I will always speak my mind: Aurelia meets Sarah Mardini

More than anything, I admire a woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind — Sarah Mardini is most certainly such a woman.

“Not everyone likes what I say,” she admits during our Zoom interview. “But I will always speak my mind; it’s how I stay true to myself.”

I am a little in awe when Sarah agrees to speak to me. Having read about her story, I am aware of the courage and endurance such a young woman must possess. In 2015, Sarah travelled from Damascus to Lesbos to escape the Syrian war. When the dinghy that she was travelling in began to capsize in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sarah and her sister, Olympic swimmer Yusra, jumped into the sea and pulled the dinghy to shore. Sarah went on to volunteer as a lifeguard for ERCI (Emergency Response Centre International), keeping watch for immigrants in distress off the coast of Greece. She was later arrested for this work and spent 108 days in pre-trial detention. If sentenced, Sarah faces up to 25 years in prison. The charges are ludicrous (espionage, smuggling and even money laundering) and completely unrelated to the nature of ERCI’s work. They are evidently thinly-veiled attempts to penalise Sarah, and her fellow volunteers, for exercising only what is intrinsic to basic human nature: helping others.

Despite my admiration for Sarah, she is keen to emphasise that she is “just a normal 24 year old Syrian girl”. I hasten to add that she is strong-minded, passionate and keenly intelligent - she is studying Politics and Art at Bard College, Berlin. However, Sarah’s insistence that she is ‘normal’ is an assertion that whilst these attributes are worthy of praise, they are not remarkable. Sarah, whilst incredibly inspiring, doesn’t wish her story to be thought of as “exceptional”. The mainstream western media is quick to present an individual like Sarah as a heralded, worthy exception to the pervasive and negative stereotypes of refugees it often profits from perpetuating. This, in turn, shapes public perception of refugees as a burden or problem, giving the very term negative connotations.

“We are limiting the psychology of [refugees],” says Sarah. “We are not including them in our solutions. We are not allowing people to contribute something to our society, even though they have plenty to offer — it takes resourcefulness to travel in the way they do — but we are trapping them in a situation where they are consumed by the need to just survive.”

“[Look] how everyone became very creative when they were at home due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. The people in a good situation - those who had food in the fridge - their creative sides came out. But then you go to the people who actually do not have money for rent, for food. They work so hard to figure out something and they are stressed all the time. They don’t have the ability to be creative because they’re in survival mode. This is what we are doing to the refugees. We are actually putting them in this position because there is no stable life for them.”

Infantilising refugees in this way works to maintain a hierarchy that favours those born in the western world over those who seek solace there. The west is depicted as ‘supporting’ refugees, so refugees must therefore be victims, totally dependent on the ‘generosity’ of supposedly benevolent nations. In this way, the process of infantilizing, and subsequently demonizing, refugees is just the flipside of the portrayal of those who help them as heroes. This narrative creates a schism between supposed heroes and victims, instead of normalising the fact that providing aid is a cyclical offering: we all need help at some point and it is often possible for the favour to be returned. In fact, helping those less fortunate than ourselves forms the base of the very human interaction that is integral to our survival.

It is not surprising, then, that the normalisation of Sarah’s role as a volunteer for ERCI is the persisting theme throughout our conversation. She stresses the importance of small gestures.

“We try to challenge the fact that you need a lot of money, a lot of resources, a lot of working hands. For us, it is more about one-on-one interaction, telling people what their responsibility is as we are doing our responsibility. There’s equality in there, mutual respect between everybody. I think just making someone smile, that’s what matters, because I’m not a wealthy person who could fix a whole camp. If I could, I would absolutely do so — but I’m just a normal human being who is volunteering and what I can provide is that I speak the Arabic language, and can make someone’s day better. We just break it down and make it simple. I think by doing that you feel so much better about yourself already.”

“It is fascinating when you’re working in a place where everybody has the same goal,” Sarah reflects. “It’s not perfect all the time, but these selfless communities are very rare and so special. It’s very beautiful to, for once in our lives, not put ourselves first, but we don’t leave ourselves behind, we just give everything its fair timing. We make sure to completely fulfill our responsibilities every day and then we go and take care of ourselves. That we do all this without being paid makes it more special. People put so much energy into these places without being paid. There are so many people that I met there that I’m still in touch with, but I don’t think I’ll ever meet people like them again, maybe only in these types of places.”

The sheer rarity of these pockets of collaborative, unconditional kindness poses a question: what kind of world do we face if these unique examples of active kindness become criminalised? I ask Sarah how she summons the courage to speak out about the things she cares about in the face of such dangerous opposition.

“No matter what consequences it costs me,” she declares, “I will always speak my mind, because I’m an emotional person. I can’t live with the guilt, I don’t want to live with the guilt that I saw something that I didn’t like and didn’t talk about it.’

To save a life is not a political act: it is a human one. If we allow people to be punished for doing so, we risk living in a warped, dystopian society where our most natural instincts are controlled and regulated by fear of punishment for doing what we know to be right.

I ask Sarah what we can do, on a personal level, to help.

"Stop being so selfish! Just go out of your comfort zone a bit,” Sarah advises. “It’s the same old words, we say it forever: just be involved in the community. Don’t tell me you pulled through life by yourself. I’m sure someone gave you a glass of water for free or helped you in the street or said a nice word to you or smiled at you. Just give it back. That’s all I ask for, that we look around and see the blessing that we’re in that we actually get help in our lives. As for my case, speak about it. Normalise the fact that I’m just a normal person, because anyone could be next.”

Sarah’s case is not isolated. There are many other accounts of volunteers being arrested and charged for their humanitarian work. Most recently it has been made illegal to provide food donations to the inhabitants of refugee camps in Calais. The criminalization of humanitarian work is a dangerous precedent that does not bode well for the future of our global community. We must do everything we can to push back against it. 

There is an online Amnesty International petition to demand that the charges against Sarah are dropped. You can sign it here.

There is also a fundraiser to help with the costs of trial, which is very expensive. If you wish to make a small gesture of human kindness you can donate to it here.

This article was originally featured on Aurelia Magazine