Mohajer (camp-e-forsat)

Abstract

Mohajer (camp-e-forsat) was filmed in Forssa asylum seeker reception center in Finland, together with a recently arrived group of Hazara asylum seekers from Afghanistan. In Mohajer (camp-e-forsat) the people who are labeled as asylum seekers and refugees, redefine themselves with the word mohajer. Mohajer is a loan word from Arabic, and in Persian it means anyone or anything migrating from one place to another. A camp is a place where mohajers live in a state of waiting. Mohajers are asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants in precarious situations and their camps are reception centers, detention centers, and temporary shelters. Camps are often located in remote areas, effectively isolating the individuals living in them. They are facilities for storing humans, full of invisible walls, and windows to remind people that the world they can see through them is out of their reach. Cobra: “When someone asks me where I’m from, I say I’m from Afghanistan, but I’ve never been there. Mohajer means not belonging anywhere, not where you are and not where you’re from or your parents are from. My husband says that we’re born mohajers. There is no other name for us. When they ask your name, you should say your name is mohajer. Our umbilical cords are cut with the word mohajer. Even in hospitals, when a new Afghan child is born, they say a new mohajer was born. They don’t say this woman’s child was born, they say one Afghan mohajer was born. Those two words, Afghan and mohajer, are attached together, it’s always Afghan mohajer. Then many who have migrated, try to detach themselves from the word mohajer. But in a new country, you’re still a mohajer.”

Keywords

• migration
• identity
• Afghanistan
• Finland
• reception center