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Pope’s anti-war tweet perplexes followers

Pope Francis has surprised his English-speaking Twitter followers with a "Never again war!" message, a far cry from his usual fluent phrases. But as The Local finds out, the meaning behind his apparent outburst speaks volumes about his own experience of war.

Published: 2 September 2013 18:19 CEST
Pope’s anti-war tweet perplexes followers
Pope Francis has nine Twitter accounts. Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP

The pontiff’s “War never again! Never again war!” message on Monday was retweeted thousands of times and received numerous responses from his perplexed followers.

Among them were British author Owen Jones, who likened Pope Francis to a “funky Yoda”, and Australian journalist Jess Hill, who suggested it was the pontiff’s attempt at “dubstyle” urban music.

The message comes a day after Pope Francis declared September 7th a day of fasting and prayers for peace in Syria. As the US Senate prepares to vote on military intervention in Syria, following a chemical weapons attack on civilians, the Pope asserted his anti-war position.

"May the cry for peace enter the hearts of everyone so that they may all lay down their weapons," he said from the Vatican on Sunday.

While today’s tweet is undoubtedly tied to his words on Syria, looking at the Pope’s Spanish-language Twitter account helps explain its deeper significance.

The Pope has nine Twitter accounts, in different languages, and tweets are translated across all.

The result is usually a fluid message to all of his followers, but this time something was lost in translation.

“¡Nunca más!” means “no more!” in English, yet as a Spanish phrase holds huge significance for the Argentine Pope.

It is used to refer to Argentina’s military dictatorship, which ruled between 1976 and 1983, during which time thousands of people ‘disappeared’.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as he was then known, stayed in the country throughout the so-called ‘Dirty War’ and so his Monday message carries the weight of a person who has lived through civil conflict.

While the phrase “¡Nunca más!” is understood throughout the Spanish-speaking world as a term used to describe the horrors of war in Argentina, it is also the name of an official account of the period.

The Nunca más report is a 50,000 page document which includes the findings of Argentina’s National Commission on Disappeared People, which was set up in 1983. It concludes: “We are certain that the military dictatorship was responsible for the greatest and most savage tragedy in the history of Argentina”.

Pope Francis’ strong pacifist tone on Twitter, while confusing for some, therefore makes perfect sense for his Latin American followers. 

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SYRIA

‘I can’t go back’: Syrian refugees in Denmark face limbo after status revoked

Bilal Alkale's family is among the hundred or so Syrian refugees in Denmark whose lives are on hold amid an insufferable legal limbo -- their temporary residency permits have been revoked but they can't be deported. Now, they have no rights.

Published: 3 December 2021 09:19 CET
Syrian refugee Bilal Alkale and his daughter Rawan at their home in Lundby, Denmark on November 17th 2021. 
Syrian refugee Bilal Alkale and his daughter Rawan at their home in Lundby, Denmark on November 17th 2021. Photo: Thibault Savary / AFP

Alkale, who until recently ran his own small transportation company in Denmark, found out in March he wasn’t allowed to stay in the Scandinavian country where he has lived as a refugee since 2014, as Copenhagen now considers it safe for Syrians to return to Damascus.

His wife and three of his four children were also affected by the decision taken by Danish authorities.

Once the ruling was confirmed on appeal in late September — like 40 percent of some 200 other cases examined so far — Alkale and his family were ordered to leave.

READ ALSO: Danish refugee board overturns decisions to send home Syrians

They were told that if they didn’t go voluntarily, they would be placed in a detention centre.

The family has refused to leave.

Normally they would have been deported by now, but since Copenhagen has no diplomatic relations with Damascus, they can’t be. And so they wait.

Days and weeks go by without any news from the authorities.

In the meantime, the family has been stripped of their rights in Denmark.

Alkale can’t sleep, his eyes riveted on his phone as he keeps checking his messages.

“What will become of me now?” the 51-year-old asks.

“Everything is off. The kids aren’t going to school, and I don’t have work,” he says, the despair visible on his weary face as he sits in the living room of the home he refurbished himself in the small village of Lundby, an hour-and-a-half’s drive south of Copenhagen.

“All this so people will get annoyed enough to leave Denmark.”

For him, returning to Syria means certain death.  

“I can’t go back, I’m wanted,” he tells AFP.

And yet, he has no way to earn a living here.

“As a foreigner staying illegally in Denmark, your rights are very limited,” notes his lawyer Niels-Erik Hansen, who has applied for new residency permits for the family.

In mid-2020, Denmark became the first European Union country to re-examine the cases of about 500 Syrians from Damascus, which is under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, saying “the current situation in Damascus is no longer such as to justify a residence permit or the extension of a residence permit”. 

The decision was later widened to include the neighbouring region of Rif Dimashq.

Despite a wave of Danish and international criticism, the Social Democratic government — which has pursued one of Europe’s toughest immigration policies — has refused to budge.

READ ALSO:

The Alkale family is considering leaving for another European country, even though they risk being sent back to Denmark. 

Alkale’s oldest child was already over the age of 18 when they arrived in Denmark and therefore has her own residency permit, currently under review.

Of the three other children, only the youngest, 10-year-old Rawan, still has the carefree ways of a child.

Majed, 14, says he’s “bummed”, while Said, 17, who was studying to prepare for professional chef school, says he now has no idea what his future holds.

Only a handful of Syrians have so far been placed in detention centres, regularly criticised for poor sanitary conditions.

Asmaa al-Natour and her husband Omar are among the few.

They live in the Sjælsmark camp, a former army barracks surrounded by barbed wire and run by the prisons system since late October.

“This centre should disappear, it’s not good for humans, or even for animals. There are even rats,” says al-Natour.

READ ALSO:

 The couple, who have two sons aged 21 and 25, arrived in Denmark in 2014.

“My husband and I opened a shop selling Arabic products, it was going well. Then I decided to resume my studies, but now everything has just stopped,” says al-Natour, who “just wants to get (her) life back.” 

“Going back to Syria means going to prison, or even death, since we’re opposed to Bashar al-Assad. He’s a criminal.”

Niels-Erik Hansen, who also represents this couple, says his clients are being “held hostage by the Danish authorities.”

The government is trying “to spread the message that ‘in Denmark, we almost deport to Syria’,” he says.

Amnesty International recently criticised Syrian security forces’ use of violence against dozens of refugees who returned home.

Danish authorities meanwhile insist it’s safe for Syrians to go back.

“If you aren’t personally persecuted … there haven’t been acts of war in Damascus for several years now. And that is why it is possible for some to go back,” the government’s spokesman for migration, Rasmus Stoklund, tells AFP.

Some 35,500 Syrians currently live in Denmark, more than half of whom arrived in 2015, according to official statistics.

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