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Tag Archives: Lebanon

Missing perspective on the refugee crisis

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by marie in Uncategorized

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Europe, Lebanon, refugees, Syria

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar town, make their way towards the Syrian border, on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain, near the Syrian border town of Elierbeh of Al-Hasakah Governorate August 10, 2014. Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq's human rights minister told Reuters on Sunday. The Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, has prompted tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians to flee for their lives during their push to within a 30-minute drive of the Kurdish regional capital Arbil. Picture taken August 10, 2014. REUTERS/Rodi Said (IRAQ - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Refugees have been the overwhelming focus of international headlines from most mass media news sites this week following the widely circulated photo of Aylan Kurdi, and recent hype in European politics over which countries will open their borders and which will not.  The intensity of these highlighted debates would make it seem as though many countries in Europe are swarming with unwanted numbers at an influx exceeding maximum capacity.

This is both an inhumane and distorted depiction.

Of course, the crisis is real for refugees fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries.  The number of asylum applications to Europe in the beginning of 2015 alone has reached around 350,000 (UNHCR, World Bank).  Although the European Union is still struggling to produce a comprehensive solution for refugee distribution, some countries have already declared their responses.  Germany, which is receiving the greatest number of refugees, has agreed to take in 500,000 per year for the next several years.  For a country listed at one of the most populous in the world, this is a generous offer for a leader to make.  David Cameron has proposed to accept 20,000 refugees over the next 5 years, (a pretty scrappy number which translates to 12 people per day), while France has agreed to 24,000 over two years.

These figures prove the urgency of refugees’ need for asylum.  The media hype would have it seem as though Europe is the victim.

In order to shed some light on any given country’s capacity to open its borders to those in need, the example of Lebanon is a good place to start.

Lebanon has long been a host country for refugees, but there has been no precedence in its national history for the concentrated influx of Syrian refugees that have fled to Lebanon since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Figures from the UNHCR showed a total of 1,124,950 registered refugees spread out through the country (UNHCR, 2014), and now the total number has reached around 1,600,000. For a country with a national population of about 4.2 million people, Lebanon has had to absorb one of the largest mass exodus’ of the century for a country its size, bringing its total population to 5.9 million in 2015.

There have been over 1.5 million refugees who have fled Syria into Lebanon over the course of the last four years, a figure equivalent to over 25 percent of the Lebanese population before the start of the crisis (World Bank Lebanon Policy Note, 2013).

To give a reference point, this fact sheet shows the amount of asylum applications the UK has received in the last few years, and shows that only a small percentage of these have actually been granted refugee status.  At the end of 2014, the refugee numbers in the UK totaled to 117,161, a fraction of the 1.6 million that Lebanon has received within its tiny 10,452 square kilometer territory.

And Lebanon’s refugees have barely made even national headlines.  The situation is certainly not ideal.  Lebanon is struggling under political corruption and stalemate that has consequentially translated to all sorts of problems for the population.  The electricity is rationed out to certain unreliable hours per day, there are water shortages and contamination problems, and most recently, Lebanon’s garbage has been left uncollected due to the government’s inability to decide on a new landfill.  Life can be challenging enough for citizens, let alone for refugees without adequate basic resources.

And yet, despite Lebanon’s slew of internal problems, it is still a safe haven for many fleeing from civil war and more dire circumstances.  European countries can look to developing countries like Lebanon to reconsider what is possible.  If anything, Lebanon is ultimate proof that there is no such thing as maximum capacity.  There’s always room for more.

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On My Womb Inhabitant

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by marie in Uncategorized

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dear apples, home, Lebanon, pregnancy, travel

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From two weeks ago

Even in the midst of our whiskey-hazed honeymoon, even flying home to Lebanon and resuming our routines here, even on hikes and walks and during car rides and while visiting with Teta, I was already harboring the secret possibility that there was a little seedling making its slow presence known inside me. I have always wanted children in a very abstract, someday sort of way, but from the moment I began to detect suspicions of a microscopic presence somewhere deep within, my desire became immediate and tangible and fierce. It was all new.

I woke up early on a Saturday morning in May, and took the pregnancy test that C had picked up from the pharmacy the night before. And there it was. Confirmation of what I had already known but not allowed myself to believe. We drove in a cloud of surreal disbelief to a morning assignment I had in Byblos, and C made me laugh the whole time as we joked about the improbable timing of it all. Still I couldn’t allow myself to believe it. In the following days and weeks I ran back to the pharmacy and picked up two more tests to confirm the reality of it, but there was the still the constant fear that I’d lose the baby, and that somehow this unexpected promise was beyond the allowance for joy that the universe had allotted to me. I felt undeserving and small.

Now I am in my 17th week, and I can feel the tight knot of the baby in a small raise of my abdomen. I dream about foods that I’ve rarely wanted in the past: pop tarts and cheeseburgers and salty chips and fizzy drinks (the baby’s taste buds I guess) as well as some old favorites like hot sauce on my eggs and jalepenos and roasted vegetables and tart apples and bananas with nut butter in the mornings (foods that our over-lapping taste buds favor). Old constants like dark chocolate and coffee and beets are no longer quite as appealing.

I am in Lebanon; the baby will be born here and have duel citizenship. I am reluctantly learning about new dangers such as toxoplasmosis, which is mainly contracted through unwashed fruits and vegetables. I am told not to eat produce outside the house, and to wash what I prepare in water and vinegar before I eat. I am told that C-sections are more common than natural deliveries here, and that I should be adamant about what I want for my labor and delivery. People also seem to be a lot more cautious about what exercises I should be refraining from, but I know too many pregnant runners and worker-outers back at home to take too much of that advice to heart. I’ve mostly been doing home exercises coupled with long hilly walks, and more recently the occasional run. The hardest part is being so far from my family.

I have a good doctor, I am surrounded by my wonderful in-laws, and Lebanon is a culture where families pitch in with child-care duties when parents need to get back to work.  I lie down on my back and play the song that I play for this baby every day, and wait to detect butterfly-wing movements.  I bring my tea to the balcony in the morning with my book and read sections out loud to the almost fully developed ears.

Today I walked in the late evening.  I detoured around a new stone road being laid in an old town center whose tired buildings crumbled even as new young vines climbed up their walls.  This is what I can offer my child: the wonder of existence.  An old abandoned path was strewn with weeds sprouting out from the litter.  This idea is comforting; even the parts of me that I’d prefer to be rid of are most often the necessary soil for new life.

I don’t have so many answers to offer or lessons to teach.  All I sense is that I am given a chance to celebrate, every day.  All of it. The struggle of what to pursue next, the ache of loneliness when it comes, the immense love I feel for the people around me, the ironies that hit us, the three little kids who run to the gate to greet me every time I walk past, the anticipation of the future, the lonely neighbor I always need to force myself to talk to, the shock of a cold shower on a hot day, the tedium of sending out applications, the vividness of my pregnant dreams and the return of each morning.    I don’t know what to make of everything and I don’t know how to respond to all the questions that surge up inside me.  Lately it’s been easier to let them surface and sit awhile…but not to be greedy for answers.  Just live inside the unknowns and let life amaze me.  I look forward to the perspective that a child will bring, and to living life through those young eyes that grab hold of discovery.  When depression tempts its way in, doesn’t the world depend on children to remember the joy?

NYC vs. Lebanon

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by marie in Uncategorized

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just because, Lebanon, New York City, sketches, travel

The windows of New York City separate your indoor space, which can be whatever you want it to be, from the crazy throbbing urban energy on the other side.  There are amazing views and interesting people to watch.  I can see the inside of the post office from my window.  The postal workers wake up early and don’t turn the lights off when they leave.  I wave to them from the fire escape sometimes, but they never seem to notice.

window

My work environment has a wonderful aesthetic and is full of pleasant people.  I sit at a light wooden desk, across from my fish and my colleague.

desk

However, I can’t wait to get back to Lebanon.  I am particularly excited to see the early morning coffee drinkers and kaak vendors on the Corniche.  You can walk along the Mediterranean, which smells like fish, salt and pollution.  You will see men passing prayer beads through their fingers while strolling along with their hands behind their backs.  You will hear the cheery sounds of people arguing with each other, and the not so cheery cacophony of traffic horns.

corniche

I can’t wait to go on motorbike rides and fly along mountain roads, and meander through busy Beirut highways.

motorbike

There are always plenty of good things about the here and now, and part of it is the anticipation of wonderful experiences on the horizon.

Beirut

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by marie in everyday poems, Lebanon, travel

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everyday poems, home, Lebanon, travel

DSC00363

Strange how my nostalgia will soon be to
Watch as your old men sit
Steeped in the argileh-smoke of their own reminiscing
They pull up their chairs and set their coffee on the ground
Dreaming of the days before pervasive car-exhaust air
Oh Beirut
Yesterday will always be the sunlight of your today
How else could your bread-cart bikes and fruit-sellers
Find their way from then to now?
How else could the ritz of your Downtowm
Rise from bullet holes?
And if a golden past has given way to an unfamiliar present,
Tell me why does Charles Aznavour return, wrinkled,
To sing for a new generation
While expats come home to seek a future?

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(Written before I left Beirut in 2012, before knowing my life would be permanently tied to Lebanon)

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