Leaving Iraq at the age of 37, after having built a life for myself there, was like uprooting a fully grown tree to plant it in a different soil. Back home, I had my parents, five sisters, three brothers and ten nephews and nieces surrounding me, providing me with the emotional and moral support I needed to survive. For some reason, they had managed to build their lives away from the danger, uninvolved in the aftermath of events in Iraq in 2003. Because of the subjects I was teaching in the university, though, I could not do the same and, as a result, exposed the whole family to danger.

After 2003, Iraq had become increasingly conservative, fighting against any progressive thoughts which the society deemed as “Western”. Eventually, I lost the battle and had to leave before really putting my family at risk.

I did not cross the sea like thousands of refugees. My journey to the UK was much safer than millions of refugees who had to risk their lives searching for a safe haven, but my journey towards integration was no less challenging. Little attention is given to the ones who have survived and even less to stories of success in settling down and integrating. For the media, making it to the shore is “the happy ending” of a refugee's story, promoting the belief that once refugees arrive in Europe, they become safe, and their struggles reach an end. The daily struggles of settling down and integrating in the new host community are rarely discussed or even highlighted in the stories of refugees.

When academia does study refugees, they are often described as migrants, except that they are not. Migrants would be people who probably chose to leave their home countries for economic reasons, or for study. Refugees are mostly forced out of their home countries, due to war or natural disasters, with little or no hope of return. Leaving one's home country voluntarily, often with the option of visiting during holidays, does not create the same feeling of yearning that refugees struggle with when they realise that they do not have the option to visit home or return. Such realisation makes settling down more urgent and integration more necessary.

The process of integration is no less painful. For refugees, the first step to integrate is to learn the community language, to learn how to express themselves in a foreign language they are not familiar with. (Most European languages are not being taught outside their respective countries. Educated refugees may be familiar with English and French.) They would have to learn new associations of sounds and objects and build new connections between words and feelings. Learning a completely new language may give new arrivals a sense of purpose and a project that may keep them distracted, but it also can intensify the sense of alienation. (As lucky as I was in settling down in an English‐speaking country, whose language I had studied and taught for years in Iraq, hearing the language used by native speakers felt weird and unfamiliar. The fact that I did not have many friends or people to interact with on a daily basis slowed the process of becoming familiar with sounds and accent.)

Giving up one's native tongue feels like giving up a big part of one's identity. Usually to really learn a language requires using it outside the classroom; learners have to use it in everyday life. For refugees, using the new language in everyday life is mandatory for integration. Sometimes we miss that aspect of our identity that is lost with the use of a new language and we search for people from our home country to speak our native tongue, get in touch with our home culture and smell familiar smells.

Last year I attended the screening of an Iraqi film, Stories of Passers Through, based on the Iraqi director, Kotaiba al‐Janabi's experience as refugee in Europe during the 1990s. The film was almost completely colourless, grim and filled the air with a sense of inexplicable loss. I went through the film shaking, holding the hand of my friend, so I would not collapse crying and disturb the audience. During the Q&A part of the event, one lady, probably in her 50s, asked the director why the film was so gloomy. She asked why refugee experience had often been expressed in a cheerless manner. The lady explained that European countries had welcomed refugees, looked after them and provided them with lives they never imagined they would have. She wondered why refugees were not as cheerful as they should be for everything that Europe had been doing for them.

The lady's remarks had clearly annoyed many in the audience, but none answered her. Even the director did not answer but apologised for the depressing atmosphere of the film. For my part, I wanted to jump from my chair and explain why we could not feel cheerful, and why the art refugees produce is often dark, not cheerful, but I waited until I was picked in the next round of questioning. When it was finally my turn, I took the mic which was handed to me by one of the volunteers, took a breath and said:

At that moment, I could not help but burst into tears, but I felt it was important to say why refugees still feel unhappy in the haven of Europe.

在伊拉克为自己谋生后，在37岁的时候离开伊拉克，这就像拔掉一棵成熟的树木，将其种植在不同的土壤上一样。回到家中，我有我的父母，五个姐妹，三个兄弟和十个侄子侄女，这为我提供了生存所需的情感和道德支持。由于某种原因，他们设法摆脱了危险，摆脱了2003年伊拉克发生的事后的生活。由于我在大学里教授的科目，尽管如此，我还是做不到。结果，整个家庭面临危险。

2003年之后，伊拉克变得越来越保守，与社会认为是“西方”的任何进步思想作斗争。最终，我输掉了战斗，不得不离开，才真正使家人面临风险。

我没有像成千上万的难民那样过海。与数百万不得不冒着生命危险寻找避风港的难民相比，我的英国之旅要安全得多，但是我的融入之旅也同样具有挑战性。那些幸存下来的人很少关注，甚至很少关注在安顿下来和融入社会方面取得成功的故事。对于媒体来说，登岸是难民故事的“幸福结局”，这使人们相信，一旦难民到达欧洲，他们就变得安全，他们的斗争也就结束了。在难民的故事中很少讨论或什至没有强调建立和融入新的东道国社区的日常斗争。

当学术界研究难民时，通常将他们描述为移民，但事实并非如此。移民可能是出于经济原因或学习目的而选择离开本国的人。由于战争或自然灾害，难民大多被迫离开本国，很少或根本没有返回的希望。自愿离开家乡（通常可以选择在假期休假）不会带来难民感到苦恼的那种渴望，因为他们意识到自己没有选择回家或返回家园的感觉。这样的实现使解决工作变得更加紧迫，而整合则变得更加必要。

整合的过程同样令人痛苦。对于难民而言，融合的第一步是学习社区语言，学习如何用他们不熟悉的外语表达自己。（大多数欧洲语言没有在各自国家/地区以外教。受过教育的难民可能熟悉英语和法语。）他们将必须学习声音和物体的新联想，并在单词和感觉之间建立新的联系。学习一种全新的语言可能会给新来者一种目的感和一个使他们分散注意力的项目，但同时也会加剧疏离感。（我在一个讲英语的国家定居的时候很幸运，我在伊拉克学习和教授了多年的语言，听到母语人士使用的语言感到很奇怪和陌生。

放弃自己的母语就像在放弃自己的大部分身份。通常，要真正学习一种语言，需要在教室外使用它。学习者必须在日常生活中使用它。对于难民而言，在融入生活中必须在日常生活中使用新语言。有时，我们会错过因使用新语言而失去的身份认同，我们会从本国寻找能说我们母语的人，与我们的家庭文化保持联系，并闻到熟悉的气味。

去年，我参加了伊拉克电影《路人的故事》的放映根据伊拉克导演科塔伊巴·贾纳比（Kotaiba al-Janabi）在1990年代担任欧洲难民的经历。这部电影几乎是完全无色的，冷酷的，充满了莫名其妙的损失感。我握着朋友的手摇晃了电影，所以我不会哭泣而打扰观众。在活动的问答环节中，可能是50多岁的一位女士问导演为什么这部电影如此阴郁。她问为什么经常以冷漠的态度来表达难民的经历。这位女士解释说，欧洲国家欢迎难民，照顾他们，并为他们提供他们从未想象过的生活。她想知道为什么难民对欧洲一直在为他们做的一切不那么快乐。

这位女士的言论显然使很多听众烦恼，但没人回答她。甚至导演也没有回答，但为这部电影令人沮丧的气氛而道歉。就我而言，我想从椅子上跳下来，解释为什么我们不能感到愉悦，为什么难民产生的艺术品常常是黑暗的，而不是愉悦的，但是我一直等到下一轮询问被选中。轮到我了时，我拿了其中一位志愿者递给我的麦克风，屏住呼吸说：

那一刻，我忍不住热泪盈眶，但我感到必须说出为什么难民在欧洲的避风港仍然感到不高兴是很重要的。