Deciding what to write about while here in Kuala Lumpur has been difficult. On the one hand, I feel I should take advantage of the opportunity to share the stories and experiences of the people I am working with, and on the other, I want to be able to show things through my own perspective, and to share the stories of my friends as I know them. I think that on the surface, it probably seems that these two options are not contradictory, and perhaps they aren't really, but when it comes to 'refugees' finding a balance of how to represent people and events can be very complicated.

Pretty much everywhere, there is a great deal of prejudice against asylum-seekers and refugees. In Australia a few years ago, there were many asylum-seekers on temporary visas, many of them young Hazara men who had fled because they were targeted by the Taliban. I remember hearing of an anthropologist who had been doing research with them, and found that they when they were doing interviews or being photographed for the media, they were all reluctant to have it revealed that they owned mobile phones. They were well aware of the perceptions of the general public and knew that something as simple as owning a mobile phone could be skewed in the minds of many to mean that they weren't 'real' refugees, or in need of help. Of course the idea that owning a mobile phone has anything to do with political persecution is absurd, but their concerns were entirely valid - because statements to the effect that 'they own mobile phones' were used in the media and among the public with the implicit meaning that the asylum-seekers could not be sincere.

This example is perhaps extreme, but represents a real truth that people have very strong pre-conceptions about what refugees 'should' be like, and evidence to the contrary often works to the disadvantage of asylum-seekers and refugees themselves. This matter is complicated by the fact that most refugees and asylum-seekers know, or at least quickly learn, the way they are perceived by outsiders, and they are also aware that their own survival and safety is often predicated on how well they can 'sell' their stories to these people. The UNHCR has developed guidelines based on the definition of a refugee as someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their home out of fear of persecution based on their membership in a particular social group. Presumably, their guidelines are meant to offer an objective basis through which protection officers can judge claims for asylum, but in practice, the guidelines have become a system through which refugees re-frame their own stories. There are people here who come from very rural villages in Chin state, and who've had very little education. When asked open ended questions about their life in Malaysia or their reasons for coming here, many fail to mention the times they've been arrested, suffered abuse, or that they fear for their lives in Burma. Its not that these things are aren't true, because they are, they just don't realize that they are supposed to tell the UN about them unless someone explains the process and guidelines to them.

In humanitarian and human rights circles, the common discourse on refugees tends to follow the model of putting a 'human face on the issue'. This is done through an objective retelling of an individual's experience in becoming a refugee. Although human rights campaigns try to focus on the basic dignity and rights of protection that every human deserves, I think its closer to the truth to say that support for refugees is often garnered through sympathy and pity for their suffering. When we read their stories, we are shown their identities within the context of their experience. The 'refugee' identity becomes inexorably tied to our own notions of suffering and loss, and when these notions are challenged are challenged by reality, or by images of refugees with material wealth such as mobile phones, the result is not always positive.

The problem that complicates things is that we are generally unaware of that dynamic between what we expect to see and hear from refugees, and how people who are refugees represent themselves to us - and perhaps how this influences their perceptions of their own experiences and the choices they make within the whole process. Last week as I sat in a hotel room with several members of the CRC's executive committee who were holding a meeting with a visiting Chin leader, one quipped that when I return home, I will always have the memory of drinking with refugees in Malaysia. Of course, the same idea had crossed my own mind, but I think its telling that he chose the fact that they are refugees as the unique aspect of the experience, rather than any other number of factors. While drinking with my Kachin friends in Chiang Mai, one commented that such moments would become fond memories once I had returned - but there was no mention of being refugees or exiles.

We hear the stories of their suffering, the oppression and loss, which is a positive, because these are things the world needs to know about. But what gets lost, I think, is the individuals' identities and personalities outside of their refugee experience. Because despite the obvious and huge effect that being a refugee may have on their life experiences, they are still individuals living their daily lives the same as anyone else. In all likelihood, most refugees and asylum-seekers probably don't mind this discrepancy. They don't tell their stories to become celebrities, after all. Ultimately, the facts should be enough, and refugees shouldn't have to face judgment and persecution in countries they have fled to for safety. But the unfortunate truth is that they do, and too many people in safe and/or rich countries believe they have the authority to judge someone only because they have asked for help and protection. I think if people had a deeper and more complex understanding of people who have become refugees, rather than 'refugee' becoming an identity in itself, it might help to avoid such absurd situations as Hazara men being afraid to use a mobile phone in public.

So this is what I have been pondering for the last week or so, how to find a balance in sharing my own experience and perspective here with the experiences of the people who have to live here as refugees and asylum seekers - people who must live 10 or 15 to an apartment, who can't send their children to school, who are regularly arrested or abused by the police. And also to find a balance between sharing the stories of people who have become my friends, people who tell jokes and like to watch pro-wrestling, with how these stories and images may be interpreted by readers here. Perhaps I'm over-thinking the issue but I believe it is important. I think we too often overlook the authority we have, be it given or taken, to represent others less able to speak for themselves. And if we don't understand the power we have in this, we can hardly begin to understand the responsibility that comes with it.