Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camps
During the academic year 2000-2001, Betsy Crook's Middle East History class at the American Community School, Beirut, Lebanon undertook an oral history project that included on-site work in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. In advance of their initial visit, the students read short pieces written by Palestinian children living in the camps. Betsy introduced the material in this way:
"In the summer of 1998, Huquq al-Nas (Rights of the People), a supplement of the Lebanese daily al-Nahar, decided to do a special issue on the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. One of the topics to be dealt with was children's rights in the camps.
A graduate student at the American University in Beirut who is a volunteer teacher in Chatila camp, Mayssoun Sukarieh, our contact in the camp and a very nice young woman, was asked to undertake this assignment. She suggested getting the children themselves to write little pieces, each on a particular right they felt was denied them or compromised.....
The following testimonies were written by seventeen children between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Three times a week, these children met with Ms. Sukarieh to study English and Palestinian History at Bayt Atfal al-Sumud, a local NGO that operates nurseries and dental clinics and sponsors other activities for children in the refugee camps in Lebanon." The interviews have also been published (Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. xxix, no.1, Autumn, 1999, 50-57).
Through Children's Eyes: Children's Rights in Chatila Camp
**********************
'I Want to Play, Not Work' by Muhammed Daud, with Mona Zaaroura
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 Muhammed Daud and I'm fourteen years old. I'm in the second intermediate (8th 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 that children play and run 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.
****************
'I'm a Child, but I was Engaged" by Rana Kassem, with Rana al Hassan and Suzanne Abd al Hadi
I'm a girl, who, like most girls in Chatila, became engaged when I was still a child. Last winter I was thirteen, 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 who scares children. Since I was always sick, I managed to rid myself of this nightmare. So, I didn't get married at fourteen like most other girls in Chatila, some of whom 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 ten or thirteen 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 eighteen.
**********
'A Place without Identity, An Identity without a Place' by Mariam Azzouk and Osama Abu al Shaykh
Who are we? Where do we belong? On the refugee card we carry, the Director of Surete Generale certifies that we are Palestinians residing in Lebanon - in other words, that we are Palestinian refugees. We know nothing about Palestine, the place, except the stories we were told by our parents who never even lived there. Palestine has become a place we escape to every time we face a problem in our place of residence, Chatila, or every time we think about our tragedy as refugees. But what's the use of having a Palestinian identity if Palestine the place is not ours? This identity of ours brings us nothing but trouble. In Lebanon we're called refugees and displaced people and we don't have any rights. We are not allowed to travel to any other land on the globe. And if we do travel, we're not allowed to return to our place of residence [in Sept 1995, Palestinian refugees holding Lebanese travel docs were required by governmental decision to obtain exit and re-entry visas if they wished to travel outside the country. This ruling was revoked in Jan 1999. -ed].
But, is the place we live in, Chatila, our identity? Of course not! What can we belong to in Chatila? To the garbage? or to the alleyways that stink of sewage? Why should we belong to Chatila? In Chatila we're only allowed to take menial jobs; in Chatila there's no health care and no education; in Chatila we get sick because of the humidity and the unhygienic conditions; in Chatila we have to buy our water and electricity visits only occasionally; and in Chatila we can't find a place to play or a tree to sit under. And if we want to leave Chatila, we need an exit and reentry permit. In short, in Chatila, we're not treated like people, and we have no future.
So we don't carry the identity of the place we live in, and the identity we carry has no place. Who are we? Will we become Palestinians in the future? Or will we remain refugees stripped of all our human rights until God knows when?
We want an identity that will preserve our dignity and make us feel secure, so when will we get it? We want an identity with a place, so when will we return to Palestine?
*************
'In the Camps, We Die of Minor Illnesses' by Wissam al Ahmas with Mirvat Issa
Two years ago my brother got asthma, which affects many people in the camps because of the unhygienic conditions and the very humid houses, as well as the stench of garbage and sewage. In most places, asthma isn't a serious disease and it's curable if you have the right medicine and treatment. But my brother died of asthma. Why? Because we could only treat him at the clinic reserved for Palestinian people. At those clinics the doctors would give him a prescription without even doing any tests or checkups. So we would go to the pharmacy attached to the clinic and they would say that they didn't have the medication. They told us we would find it at the fancy pharmacies and medicine warehouses. But it would be very expensive and we couldn't afford it. The whole family works just to be able to afford food and rent.
One day my brother's condition got worse, and he needed oxygen in a hospital emergency room. But no hospital would take us. So my brother died because of a minor illness, while our kings don't even die of a major illness like cancer or AIDS. My brother died like most refugees in the camps, from minor illnesses they get because of conditions in the camp: pollution due to the mixing of running water with sewage, or humidity, or the stench of garbage, or poverty and malnutrition.
Should we die simply because we are Palestinians without land and because we are a displaced people without a nationality?
***********
'Why Did Our Parents Die?' by Shadia Abdallah, Muhammed Merhi, and Ola Ghammam
"My parents died in the massacre of Sabra and Chatila." "My father died in prison after being tortured." "My father died of asthma because of the damp conditions at home and the unhygienic conditions in the camp." "My father died during the War of the Camps."
Our parents didn't die natural deaths. They were still young. They died simply because they were Palestinians living in Chatila. They died, but Palestine has yet to return. And we're the ones who have paid the price.
Those of us whose parents died and who live with their grandparents are prevented from going out. Those of us whose mothers died and whose fathers remarried acquired 'aunts' who boss us around and treat us harshly. Those of us whose fathers died and whose mothers started working to provide for the family have been deprived of seeing her and having her affection. Or else their mothers remarried and went to Syria and aren't allowed back into Lebanon to see their children in Chatila. Nor can her children go to visit her without an exit and reentry permit, which Palestinians only dream about.
Our parents died because they were refugees in the camps, and we have remained without providers, What happened to our right of parental care?
*********
'The Chatila Stable - I Mean, School' by Ahmad Shelleyh and Walid Balkis
In our crowded camp there is only one school, Jericho School. If you only knew what Jericho School was like! The number of students per class varies between forty-five and fifty, sometimes even reaching fifty-five. In each class there are twenty-five desks, half of which are not fit for use. We sit three or four to a desk, and our classroom consists only of seats and a blackboard. We study four hours a day and don't have any music or art lessons, no singing or sports. The playground during recess is a crowded as the Day of Judgment, because it's small and our school is packed with students. Jericho, like the rest of the camp and like our homes, doesn't have a library or bookshelves. We never read anything besides our school books.
The teachers don't explain the lessons very well, maybe because of the crowded conditions, since teaching fifty is very different from teaching twenty. We're forbidden to speak, just as we are at home. We don't have the right to defend ourselves when we've been accused of something. The language of force and violence is the language used at school. In each class, there's a monitor whose job is to observe the students and tell on anyone who talks or even breathes. Without waiting to hear the student out, the teachers immediately gives the student a beating. Every word that the student attempts to get out to defend himself means another whack on the hand or even on the head.
Often, the teacher expels students from class as soon as he walks in, because he doesn't like them. He uses all kinds of abusive language. He has a nickname for each of us: "garbage man," "thief," "house painter," and so on. Thanks, teacher, for reminding us of where our future lies. If the teacher sends one of us to the principal, our punishment is suspension without a chance to defend ourselves. The principal advises us to leave school and work as a blacksmith, electrician, or garbage collector (for boys) and as a seamstress, or hairdresser, or domestic servant (for girls).
Our parents don't know anything about how we're educated or what happens in school. Even if they knew, their hands are tied since they can't send us to a posh school. Anyway, they don't have the time to care about our schooling. So they always side with the teachers, who live in the camp, have fifty students per class, and have to work mornings and afternoons. As for us, we're "apes," and "devils," and "unbearable." But is it really our fault?
Sometimes I wonder, Why do the Lebanese even bother to prevent us from practicing certain professions like engineering, medicine, and law, in addition to seventy-three other occupations? After all, Jericho School can only produce garbage men, house painters, and blacksmiths. Those are the only professions that Lebanon allows us to practice. Does anyone seriously think that we'll be able to pursue higher education if we stay in Jericho? I believe that every kid likes to learn, but sometimes the method of teaching is what drives kids to drop out of school and start working.
That's what happens to most kids in the camp. Is it because we're Palestinian kids living in the camp that we're deprived of our rights to learn and our right to a bright future?
**********
"Our Games Can't Take Up Space" by Samar Shaaban, Ismail Zaaroura, and Khodr Attiyeh
Sukkar mukkar la la la
Let's eat, drink, la la la
I put my hand on the stove
I saw my dad and the minister
Going hunting for birds
Damn you Mr. Minister
How you love birds
Sukkar mukka la la la
We repeat this game dozens of times a day, along with the "cow" game and the "fast grain" and the "couch." These are games that we inherited from our parents, and they sometimes help us let off steam and forget our sense of deprivation at not having anywhere to play in Chatila. After the arrival in the camp of Palestinians who had been living in apartment buildings in Raouche [a neighborhood in Beirut] and the arrival of the Syrians [this reference is to Palestinian refugees, who, like others rendered homeless during the Lebanese Civil War, moved into vacant flats in Raouche or other neighborhoods of West Beirut. The Syrians are day laborers who came to Lebanon for work at the end of the civil war and at the beginning of the reconstruction effort. -Ed] the camp became congested with people. We had no place left to play.
Before 1992, there were four playgrounds in the camp; now there's only one. This one has recently been taken over by Syrian soldiers, who use it as a training ground. We're prevented from entering it, unless we get permission from the Syrians, who sometimes throw us out in the middle of a game. So, we're left with alleyways and rooftops. But who ever said that we can play in the alleys? Most of the time, we've hardly started one game when the curses start to pour down on us: "You naughty children! You haven't been brought up properly! Where are your parents? Go play at home!" We even get kicked out of the alleys. The lucky ones go play on their balconies at home - that is if they happen to be boys. The presence of "unsavory characters" in the camp prevents the girls from standing on the balconies. As soon as a girl so much as appears, a whole crowd of young men lines up in the alley below. The camp dwellers start to gossip about her, and her parents force her to stay indoors, where there are no games or toys to pass the time with. That's how girls are left with mopping, sweeping, and ironing, and waiting for a godsend, like a bridegroom, to release her from her prison. Is that just?
********
'Don't I Have a Right To Dream?' written together by the whole group
I dream of a family that could care for me and give me affection and a house outside the camp with a green yard in a place without alleyways. And I dream of finishing my schooling if I should want to and of choosing what I want to be, even if it's a garbage collector. And I dream of having an identity card and of moving to Palestine.
But I'm afraid that my dreams will hit up against the walls of the camp or that they'll get lost among its crooked and narrow alleys or that they'll be polluted by the smell of garbage. I'm afraid when I dream that my dreams will hit up against my reality, my being a Palestinian refugee with no rights. And I ask myself, am I really denied the right to dream? And I ask the world, don't I have the right to dream?
Massacres at Sabra and Shatilla (1982)
Shatila Children and Youth Center
Lebanese Civil War (1975-1989)
***********
American Community School Beirut Page