IN THE SHADOWS OF WAR - THE RETURN FROM SYRIA

THE RETURN FROM SYRIA 

 PALESTINIAN WOMEN TELL THEIR STORIES

Tyre seen from Rashidieh seaside

This is my second blog article in a mini series I have called “In the shadows of war”, mainly about Palestinians in Lebanon. Today I will share some stories from meetings with Palestinian women during my visits to Rashidieh and El Buss refugee camps, including the stories about Salma and “Sarah” and their return from Syria to Lebanon, just after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. (For the records; I find the expression “civil war” rather imprecise or misleading due to the deep involvement in the war from numerous countries in the Middle East as well as the US, Russia, EU countries and China.). 

More than anywhere else outside the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians in Lebanon have been facing war and armed conflicts repeatedly since the first Israel – Arab war in 1947 -49.  From 2011, when the so-called “Arab-spring” had spread to Syria, starting an uprising that soon escalated to the worst armed conflict in the Middle East since the Iraq – Iranian war in the eighties. And once again thousands of Palestinian families, who had been refugees for four generations, were forced to leave their homes and flee for their lives, some for the second or third time, as soldiers, arms and bombs were reaching their neighbourhoods. 

It´s Friday, in late February 2019. I´m invited for lunch with a group of women in El Buss Camp, a Palestinian refugee camp with more than 11 000 inhabitants, close to the coastal town Tyre in southern Lebanon. To get a deeper understanding of how the Palestinians in Lebanon experience their life, I try to get as many stories as I can, from both men and women, young and old, and a nice lunch with two generations of Palestinian women like today, is a great opportunity for me. After a brief introduction, some small talk to break the “ice” (just a bit of shyness), the conversation flows freely. Though the life as a refugee is a daily struggle to make ends meet, it`s not all about the misery. I get stories about friendship, how they spend time with other women, talking about family, love, “makeup sessions” fashion, work and things that happen in the camp, or about watching movies on TV, much like women anywhere else would do. 

But as the conversation moves on, turning to the differences from having a “normal” life becomes inevitable. Like Fateh´s (39) story, who has a family consisting of herself, her husband and five children between 4 and 17. Two of her children have mental handicaps and need medicines (which is very expensive in Lebanon) and need a lot of extra care and attention. In the camp they have limited access to day-care or special education (her daughters get only one and a half hour at school per week), playgrounds or any other support for the children needing special treatment. So while Fateh tries her best, she feels she is never able to give her daughters what they need. Life is extremely hard, and doesn´t leave much time to rest or being with friends. The family of seven lives in a simple three-room brick house, so the space is rather limited. Fateh tells me that her husband works in a shop where he gets  $ 600 a month. Half of the money goes to buy medicines and to pay doctors, and they never have enough, even for their basic needs.

“Sarah`s” story

«Sarah"

One of the women I meet with this day, - we agree to call her “Sarah” (40), is one of thousands of Palestinians who had to flee from Syria soon after the outbreak of the war in 2012. She asks me not to use her real name or show her face, because her brother still lives in Syria and one never knows what can cause problems for him. Sarah´s family came to Syria in 1948 from an area close to the border in northern Palestine and settled in Hajer Al Aswad near Yarmouk refugee camp, now a district of the city of Damascus, populated mainly by Palestinians. The life in Syria before the war was good according to Sarah. She grew up with her mother and her six siblings. Sarah´s father died when she was 10, but her mother and her family managed to make a good life, with access to both education and work. In March 2011, when the unrest in Syria started, Sarah was working in a make-up saloon, with nine hairdressers and “make-up artists”.  She enjoyed her job very much. The customers were both Syrians and Palestinians.

From February to March 2011 the so-called “Arab spring” had reached many towns and villages as well as the Syrian capital. A widespread uprising erupted after 15 young boys were arrested and tortured for painting graffiti with political slogans. One of the boys where killed after being brutally tortured. Thousands of Syrians took to the streets joining demonstrations demanding democracy and political change. The Syrian government responded to the uprising by killing and arresting hundreds of demonstrators.     

Sarah tells me she remembers well when the first unrest and violence started. From the balcony in her house she could see the demonstrations. Government soldiers and snipers were hiding on the rooftops, shooting and killing unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in the streets. The demonstrations and the violence continued for several days, and the government where even shooting from helicopters. 

By September 2011 organized rebel militias were regularly engaging in fighting with government troops in cities around Syria. The Free Syrian Army, a rebel umbrella group formed by defectors from the Syrian army in July, claimed leadership over the armed opposition fighting in Syria, but its authority was largely unrecognized by the local militias. Late 2011 and early 2012 saw a series of ill-fated efforts by international organizations to bring the conflict to an end. 

By December 2012, rebels had entered several areas in and around Damascus including Yarmouk, and Sarah remembers the Syrian combat planes and helicopters were dropping bombs not far from where she and here family were living, destroying even a school and a mosque. Many civilians where killed, both Palestinians and Syrians. One day the bombing were coming close to where Sarah was working and everybody had to leave and search for shelter from the bombs. As she was running she could see the smoke and hear the thunder from the bombing. That night she was hiding in a cellar with her family, and the next day they went to stay with their family inside Damascus. They tried to move back to Yarmouk after a week, but the fighting and bombing continued and forced them to stay in Damascus till September 2013, when they decided to move to Lebanon, even though they had to leave their home and most of the things they owned behind. One of her brothers had been arrested in April, and they had not heard from him since.

- After arriving in Lebanon in 2013, life has been tough, says Sarah. Now she is living with her mother and one of her sisters, and tries to support them with her limited income from offering make-up services in her “home saloon”. For a while, after arriving in Lebanon, she was working in a makeup-artist in a saloon in Tyre,  but due to sexual harassment, from both a customer and her boss she was forced to quit. A female, Lebanese customer was repeatedly giving her compliments and sexual hints. Even though she tried to ignore it, the woman didn´t stop. One night her boss asked her to stay after closing time, and started to touch her and tried to kiss her. Sarah started to scream and managed to flee, and she never went back. - The same things happened to some of my colleagues, she says. But they needed the money, so they could not leave. For me staying wasn´t and option.

- But not all has been bad after coming to Lebanon, says Sarah. - For two and a half years I was working with an NGO (BASSMA) focusing on empowering poor families. I was working with youth, as a coach. In this job I could use much of my experiences from my life as a Palestinian refugee. During my work with BASSMA, I met Mouna (another Palestinian refugee) who has become my best friend and one of the people who makes my life livable. Her sister introduced her to Mouna in 2014. - She was wearing a beautiful scarf, Sarah remembers, and was looking so kind and sweet. They started to see each other both during and after work hours. - Every day we wanted to be together, smoke a cigarette, sit in a café and share some gossip about people we knew. - When she is angry, Sarah always comes to me, Mouna replies with a smile. - And she can always see when I´m feeling bad. I don´t even have to say something. - But we also have some disagreements, says Sarah. - The main thing is about Assad. I hate him and Mouna thinks he is good man and president for Syria. But our friendship is more important than what we think about Assad, and I don´t want to judge people from their opinions but rather for their actions.  

When I ask Sarah about here future plans, she sighs and looks at her hands. - I really don´t know she says. - I feel depressed and have no future here. I hate Syria and really fear going back to that place. I dream about going to Europe…

Salma`s story

Salma

The day after my visit to El Buss camp, I´m settled in Rashidieh, another refugee camp some kilometres further south of Tyre, along the Mediterranean seashore. In my friends home I meet Salma (25), another woman who had to flee with her family from Yarmouk in Syria to Lebanon in 2013.  Like Sarah and her family they came to Yarmouk in 1948. - Life in Syria before the war was comfortable, Selma tells me. She was living with her mother a one year older sister sister and a younger brother. Her parents were divorced but her mother (53) had for several years been working in an UNRWA school as a teacher. Now she was running a private, secondary school with 15 teachers and close to 400 pupils. 

The family´s income was very good and they had a nice home and everything they needed. Since 2010, Salma had been studying economy at the university. She was also working part time for UNRWA and another NGO as a life-skill trainer and enjoyed a lot of other activities including cultural activities like reading and writing poetry. - Palestinians I Syria enjoyed the same freedom and rights as the Syrians, Selma tells me. - The society was quite liberal, and at the university I even had a boyfriend for one and a half year, she says with a smile. - In the afternoon we went to sit with friends in cafes in the old city of Damascus. 

- In the middle of 2012 everything changed, says Selma. - After the demonstrations and the killings in March 2011 the unrest were less frequent and things almost got back to normal in the area we lived. In July there were new demonstrations where both Syrians and Palestinians were participating. Like in 2011, government soldiers attacked the demonstrators, and one of my best friends was among the first that got killed. I remember I was at home that day, and suddenly I saw somebody writing on Facebook that “Iyass Farhat”, my friend, had been killed. At first I thought it had to be a mistake, that it was another person with the same name, but after calling a friend who was crying on the phone, I understood it was Iyass. It was the first time someone I knew had died.

During fall and more and more by December 2012, rebels from armed opposition groups, mainly the Free Syrian army and anti government Palestinians, were entering Yarmouk and heavy fighting started between the rebels and the government army. – I remember when the bombing started, says Salma. - I think it was the on the 20^th  of December. We heard the thunder when the bombs exploded and could feel the ground was shaking. We had to hide and take shelter the cellar in our house. It was the only house in our neighbourhood with a cellar that could give some protection from the bombs. But we stayed there only for and hour, and when it felt safe enough to go out, we chose to leave Yarmouk and go to my father`s village near the border to Israel. But before new-year the war came to my fathers village as well. Rebels were attacking and forced the government soldiers, who had been controlling the village, to leave. After staying in the village for about a week, the situation became more and more unsafe, and we decided to flee to Lebanon. 

Salma says she doesn´t think the war was about freedom and democracy. - We had a good life and could do and say almost anything we wanted as long as we didn´t openly criticize the government. It was the rebels who were undemocratic. They never asked us what we wanted. They were forcing their ideas and their war on us.     

In January 2013 Selma and her mother, brother and sister arrived at Burj Al Shamali refugee camp close to Tyre. Her father followed a month later and they all stayed for a while with her father`s uncle and her grandmother. The next months they were renting different houses where they lived for a short while, looking for something permanent. – My mother is a very clever and smart business woman, says Salma with a smile. – Not so long after we arrived in Lebanon she started a telephone shop inside the camp and we managed to rent a house near by. A friend of our family had some experience with this kind of business and gave my mother the idea. 

Salma tells me she felt she had to be active, get a job and contribute to help people in the camp suffering from all kinds of problems. In 2014 she started to work as a volunteer for a NGO supporting women who were victims of domestic violence. They were organising group sessions on gender issues and to empower the women. 

Salma was also organising her own project which she called “Try to live!”. In this project they were dressing as clowns and making shows and for children in the camps. - In the clown project we got some support from a private company “ARK” and “UK Aid”, she tells me. - We managed to mobilise and 35 young boys and girls between 15 and 25 with social problems, like drop out from school, early marriage and drug abuse. The youth were trained to make clown performances for children in other camps and became a great success, giving something meaningful to do for the boys and girls who became a part of the project, and at the same time bringing some entertainment and joy to the children. 

In 2015 Salma became a part of another project as well, which they called “Dyarouna” (Our Home), with support from American University in Beirut. The centre has a sewing factory and is providing vocational training for women, organise youth activities and “out reach” work to support people in the camps. The centre is organised as a collective, with a flat structure, where everyone is regarded as equals, where decision-making and responsibilities are shared. Selma´s main responsibility is communication and public relations. - Nowadays the work in the “Dyarouna” centre and “ARK “is my main job, says Selma, one of many hard working young social entrepreneurs trying to make a difference for her people trying to survive in the refugee camps all over Lebanon.

Some final words why I`m sharing these stories

Even though life as a Palestinian refugee is not lacking drama, armed conflicts, suffering and tragedies, it is still so much more. Of course both Libraries, newspaper and the internet give access to millions of pages with information about the Syrian war, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinian refugees, Lebanon`s history and politics etc. for anyone who have the time and interest to read and dig into what`s really going on. I still believe in sharing some simple, non-academic, real-world, real-people stories showing human faces, since the case is after all about being allowed to have a decent life and live as a human.   

Next generation of strong Palestinian women - Rashidieh Feb. 2019

***

Next up in a week or maybe a bit more, will be a post I have called “The Changemakers”. In that post I will introduce you to some young Palestinian social entrepreneurs, two strong female political activists, and share some thoughts and information about the politics, the daily life and the challenges as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon 

T  

Young Palestinian Refugee - Damascus 1982