Sawt al Niswa | صوت النسوة - Refugees

Declaration of Insanity

deema kaedbey — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:25:04 +0000

Najwa Sabra

Three years ago, I came to Germany as a student. As of a year ago, I started working in Hamburg as an outreach social worker. In my daily personal and professional interactions, I experience firsthand and witness racist macro- and micro-aggressions, be they subtle, systematic, well intended or backhanded. In the following text, I try to reflect on these aggressions, on the phrases I heard that have stayed with me and still occupy me, and on the violent space that Germany – and Europe – has become.

I am no longer able to remain sane in the face of systematic violence.

Violent waiting rooms, they eat at me. Doctors’ clinics and hospitals, ministries, administrations and “aliens’” offices. The stares. The shifting tones with the shifting colors. “We’ve been here for two months; this is so hard. Three years of war in Aleppo weren’t as hard.” And the little 4-year old girl pushes her head deeper into her mother’s lap and pulls her jacket over her head, ignoring the smiles and waves of strangers in the bus. “She’s just a little sick. She’s tired and hungry; we didn’t expect such a long wait. Baba, tell the nice lady how old you are! Tell her!”

Waiting is a systematic tool of cruelty. I become a bit less human every time I wait at a red light when I can clearly see that there are no cars. So I cross with a skip in my step. I feel like a gladiator who just won his fight against dehumanization, and each time I wonder whether behind their stares of disapproval, people standing on both sides of the road, waiting, are in reality very impressed.

“In Germany, we don’t do things this way. You have to learn that, if you want to live here”. Learn won’t you? Learn the impossible language, learn how not to offend anyone, and learn your place. Learn not to seem entitled or ungrateful. Smile and say thank you. Be the poster refugee for Germany’s Willkommenskultur.*

But the psychiatrist says “this 7 year old child is at the moment incapable of learning.” After a year of waiting for his parents and brother to join from Yarmouk, he lost his focus. “Mrs. X, stop asking about your residency process! You should be grateful that meanwhile, you and your grandson get to live here in safety,” they say. And I wonder whether this room full of social workers and educators have ever heard of survivor’s guilt. Have they ever survived anything?

“Did you come through Italy or Greece?” I…I came in an airplane from Beirut. “By plane! If only we could have come by plane. We could’ve all come together. There was no place on the boat for my parents and my brother.” I should disappear now.

And because at the end of each day I forget how to breathe, I try talking about it. Naming the insanity, pointing at the violence. “You should position yourself clearly!” my colleague says, “remember, you don’t operate alone. You’re part of an institution.” And I burst out crying. I am part of an institution! How could I have ever allowed my social work to be associated with the German government and its many arms? This doesn’t help, I say. “Can you believe in the universal powers? that there are forces outside of you, that you do not carry the responsibility by yourself?” reformulates the work therapist. Are they kidding me? “I brought my cat with me from Lebanon. My cat traveled with me by plane,” is the only answer I can think of.

And you know it’s bad when no amount of cat videos can cheer you, and no silly series can numb your mind long enough to help you fall asleep. I am instead tempted to click on pseudo-scientific Facebook links: “7 subtle signs of depression you shouldn’t ignore.” But I live a life of privilege. I am not depressed. I am simply no longer able to justify sanity in the face of systematic violence. And I hate those who try to rationalize my anxieties, to help me “think” my way out of them.

I could probably grow a thicker skin. But my skin is still marked with a thousand scars from that one day, a year and a half ago. This will be the last time they silence me and sheepishly protect the abuser, I thought. So I shouted, and I screamed at them, and I cried and fell apart. And I called for my mom because no one else could make it better. Then I woke up to a spotted body. “It’s an auto-immune disease. Your body mistakes you for the enemy and attacks you, leaving these marks on your skin.” My body isn’t making any mistakes: bodies have the right to revolt against the systematic violence we submit them to. I apologized repeatedly, promised to be kinder, but my body was not in a forgiving mood.

Like my body, I am overwhelmed by the million subtle brutalities of everyday’s life, the absolute terror of the new normality. I write about it in a foreign language because I cannot allow myself to “feel” it in Arabic without breaking to pieces. Insanity could be my way out. To no longer be expected to have a good night sleep, eat well and function. To finally face the world the way we should all be facing it: with utter contempt and revolt.

* Wilkommenskultur: Literally “ Welcoming Culture” or “a Culture of Welcome,” a term used in Germany in association with the recent arrival of refugees.

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Sawt al Niswa

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Opinions

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hereandthere/من هنا وهناك

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Teta Sabra and Falasteen: this is a randomly generated history

deema kaedbey — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:00:00 +0000

سارة اميلين ابو غزال

Teta Sabra

It was 1992, in a small apartment in west Beirut. I had developed an attachment for men with thick beards surrounded by the yellowiest flowers one’s memory could preserve. Later I learned it was called “marj el zohor.” Much later I realized it was the first understanding of an extended Palestine I had developed, that my own little small existence continues in reverse, passing through these men in the fields, all the way to Palestine. I had composed a song for these men, a song that my mother made me entertain her guests with, a song about Marej El Zohor.

These are some of the early memories I have about connecting with the bigger and more extended Palestine. And for many years Palestine was about going in the Eid to visit “Teta Sabra”, my grandmother who lived somewhere around Sabra and Shatila, not really in the mokhayem, but not completely out of its range.

Teta Sabra’s version of Palestine had remained a sealed mystery, something that I still regret . How come I never asked her about her own version of the story? All I know about Palestine was narrated by my Sidi (grandfather) to his children, in which I assume they have passed it along, censoring many of the inconveniences that made their lives easier and their traumas lighter. Everyone must survive in the end of the day.

Falasteen

I find myself in need of not losing these memories, in connecting them together, building a narrative of where I come from. Sidi had told the story to his children, and his children never shared it again. I don’t know if the story was too complicated to be re told, if it was a humiliating burden on them. What I know of my history is details in incomplete bits and pieces, few sentences stolen from conversations here and there. I remember that Baba, despite his love of Falasteen, had this fear of those who worked for its liberation, including his sister.

I’m Palestinian and like all Palestinians, when I say her name, I get a choke-like feeling in my throat, and most probably my shoulders widen and my face gets a serious expression. I don’t know what that means though, being Palestinian. I know it means that I experience the world differently, I can shift through many stereotypes, from a victim all the way to a freedom fighter, that my sense of nationalism doesn’t serve only Palestinians but it serves one of the greatest battles of this world, the battle between good and evil. But I don’t what it means to be Palestinian away from these constructions, off TV screens, speeches, gadgets and songs. I don’t know what does being a Palestinian between oneself and to one’s self.

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Sawt al' Niswa

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Story

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Palestinian Fairies Project

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Uncivil Rights for Palestinians: Women's Voices

deema kaedbey — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Sonya Knox

On August 17, 2010 the Lebanese Parliament passed the latest version of a “civil rights” bill for Palestinian refugees. Rather uncivil than civil, the bill maintains the official, state-sanctified racism against Palestinian refugees. While it is no longer illegal for Palestinians to work in menial jobs, the new law continues to ban Palestinian refugees from syndicated white collar professions (like doctor, lawyer, engineer, dentist), and continues to ban them from owning property (a right which was taken away from them in 2001) and from inheriting any property bought before 2001.

This was not the version of the bill that should have passed. Earlier bills, proposed this June, would have granted Palestinian refugees in Lebanon – foreign residents for over 60 years – the right to work in any profession, to own and inherit land, and to access the National Social Security Fund. The version that passed was not the bill advocated for by the Campaign for Civil Rights for Palestinians, by the Right to Work Campaign and the Campaign for Employability of Palestinians. It certainly is not what concerned activists and NGOs have been fighting for since the end of the Lebanese Civil War. In fact, it’s not even similar to the bills that were originally proposed to Parliament.

It is hardly surprising that Lebanese politicians have yet again chosen to reinforce the most racist, discriminatory and basest sentiments in society – fear-mongering and protectionism are invariably more popular than progressive social development theory or basic human rights. What was surprising was that, for a brief moment, Lebanon could have started on the path to becoming a different place: a country where skills and not wasta is rewarded, a society where institutionalized racism is no longer defended, a place people want to stay in, invest in, rather than flee.

Over the past few days I’ve talked with friends and colleagues who live in the camps, second and third generation Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, and asked them what they thought of the latest “civil rights” bill and how their lives might have changed had they really been granted civil rights. These are their words.

Rasha, 17, Bourj al Shemali^¹

I never get it, right, I never get why the Lebanese think I would want to stay here. Look, it’s not like I have a choice. Do you really think that 60 years ago my grandparents were like, “Oh, we’re bored of Nablus, what we want to do is leave behind all our money and the house and the family business and go live in this dirty, crowded camp where we can’t work”?!

Look, if I could go someplace else, I would. But I can’t. They don’t give visas to 17 year-old refugee girls. And they don’t let us do anything here. My brother has been trying to find work for like years, he has a computer degree from the university here, and when he applies, they tell him, “We don’t hire Palestinians.”

But I don’t understand why the Lebanese punish us. I mean, ok, the civil war – and I know what happened, I watched all of 7arb Lubnan – but that wasn’t me. I wasn’t even born yet. I’ve done nothing wrong.

But, yeah, when they were like the government is going to let us work like everyone else, I had this idea. See, I’m studying accounting now. It’s fine, but I don’t really like it. What I want to study is Arabic literature, the old classics and poetry. There’s no way that’s going to happen, because I don’t even have the baccalaureate, and then how would I get the money to study? How would I convince my family to pay so I can study something like that? But then, like, if we had the right to work, then I could become an Arabic teacher – not in UNRWA – but at a university. And then I could work, too, and help out. But we don’t have the right to work. So nevermind.

Layla, 38, Bourj al Barajneh

I never believed it would happen. I’ve lived here my whole life, I know how the Lebanese think, and I never believed they would give us rights. They’re scared, it’s a society of fear. They’re scared of each other, so they blame us, they punish us and put the army around the camps and make sure we can’t work decent jobs. And if, somehow, we actually manage to make some money, we can’t invest it back into Lebanon, because we can’t buy property.

So of course I knew the bill wouldn’t pass. Because being Lebanese means being racist, and they’re not ready to change. Look, we all know that it makes more sense to have Palestinians working here than all the other foreign workers. Because we live here, so whatever money we earn, we spend here. The money stays in Lebanon. We already pay the VAT and it’s not like we get any Lebanese health or education services. So this bill, it’s not a logical response, it’s just racist.

But what, what if all that was dropped? What if we could work anywhere, build anywhere, not be presumed guilty and have to worry every time we see the Army? Then I wouldn’t see everything always closed-off. I wouldn’t feel so choked. I would say, “Ok, good, now we can get to work and make something of ourselves here and work hard, so that we’ll be strong when we go back to Palestine.”

Dania, 24, Beddawi

I broke off my engagement last month. I don’t know why, something happened to me and I can’t be happy with him. So it’s bad, it’s really bad right now because it was kitbil kitab and now we have to pay his family a lot of money. My parents tell me it’s ok, that they don’t want me to be this upset, that they support me. But I’m scared and I’m upset and I want to get a job. I don’t want my parents paying the money of the divorce, I want to pay it off.

So, yes, I want a job. I have a civil engineering degree. I have a degree from the Lebanese University in English literature. And I speak English well. Do you think I’m going to find any work? There isn’t anything in the camp that pays well – even the international NGOs are stopping their work here. And Tripoli? Do you really think anyone would hire a Palestinian in Tripoli?

When they said that they were going to change the laws, you know, to give us rights, I thought that maybe things would get better. I know it would take time, but that yes, there would be opportunities. My father could open a store, I could work in an engineering firm, things would be better. But nothing’s changed, and I still need a job.

1 Names and places are all changed

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Sawt al' Niswa

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Opinions

Category:

palestinian refugees in Lebanon

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A Call for Submissions: Palestinian Fairies Project

Pascale Ghazaly — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Share and exchange stories of Palestine and womenhood

Sara Emiline AbuGhazal

Sawt Al Niswa is launching a new page that seeks to explore the intersections between Palestine and Womanhood. We’re looking for all sorts of submissions, written and otherwise ( film, poetry, photography, and music etc.), to express your reflections and experiences in this area.

There are a lot of different angles that you can approach this from; we’re looking to add more richness to the subject of Palestine Woman-ness by collecting a diversity of ideas, approaches and artistic interpretations. Some ideas for topics include: Palestinian Women Oral History, BDS and feminism, Women and Resistance… there are plenty of interesting and unique ideas in our heads about this subject, because all of us here in one way or another have experienced it in intense ways. We just need to develop these ideas so that others can see, hear or read them and we can make some fairies magic ;)

Writings can be submitted in Arabic, English or French.

Submissions should be sent to tamara@sawtalniswa.com or editor@sawtalniswa.com. Please drop us an email if you’d like to have a conversation about this. Perhaps you have some thoughts as to how we should go about the project, feel something tickling in your gut when you hear about these two issues being patched together and you want to talk about it, questions about submissions etc…

Find the official description of the Palestinian Fairies Project here

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

hereandthere/من هنا وهناك

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