The Illusive Cloth of Happiness

Life in a Palestinian Refugee Camp

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How many idealize the Palestinian as a people with forbearance, and yet throw scorn when another side reveals itself? We fear for them when there are deaths and incursions, and our fears subside when reports dwindle to the acceptable. We ask them to be patient, to not fight back or to be angered. We believe in the peace process and have wasted many years expecting deliverance from the arch supporter of their oppressors.

No one wants to see crime eruption or gun battles that threaten the civil order of the host country, but did the refugees there ask to live without recognition? Did they ask to be born refugees, born to belong nowhere, born to live a life of humiliation, born to marry and see their children no better than they, to not be accepted, to not be able to go to school with the children of their host country, to not get an education, to not get a decent job, to live a life of exclusion, without citizenship? Many were forced out of their country, and many escaped the never-ending daily humiliation of apartheid, to seek sanctuary and the possibility of life in another Arab country. For many that sanctuary has become a nightmare — the nightmare, an open prison, a refugee camp.

In No Man's Land

The camp that brought in the Lebanese Security Forces was the Nahr El-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. Established one year after the Nakba (1949) by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the camp is overcrowded and has poor water supply which is connected to a sewerage system that pumps out untreated sewerage into the sea. There are 31,023 registered Palestinian refugees who have one health center (494 patients daily), 10 UNRWA elementary and preparatory schools, one youth center, one kindergarten, and two community rehabilitation centers (CNN). Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are totally dependent on UNRWA for health facilities and education. They have no social or civil rights and are forbidden to work in almost 80 types of trade and professions.

Khadda comes from the largest camp in Lebanon, Ein El-Hilweh. The suffocating poverty, the filthy streets, the daily tension, and fear of armed conflict were too much for her, so she left with her children. Khadda did not leave as a single parent: She left behind her husband who runs a small shop but the children visit every weekend. Khadda told reporter Marina da Silva the following,

The refugee camps, and Ein El-Hilweh in particular, are always described in the national and international press as no-go areas that harbor criminals and Islamic extremists. But we are the camp, more than 45,000 of us, and we cherish our identity and our history. It's not those tearaways, at most a couple of hundred, who are the products of insecurity and political stalemate.

Umm Fadl is also from Ein El-Hilweh. For Umm Fadl, the truth is as follows:

The population is hostage to political factions settling internal scores. Often, there are deaths and people are afraid. But they don't want to leave, because the camp still symbolizes our long wait for return and the struggle for our rights.

Souheil Natour, a Palestinian organizer in Lebanon, explained,

Can you imagine a Palestinian refugee family who has lived in Lebanon for over 50 years living without the right to work? Palestinians often do not have any means to support themselves or their families. This is why you find so many Palestinian youth fleeing Lebanon, traveling to various countries in the hope that they will have the ability to work, so that they can send money back to their families to sustain them. (Christoff)

Jaber Suleiman was displaced from Palestine in 1948; as a member of the international Right of Return Movement, he explained,

Palestinians in Lebanon are treated as a threat to Lebanon, so therefore the Lebanese army attempts to contain the refugees in the camps. There is a process of ghettoization. The movement of Palestinians from the refugee camps of southern Lebanon is controlled by the Lebanese army. Each entrance to and exit from the camps is controlled by the army. To enter or exit the camp your car is checked, your documents are examined.

The Illusive Cloth of Happiness (Voices from the Camps)

Here, rather than run some commentary, I have opted for the voices of the people themselves — the Palestinian refugees speak for themselves.

* Youssef El-Loubani, Bourg El-Barajneh Camp, Lebanon

I was born in Bourj El-Barajneh, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. My family fled their homes in Palestine in 1948 and have lived for 55 years as refugees in Lebanon, without citizenship or human rights. I grew up stateless, in Bourj El-Barajneh refugee camp, under unbearable hardship, and I have had to live every day of my life persecuted and discriminated against. As a Palestinian, I have no right to work in almost 80 professions, to own or inherit property, to access public education or healthcare, or to travel freely.

As a child, I lived through civil war, camp sieges, and massacres. Our houses in the camps still bear the scars of the attacks, as they have not been reconstructed. We faced hunger many times, barely sleeping as we were afraid of bomb attacks. During these times we were unable to go to the market as we were not allowed to leave the camp. We survived on what we had. When I was five years old, my family and I were in our house when a bomb exploded on the roof. Most of us were injured. I was injured near my heart and needed surgery and hospitalization.

In 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Beirut, a bomb exploded in my father's car, and he lost sight in both his eyes. In 1990, my father fell from our roof and was rushed to the Red Crescent Hospital in the camp. The camp did not have the proper equipment to help him as he needed an urgent operation on his back, so they sent him to a Beirut hospital, Al-Makased. As UNRWA does not cover the costs of [his] emergency operation, we were forced to borrow money from everyone we knew to cover the hospital fees. The operation failed and he became disabled. After three months his situation worsened. At the end of 1990, my father died, leaving my mother, five children, and me.

On top of the violence, we suffered in the camp, we also went through an unimaginable nightmare: The kidnapping of my sister Enas on July 27, 1993. A Syrian military officer kidnapped her when she was 11 years old and she stayed missing for almost four years. We informed the authorities and placed posters of her everywhere, but she was unfound. Almost four years after her disappearance, she was released by the military man and came back home. She told us of her terrible story. She had been kept in Syria in the house of that man and she was raped many times. A few weeks after she was back to us, we found out that she was pregnant. My sister's daughter, Waffa, is now five years old, and because [officially] she has no father, she does not even have papers or access to the basic UNRWA services most children get. She cannot attend school and also lives under threat daily of him returning for her. Until now our family lives in fear, as the Syrian militia [military] member has returned to our home . He has much more power than our family does, and we have little to protect her with.

I have always been ambitious and used the little opportunity I had to learn about computers and business. In 1998, I finished high school, and later I obtained a diploma from the Norwegian People's Aid in business and office practice. Even though I was educated, I could not find a job because of the restrictions imposed on stateless Palestinian refugees. Faced with these restrictions I had no civil rights whatsoever and no future in Lebanon.

I came to Canada hoping that I could study and work in a country where I can live with human rights, peace, and respect. I have one sister who lives in Canada. She is married and has held citizenship for seven years. My other sister and brother are being sponsored by a group of five well-established Canadians, under the Women at Risk program, due to the risks to the livelihood of both my sister and her young daughter Waffa. My mother was included in this sponsorship; however, she passed away last spring.

I am now 24 years old and have spent many of my adult years developing my support network and my life in Montreal. As a stateless person, I wish to have a place that wants me to be living on its soil, to have the same human rights as those around me. To uproot my life here in order to go back to persecution in the refugee camp of Bourj El-Barajneh would be unbearable. I would be sentenced to life in a 55-year-old refugee camp as a forgotten person, without protection, my family, or the supportive community I have developed here.

 * Shaker Khazal , Bourj El-Barajneh Camp, Lebanon

Every moment, a new thing in life occurs! One of the things that occur is the suffering of people thrown into a world of problems, sunk in dried-up human rights, awaiting death, and looking for hope to achieve their dreams. By these simple innocent words, I can describe our lives as Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Our story began when our land was lost in crazy circumstances, and then we were thrown into the land of being a refugee, which is the land of death.

We, the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, are living a life emptied from all basic human rights: going to public schools, going to public hospitals, working. We are living in camps that lack electricity and water. Kids are born to be refugees without knowing why. They are only victims, paying their lives for problems they were put into.

We are people who want peace and life; we don't want to die. It is not fair. We came to life to live and struggle to lead good lives, away from war and fear. So can't you help us? 

Our teenagers are running from their deaths, seeking life. They only want life in another land, life with the smile of happiness on its face. God gave humans vast land; this land is for everyone wanting peace.

Please, this is a message from a child wanting peace: Help us. Don't deport Palestinians back to suffering, and don't allow death to attack us while we are living. We all belong to God, and God doesn't want this to happen. Take the tears from our eyes, and replace them with a smile that our hearts and minds miss (Refugees Resist).

 * Rami Abdul Raheem, Bourj El-Barajneh Camp, Lebanon

Life in the future Palestinian state will not satisfy the dreams of the Palestinian refugees who have lived in Lebanon in poverty and isolation for more than 60 years. The opportunity to live in Europe or elsewhere in the West with a good standard of living is what they really seek. The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon still have the strong love of Palestine in their hearts, but seeking a higher standard of life outside Palestine does not conflict with our loyalty to the future Palestinian State (Abdul Raheem).

* Muhammad Dawud and Mona Zaaroura , Chatila Camp, Lebanon

What can I tell you? Where do I start? I'll tell you the story of my life, which is the story of working children in Chatila. My name is Muhammad Dawud and I'm fourteen years old. I'm in the second intermediate (eigth grade) and I'm 145 centimeters tall, which means that I'm short for my age. I'm around the height of an eight-year-old, which is the age when I started working.

Since then, I haven't grown much. I work all summer long and throughout the holidays in the winter. I'm still in school, although our schools are miserable. I work because my future will be in these jobs. Even if I finish school, the fact that I'm Palestinian means that I'll be a house-painter, baker, garbage collector, electrician, or mechanic. For a long time, I worked in pickling and canning to the point where my hands were worn out by the vinegar. I've worked as a blacksmith's apprentice, in a cafe, and painting houses in Chatila.

When I work in Chatila, I don't feel miserable or curse my life, because all the children work here and child labor isn't something strange. But it was different when I worked during the summer on a building site in the town of Shmays, near Shahim (between Beirut and Sidon), and saw the way children played and ran there, while I was carrying buckets of cement and polishing sheet metal (which makes me short of breath). Then I started to ask myself why I wasn't playing and running in the fields the way those other children were. Why did I have to go from school to work? Why am I living this tiring and miserable life? Why do I have to work to live? I know why: Because I come from the camp, because I'm a Palestinian refugee. That's why I'm asking to be granted my civic right, and I hope this timeless message will be seen by everyone around the world. I want to play, not work.

 *Rana Kassem, Rana Al-Hassan, and Suzanne Abd Al-Hadi, Chatila Camp, Lebanon

I'm a girl who, like most girls in Chatila, became engaged when I was still a child. Last winter I was 13, and I didn't think much about the tragedies of the miserable life we lead in the camp. My main concerns were dabke dancing and playing with my friends.

One day I went on a trip with Bayt Atfal Al-Sumud and I caught the eye of a man I didn't know. So he asked about me, was introduced to the household, and asked for my hand in marriage. My mother agreed to the match without asking for my opinion. Because of my father's death and our poor living conditions, my mother's opinion was all that mattered. She insisted on my getting married, and I gave in. The engagement period was one of the cruelest periods of my life. They would sometimes call me when I was playing with my friends because the man had come to visit us and I was supposed to receive him. I used to be very afraid of him and I hated him.

Because of this fear I often got sick. Every time I saw him, I'd have a fever and start crying. I imagined him as a monster that scares children. Since I was always sick, I managed to rid myself of this nightmare. So I didn't get married at 14 like most other girls in Chatila, some of who think that marriage may be a way out of the prison of the camp.

Girls here have nowhere to play. Our parents are poor and cannot buy us clothes or take us on trips outside the camp. So because of their parents' poor living conditions, girls are married off while they are still children so that their parents can stop worrying about them. Mostly, the groom is still a teenager and lives in the camp. Often, he has started working at 10 or 13 and has no future to build, so he gets engaged and married to amuse himself, since he has no other source of amusement.

I'd like to advise all parents not to consent to their daughters marrying before they are 18 (American Community School (ACS)).

From Batala, a refugee camp in Nablus, Palestine, the daughter of Husam Khader, 10-year-old Amirah, wrote the following for her father:

Hussam loved to write, because from writing he could create life. He was a loving father who loved to spend hours reading to his children.

"He used to read us a book every night before we went to bed,"said Amirah.

Along with her sister Amani, they put their 7-year-old brother, Ahmed, to sleep by covering their heads with a blanket and pretending to be the spirit of their father.

Where is their father? It was March 13, 2003, when Amirah, Amani, and Ahmed saw their father for what may be the last time. They woke up in panic when Israeli soldiers blew up the front door to their home. Amirah recalled:

"They looked so scary. They had marks on their faces and they wore strange hats with lamps on them."

The children watched their father being handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away.

The Right to Return

Hussam Khader (now in Hadrvam Prison) wrote plays. His first play was entitled Refugee Until…. Husam set up cultural venues and community services, with the strong belief that education and community building were important forms of resistance to the occupation. He founded the Association for the Defense of the Palestinians, and was arrested many times, one of them in 1998 in the first Intifada, and exiled to Lebanon. Based in the Ein El-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, Husam visited the other camps in Lebanon.

The Oslo agreement provided a break in the status of Palestinian refugees, it was believed, and Husam with other Palestinians made their way back to their country in 1994. It was a bitter disappointment when Palestinian authorities remained silent on the right of return. Husam became even more vocal and critical of Palestinian authorities. As Husam believed in being a part of the solution, he became a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Illegally detained, allegations against him have never been proven and his trial is continually delayed (Harb).

What will it take for the West and the East to wake up to the atrocities that have all become too acceptable, and when will another person's life be as precious as one's own? One is never immune, because when one loses one's humanity with those far away, one loses one's humanity with those one holds so dear!

Sources:

Abdul Raheem, Rami. "Palestinian Refugees." 13 Apr. 2007. Zionism on the Web. Last accessed 23 May 2007.

ACS Refugee Camp. "Through Children's Eyes: Children's Rights in Chatila Camp." Last accessed 23 May 2007.

Christoff, Stefan. "Living War: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon." 14 Jan. 2004. Last accessed 23 May 2007. 

CNN. "Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: Facts and Figures." 21 May 2007. Last accessed 23 May 2007.

da Silva, Marina. "Lebanon: The Other Palestinians." Le Monde Diplomatique July 2006, English ed. Last accessed 23 May 2007. 

Harb, Shuruq. "Life Stories: Death of a Pen." 2 June 2005. Across Borders. Last accessed 23 May 2007.

O'Malley, Martin, and Bowman, John. "Palestinian Refugee Camps." 1 Aug. 2002. CBC. Last accessed 23 May 2007.

Refugees Resist. "Stories of Palestinian Refugee Claimants." Stateless & Deported. Last accessed 23 May 2007.

  Hwaa Irfan is the Managing Editor of the Family, Cyber and Parenting Counselor Pages at Islam Online.net.