"Expelled from all harbors was he
They took away his little love then said: you're a refugee!"
These words of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish are not scrawled on paper from his imagination. These are living stories of refugees of the Palestinian diaspora, and those refugees who have recently joined them from the land of the Euphrates.
How many of these men have lost their love? How many times does the woman prefer to distance herself from him because of his uncertain fate, summarized by one word: R-E-F-U-G-E-E.
Because of His Name
One girl from Cairo related to me how she met this young Iraqi man about two years ago. Her interest in the Iraqi issue and her constant, probing but caring questions about what happened drew them closer together. The end was a very normal request: "My family and I wish to meet your family and I hope we can have an everlasting partnership."
She said, "I started making plans and preparing arguments to convince my parents and explain to them how his family has to a great extent settled in Cairo and that there wouldn't be any legal problems."
But he was rejected. Not because his papers aren't complete — as they are expected to extend their residence on a monthly basis; nor for the extra costs — since Iraqis are treated in Egypt as foreigners. It was nothing except that his name is Saddam! And although the girl's father is not a democrat, he was frightened that the stigma would tarnish his grandchildren's reputation and follow them forever.
This is their story, yet the more serious issue is that, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, there are 750,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordon, more than 1,200,000 in Syria, and around 100,000 families in Egypt.
Refugees Inside Their Homeland
Some will answer coldly with a shake of the head, why don't these thousands marry from among themselves or wait till they return!
Supposing that the above logic is valid, what can be said of a refugee who lost his identity inside his homeland? One Palestinian young man in his late twenties, Mansour El-Asad, sent messages calling for help from many human rights organizations:
For three years, I haven't met my wife and daughter. I'm Palestinian, but I have no identity [card]. I am torn between the Israeli authorities and the laws of the Palestinian Authority, PA. Israel refuses to give me an identity and the PA is unable to secure my rights as long as I don't have an identity. And here I am spending my days displaced inside my own country in a prison that prevents me from seeing my family and deprives me from my basic rights. The crime I have committed is that I chose to go back home.
Valid but Not Legal
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Hussein Ghalmi, or Abu Emad El-Falastini as the neighbors call him, a man in his fifties, was born in the village of 'Arourah in Ramallah but his circumstances forced him to live in Lebanon. Like many Palestinians, he joined the Palestinian resistance early, finding in it a route to a dignified return.
In 1981, he married a Palestinian woman registered at UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), an international organization founded after the Nakba to record the number of Palestinian refugees. It wasn't a problem then, and no one gave Abu Emad the impression that he was going to face legal issues later.
He registered the marriage in the Sunni Personal Status Court, but he didn't register it in the Department on Refugee Affairs in Beirut, nor in UNRWA. Consequently, the marriage was valid but not legal, and so everything that results from the marriage is illegal. If Abu Emad had known, he wouldn't have taken a step toward marriage, if he had known that so much suffering would be awaiting for him and his daughters.
When the Lebanese civil war was over, Abu Emad found out that the journey of torment had just begun. At the beginning of 2000, circumstances became much harsher. None of his children carried an identity card, and so his elder son was arrested more than once because he didn't have any identification papers.
As Abu Emad's children matured and his girls reached the age of marriage, their distress took on other forms. Some suitors proposed to his daughters but, once they found out about their legal situation, they usually changed their minds, leaving the girls depressed.
As for his daughter Manar, she had a proposal. The young man insisted on marrying her despite all the consequences of the marriage because when their hearts got closer, no law could keep them apart. Between the two of them, there is a bond of love, and he is now knocking on all doors to legalize their marriage.
The Apartheid Wall of Separation
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From Gaza to the West Bank, the situation is not much different. Muhannad, a resident of East Jerusalem who now works as an accountant in Jordan, recalls the story of his displacement along with his family when their neighborhood fell within the areas to be removed to build the Israeli security barrier.
Muhannad said, "I don't know if we will be under negotiation when the new cabinet is formed, or I will continue my life here. Even though we had to suffer in our country, I couldn't take the situation of being a refugee. Frankly, I didn't think of marrying a non-Palestinian girl. But you wouldn't believe that even among Palestinians, families differentiate between a 'recent' refugee and an 'old' one whose story of dislodgement dates back to the Nakba. Even in Palestine, they differentiate between the boy of one city and one from the facing refugee camp."
It is well known that the racist wall has caused the displacement of about 15,000 Palestinians since 2003, and the figure is expected to mount to 49,000. These Palestinians live in isolated areas declared as closed military zones which fall between the Wall and the 1948 armistice Green Line ( Palestine Facts ).
A Love Bird
Algerian novelist Ahlam Mustaghanamy tells of a young Palestinian man named Ziad who lived in Algeria. He and his love suffered until there was an agreement for their marriage. When the date of marriage approached, he packed his bags and left for Lebanon to join the resistance battalions. A friend of his asked him, "Why did you do that?" He answered, "And what shall I do about this fugitive child inside me!"
Between reality and imagination, you never know if refugee life is the fire that attracts a lost moth or a violent storm that can break the wings of migrating birds of different shapes!
Sources:
Statistics on Displaced Iraqis Around the World . UNHCR. Apr. 2007. Last accesed May 20, 2007.
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