad, who was part of the "Stern Gang", no such thing happened. She talks about other disasters that befell the Palestinians, without giving context. For instance, Kuwait expelled its Palestinian workers, but there was a reason. The Palestinians had welcomed the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Another disaster was when the Lebanese turned against the Palestinians. There was a reason for that too, the Palestinians had taken charge of the Southern Lebanon area and abused its inhabitants. The author should not be too credulous when talking with refugees.