TOW #2- Article: "Like the Syrians, I Fled My Country"

This article was written for The Washington Post by Mikra Krasniqi.  He wrote about his experiences fleeing his home country, Kosovo, in 1998.  Throughout the text, Krasniqi compares his account of refugee camps to the situation that millions of Syrians are facing in the present day.  Krasniqi is a writer who worked for the United Nations and studied at Harvard University.  Although it is important to recognize that the author is well educated, I believe that there is more to his credibility.  It is more important that he has lived through the same experiences as the Syrians are going through.  His credibility comes from his knowledge of life as a refugee.  Most of the text uses anecdotes to appeal to ethos.  Krasniqi writes to his audience about the ways of life as a refugee who had to flee his home country.  The purpose he has in writing this is to educate people about the reasons why people flee their countries as well as convince them to be more understanding and welcoming to those who need somewhere to go.  His audience is Europeans and Americans who have the opportunity to help Syrians feel safe.  He expresses this purpose in multiple ways throughout the text.  Through the anecdotes of his fleeing experience, Krasniqi appeals to pathos by showing the audience what life was like as a refugee.  He writes, "By late afternoon, hundreds of Serbian soldiers had infiltrated our town of 1,000.  They lit homes on fire and shoved people into trucks at gunpoint.  Their message to us was clear: Leave." (Krasniqi para. 9)  By sharing this anecdote, the author appeals to pathos because he makes the audience feel some of the fear that refugees must face every day.  His audience is more likely to feel sympathetic towards refugees if they understand their story and what they had to go through in their home country.  This contributes to his purpose by helping to convince Americans and Europeans to help Syrian refugees when given the opportunity.  Another strategy that the author utilizes is asyndeton.  The author uses this strategy when he explains his feelings during his time spent at the refugee camp.  Krasniqi writes, "Though we were finally out of danger, I felt depressed, heartbroken, hopeless."  (Krasniqi para. 13)  By using this rhetorical strategy, the author can make an appeal to pathos by expressing the feeling of hopelessness to his audience.  When reading this sentence, the audience feels the weight of each word as it is written.  Each word contributes to a feeling of hopelessness that helps the audience understand why it is important to help the refugees.  By using all of these strategies, I believe the author accomplishes his purpose by making the readers rethink how they act towards Syrian refugees after reading this text.