PROPS: Aqeel

Despite enjoying the safety and the availability of all the comforts of life that we take for granted in this country, we still feel the traumatic impact of war back home in so many ways. 

We are not allowed to visit our homeland and see our family and friends. Our children are growing up without grandparents and extended family around them.

We have had some really traumatic experiences. Firstly my mother was diagnosed with cancer in late 2012, and I immediately knew I should bring her here to receive proper health care because the health system in Syria had collapsed in the war. 

I sponsored her visa application for private medical treatment, which would be fully at my expense, and we ticked all the boxes. Nonetheless, the Home Office rejected her application on grounds of baseless allegations that they fabricated about her application. 

I refuted these grounds, but because of the heinous bureaucracy of the Home Office, she wasn’t allowed to reapply for 6 months after being rejected once, and any appeal takes at least 6 months as well. During our wait, my Mom’s health deteriorated so much that she wasn’t able to travel to Lebanon again to reapply for a visa. A few months later she died.

My first son, Sam, was born on her birthday, and we lost her two months later in 2013. 

To add insult to injury, when I knew her cancer had become terminal, I wanted to go back home to say goodbye, but due to certain bureaucratic/political reasons, I wasn’t allowed to enter my country in a normal way. 

I applied for a special short entry to the country due to humanitarian reasons, and I included notes from my mom’s doctor confirming that she could die any day in that application. I was told by the Syrian embassy in Paris (the embassy in London had closed by then) that the decision should be made in a week, but my mom died three weeks later, and then over two months later I received a recorded message from the embassy saying that I was granted a special one week entry to my country!

This is by far the most traumatic experience caused by our situation as Syrians in the UK, but there are many other horrible experiences: my wife’s sister applied for a visa to come and spend some time with us during my wife’s both pregnancies, and she was rejected both times by the Home Office despite meeting all requirements because, to quote the Home Office ‘we are not convinced that the applicant will return home after 6 months [the duration of the visa]’ 

We feel we experienced blatant racism and governmental bullying during very difficult years of our lives. It was a time when we needed our family the most. It has caused both my wife and I severe depression that lasted for years, and we paid for counselling to get over it (which we never completely did), and its residue is still present in our daily lives.

I would also reverse certain aspects of privatization in the country.

I would stop London being a haven for all corrupt oligarchs from all over the world coming here and laundering the billions they steal from their people. I would do proper checks on the sources of these people’s wealth, return stolen money to their governments back home, or invest it in developmental projects if the governments can’t be trusted.

Finally, I would regulate the media properly to make sure it cannot be owned and controlled by individuals who are usually billionaires, and I would come up with democratic and transparent ways to own and run media outlets.