TITLU în română: Caractere şi modele antice de migraţie şi rolul lor în înţelegerea actualei crize a migranţilor şi refugiaţilor
Subiect: The aim of the present paper is to address the issue of the role played by well-known ancient characters in creating the established image of the migrant/exile/refugee/asylum seeker, conferring a likely understanding of the refugee crisis that mankind faces today, from East to West. The three characters presented in this paper lie at the intersection between stability and growth, and political instability and change. The narratives surrounding the ancient Egyptian official Sinuhe, Josephus of Canaan, or even the wily Greek hero Odysseus, King of Ithaca and ‘master of any craft’, who facilitated the conquest of Troy, reveal the metamorphoses and archetypal experiences of fugitive migrants/refugees/asylum seekers in unknown territories, as well as their relationship to facing the Other(ness) through difference, whatever form that Other(ness) might take. These narratives and famous ancient characters have entered the cultural and ideational heritage of mankind, owing to their manner of relating to the Other - world, landscape, population, traditions, mindsets and, in particular, by the way their experiences marked and transformed their identities. Sinuhe, Josephus and Odysseus embody and epitomize human intelligence in action. Their accounts speak of people for whom the various ways of forced displacement such as migration or refugee status have prompted both positive and negative feedback. They are archetypal characters in whose experiences all of mankind has found universal patterns and potential solutions to migratory phenomena which humans experienced regularly. Discussing all this, one may emphasize that education and literature (read acquiring knowledge) are our only salvation.
