How should a refugee’s story be told? Matthieu Aikins, a Canadian journalist, seems to think the best way is gonzo reporting. In The Naked Don’t Fear the Water, he accompanies a thirtysomething Afghan interpreter, Omar, through Central Asia and Europe, passing himself off to others as an asylum seeker. Aikins takes up a new name, pretends not to understand English and at one point sets fire to one of his passports rather than have it discovered by police at the Turkish border.
Aikins is attuned to a truth seldom acknowledged by travel writers and foreign correspondents: when confronted by the plight of stateless subjects, or of those forced to escape their home countries, the reporter is always aware of their own luck, their own unearned prerogative of belonging to one nation and not another. What wouldn’t Omar have done to qualify for a western passport? His chances of landing an American visa are negligible, despite having spent much of his adult life translating for foreign troops and driving story-hungry journalists around in the middle of a war. When fighting between US troops and the Taliban intensified six years ago, he joined the exodus out of the country through Iran and Turkey, leaving behind his girlfriend, Laila, in Kabul. Together with Aikins, he made the dreaded journey across the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat, and ended up in a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, effectively imprisoned.
