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The spiritual life of refugees

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” 
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s search for meaning

What does homelessness do to a refugee’s soul? Important as this question is, it has been covered only quite obliquely by humanitarian or anthropological literature – often focusing on radicalization processes of migrant and refugee youth. The link between exile and religious faith is, however, very old, quite deep and extremely varied. As Alexandra Ocasio-Ortez recently reminded all who have ears, “Christ’s family were refugees, too”. Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina, and the asylum he was granted there, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. An old platonic tradition affirms that truth is always a re-discovery, a return home from an exile in ignorance – propelled by the wings of desire. In Eastern and Western literature, the travels and travails of exile have long signified a path towards spiritual reaffirmation, growth or change.

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Humanitarian protection: the glut of “protection messages” as a sign of a wider unease

At the height of the 1982-1985 famine in Ethiopia, a cruel joke was often heard in Spain. A particular European religious leader visits a refugee camp, and seeing a desperate mother holding an emaciated baby, he asks her: What’s wrong with him? Lowering her gaze, she answers, in a barely audible voice: He does not eat! The leader shakes his head, looks reproachingly at the baby and goes, gently pinching his cheek: But you must eat!

Granted, this is a pretty bad one -but mind you, it is not exactly a joke. A message to mothers to prioritize breastfeeding, entirely void of context, featured highly on key messages by an UN agency during the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa. Since the inception of the current protection coordination system, and in particular during emergencies, Protection clusters or sectors regularly produce short, public “key messages” or “protection messages” of highly general context and with limited analysis of causes or culprits of protection problems. They are also in most cases addressed generally to “communities”, or to “government authorities”.

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Flood response in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon – what have we learnt?

After a powerful storm, the Delhamiye plane close to Zahle city is entirely covered by strangely still floodwater. It is already night and the waters reflect the faraway city lights, like a nearby galaxy’s evil twin. A vehicle from the Ministry of Social Affairs lies half sunk in a nearby canal. We are improvising a wooden boards bridge over the roaring canal to rescue more than one hundred refugees from a flooded refugee settlement. Two terrified cats watch the narrow bridge, hesitating. The temperature is dropping quickly but the Syrian children are still taking the whole thing as an adventure, perhaps as an opportunity to see more of the Bekaa valley, to exit the informal refugee settlement from which they rarely travel.

The 2019 winter storms in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, inhabited by more than 360,000 Syrian refugees, have been the worst in many years. They have destroyed crops, flooded refugee sites and forced more than one thousand Syrian refugees to be evacuated to secure camps. Now that they are over, it is a good moment to take stock and learn some lessons from the response.

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Localizing refugee aid in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon

Introduction

The 2016 Grand Bargain for humanitarian work included a commitment to increase support and inclusion of national and local partners in humanitarian response. How has this worked out for UNHCR in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, where we work with some 350,000 Syrian refugees? We have taken a number of measures to increase support and inclusion, including holding as much meetings as possible in Arabic, and establishing separate, dedicated mechanisms to reach out to local NGOs, also in Arabic. I want, however, to concentrate here in our partnerships with national NGOs for the delivery of protection and assistance.

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#MeToo and Syrian refugee women in the Bekaa

A few months ago, #MeToo movement founder Tatiana Burke made a powerful call for sexual abuse victims to organize to provide resources for all who experienced similar trauma – saying that the time has come to put greater focus on the victims, rather than the aggressors.

It is, thus, a good moment to consider how much the momentum generated by the #MeToo movement is reaching the most oppressed women, and how can we help and support their own initiatives. And there is little doubt that refugee women are among the most oppressed communities on Earth, suffering from combined forms of abuse and discrimination.

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Syrian refugees in the Bekaa: helping municipalities ensure stability

A Syrian refugee holds a barefoot child as she walks with a girl through snow at a refugee camp in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Note: this is the longer version of an article recently published in Forced Migration Review. The published version can be found here:

http://www.fmreview.org/syria2018/zapater.html

Tensions in the Bekaa during 2017

The Eastern Lebanese region of the Bekaa, which shares a long border with Syria, hosts currently around 360,000 registered Syrian refugees, representing both the highest absolute number among regions in Lebanon and also the highest proportion of refugees against the local population.

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Has #MeToo reached the aid sector?

Allegations and evidence of sexual misconduct and cover ups by aid workers and organizations, including Oxfam, other NGOs as well as the UN, have recently created a storm of criticism and accusations of hypocrisy, exploitation and colonialism against the aid sector. Public financing is being lost and thousands of citizens are withdrawing their support to their charities of choice. Oxfam chief has claimed that the attacks on the organization “are out of proportion to the level of culpability”, hinting at an anti-aid agenda behind the attacks – thereby unleashing a secondary wave of criticism.

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Disarming hearts and minds: do humanitarians have a role?

 

“We will not stop until all Muslims leave Boda. If this is what it takes, we will poison the wells to kill them all”. We were all sitting with several community leaders in a spacious, high-roofed room at the church of the Central African Republic city of Boda, listening astonished to these words from one community leader, while accompanying a high-level visit from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Next to the speaker was an old, poker faced European priest, calmly looking at the bare stone floor in front of him, his long, wrinkled face showing tiredness but also determination. He did not blink once. Outside, a slow, cold rain had been falling for days on end.

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Death and blessings in the Bekaa

Last Sunday, African diva and feminist mastermind Angélique Kidjo sang in the Baalbek International Festival, at the old Roman ruins at the heart of the restive Lebanese valley of the Bekaa. Kidjo is a fantastic singer and a master of the stage. At the beginning of the concert, it was taking a while for the crowd, with the usual share of sophisticated, urban Beirutis and expatriates, to warm up to the African and Latin rhythms. However, after three or four songs her velvety voice, frenetic dancing and off-kilter jokes had the whole public dancing and singing along. Continue reading “Death and blessings in the Bekaa”

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Humanitarian protection: are we doing a good job?

A few days ago I tried on myself a quick and dirty test to evaluate how effectively we humanitarians use our time. It made a big difference. Here it is:

1.           Measure the time you invest in talking to other humanitarians – e.g. coordination meetings, training, mainstreaming, etc. Humanitarians are here assumed to be people who know their jobs, i.e. you shouldn’t need to invest a lot of time in persuading them to do anything or to stop doing anything.

2.           Measure the time you invest in talking with people you work for: refugees, IDPs, war or disaster affected, etc., or people you really need to persuade to do things or stop doing things: Government officials, insurgent leaders, army commanders.

3.           Compare both times.

4.           Ask yourself if you’re doing a good job.

Good luck!