Terror-Driven Ethno-Religious Waves: Mapping Determinants in Refugees’ Choices Escaping Iraq and Syria

Abstract

This chapter examines increased religious revivals in the Middle East by reference to recent refugee migration waves of Muslims and Christians following the ongoing wars in Iraq and Syria. It follows their trajectories from their ethno-religious (real and perceived) homeland to their current (temporal and peripheral) locations. It also compares and contrasts the way migrants relocated into Lebanon, which already has substantial Palestinian Christian and Muslim refugee populations, with the way a small northern Iraqi ethno-religious Ezidi community entered into Christian Orthodox Georgia. On the one hand, in Lebanon, already divided into its own indigenous as well as extant Palestinian Muslim and Christian refugee populations, the new refugees led to new or increased divisions within indigenous ethno-religious groups. This is due to the dynamics of the refugees’ migration patterns, which followed established sectarian routes resulting in the new refugees clustering in existing fellow ethno-religious homogeneous areas, but not sharing perceived interests. On the other hand, in Georgia, migrant refugees strengthened the existing indigenous Ezidi community, which now began making political demands within Georgia. Different ethno-religious diasporic journeys have constructed different outcomes in the host countries. Concurrently, diverse spatial and temporal constraints and determinants shaped both refugees’ choices and local reactions to their entry.