Refugees
The United Nations considers refugees to be people who are unprotected by their State and face the real and imminent threat of war, or have been forced to flee their country of origin for political, identity or cultural reasons. Therefore, international law stipulates the right to receive asylum abroad and to gain access to conditions that are specific to refugee status.
The UN’s 1951 Convention defined a refugee as any person who: “As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”. According to this Convention — expanded in the 1967 Protocol upon eliminating temporary restriction, and subsequently modified to include conflicts, war and gender and sexual orientation — nations are obliged to grant asylum to people or groups which, for different reasons, do not have their safety ensured in their country of origin, protecting them from the return to their country, in accordance with their legal status.
Until 1951, policies towards refugees were established ad hoc, on the basis of specific emergencies. The Spanish Civil War generated a huge number of refugees, people who were dispersed and fled to different locations, such as France and Algeria, and different points dotted around the USA and Latin America. During the conflict, different organisations such as the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign, in the USA, and the UK’s National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief worked to raise funds and directly manage asylum for Spaniards, particularly women and children. The activities they organised included the travelling exhibition featuring Guernica among the works it displayed — both a strategy and image to that end.
The Second World War was another source of mass exodus in the 20th century, where vast numbers of exiles escaped Europe. From that time, the flux of refugees has been steady and constant, with people forced to flee war and abandon their countries, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The successive wars in the Middle East have also brought mass displacement, and most recently the situation has worsened further with those escaping the war in Syria. Yet in many cases countries breach the Convention and do not take responsibility and grant them refugees status, thus exacerbating their danger and suffering. The multiple appropriations of Guernica in demonstrations and vignettes seek to serve as a reminder and highlight the lack of official action on this matter — refugees face a very real threat of death — and renounce the fact that a violation of international law adds to the vulnerability of civilians.
