The biting wind whipped through the Turkish-Georgian forest, each gust a cold reminder of Givara’s desperate gamble. Just weeks prior, the news of Bashar al-Assad’s downfall in Syria had rippled through the refugee communities in Turkey, a whisper of potential return that quickly faded against the backdrop of a decade spent in precarious limbo. Now, Georgia, a land promising affordable refuge and an art camp, was his beacon.
He scrambled over the rough terrain, the darkness a thick blanket punctuated only by the faint glow of his phone screen. Each step was a victory against the thorny undergrowth, but the mountain path was relentless. Then, the ground gave way. A sickening lurch, and he was tumbling down a steep incline, the icy shock of the river engulfing him. Soaked and shivering, his meager possessions wet and heavy, despair began to creep in. He had envisioned a swift crossing, a clean break. Reality was a brutal, unforgiving landscape.
Days blurred into a cold, hungry eternity. Lost and disoriented, hope dwindled with each passing hour. Then, a flash of iridescent grey against the muted greens and browns – a pigeon. It fluttered ahead, seemingly unburdened by the harsh terrain. With nothing left to lose, Givara followed. It became his unlikely guide, leading him through the dense foliage. Finally, through the trees, he saw a flicker of light, the harsh glare of civilization. But it wasn’t the welcoming glow of Georgia; it was the cold, blue flash of Turkish police lights.
The officers were matter-of-fact. “You crossed illegally,” one stated, his voice devoid of emotion. Givara offered no resistance. He knew the precarious tightrope he had been walking. Temporary protection in Turkey, a lifeline for millions after the Syrian civil war, came with invisible chains. Venture beyond its borders without permission, or return to the homeland from which you fled, and that protection vanished. The rationale, though unspoken by the officers, echoed in the sterile air: asylum was a delicate act, a carefully managed exception to the rules of national borders. To allow unfettered movement would be to erode the very definition of those borders, a risk no nation readily embraced, especially with the sheer number of displaced individuals seeking sanctuary.
Back in Syria, the landscape was different, yet the underlying uncertainty remained. Assad was gone, but the fragile peace was a far cry from the stability Givara had hoped for in Georgia. He was a painter, not a politician, his value measured in the strokes of his brush, not in geopolitical calculations. Yet, he was caught in the intricate web of international asylum, a system designed to offer refuge but also to control and monitor, wary of the potential for porous borders and the delicate balance of national identity. He was a face in the crowd of displaced people, his individual dreams and desperate journey overshadowed by the larger anxieties surrounding national sovereignty and the management of human flow. The pigeon, his brief beacon of hope, was now a bittersweet memory, a symbol of a freedom that had been so tantalizingly close, only to be snatched away by the unyielding logic of borders.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
‘Art is my freedom’: Why Syrian artist Givara Haji risked it all to share his truth
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