Humanity and Reason

By Baoyu Wang

Today, we witnessed the process of interview preparation for two refugee families from Nigeria.
For asylum seekers to stay in Germany, they need to go through two interviews required by the German government. Based on what I heard during the preparation session, the questions are thorough and merticulous. Each question is designed either for identification concern or policy concern.
To me, it is even not easy to give an honest and accurate answer if you do not understand the purpose behind certain questions. Volunteers explained every question in details to two families. What they do is to familirize them with the interview process, inform them of their rights (e.g. asking for another translater if necessary), understand the purpose of the question and make sure they have all the documents that are needed for the interview. To me, the whole session is like a clash of humanity and reason: the tragedy asylum seekers went through has to adapt to the need of the bureaucracy to be understood.

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