From Syria to Sweden: The story of Stateless Syrian Palestinian in search for Identity
More than 2.8 million Syrians have been forced to leave their country so far. The vast majority of them remaining in neighboring countries, such as Turkey (764,000), Lebanon (1,093,069) and Jordan (597,328), according to the UN Refugee Agency. They are often living in dire conditions because countries like Lebanon and Jordan are already under extreme economic and political strain. Few others went seeking refuge in Europe. However, Europe has only granted asylum to 89,000 people. Though Europe is failing refugees from Syria , Sweden is one of the few European countries to offer permanent residence to Syrians arriving at its borders.
Salim
Salamah, found refuge in Sweden after fleeing Syria to Lebanon. I met Salim few
weeks ago in Malmo, the most densely populated area in Scandinavia, but
he wasn’t a mere Syrian refugee. While he was introducing himself, he was not
sure if he should say a “Syrian-Palestinian”, “Palestinian from Syria”,
“refugee in Sweden”, becoming “Swedish” or maybe just a human being! As I was
confidently introducing myself as a Tunisian African and explaining more about
my Africanism, he smiled and replied: “I like that you clearly know who you are
because I am still in search for my identity”.
This complex identity of him dates back to his family’s
displacement in 1948 following the Nakba that expelled Palestinians
from their homes. He was then born 1989 and
raised in Yarmouk refugee camp, a historical Palestinian neighborhood
established in Damascus during the 50s. At the age of 24, Salim found himself a
refugee “again” and as he says “the journey continues…”
Images and dates have been engraved in his memory because of their
atrocities… “28th October 2013 I left Syria…Taking that decision
wasn’t easy! Because there will be no soon return to Damascus”. Getting into
severe depression during his last few weeks in Syria, he was afraid of loosing
himself by “not doing any good” for himself or his country.
A decision has been made because of the suffocation of a peaceful
movement yearned for freedom. “From March to September, the movement was
pacifist then the security became so tight that we couldn’t move around
anymore…people had to fire back and when that happened, I couldn’t have a place
for myself there! because I didn’t want to die or kill”.
Life in Damascus has become a nightmare for him with the
checkpoints…“Day after day, moving within and outside Yarmouk has become
difficult as between two checkpoints, there is another one, so you will never
know who will stop you and when you will be arrested! It was just like jumping
into the fire”.
The regime then operated an organized process to get rid of
activists like Salim, by arresting, torturing or constantly threatening them. “It was a slow death of the civil resistance
and peaceful social movement, I was at risk as everybody was!” Beside
demonstrating, campaigning, and being part of political gatherings, Salim’s
special crime was blogging and telling jokes about the Syrian army. His poem “A day in Damascus”, says “passing by
the checkpoint, I spit on it to return some of my dignity” and that was accused
by the Syrian authorities as undermining the “prestige
of the state”.
Once moved to Beirut for almost four months, Salim tried to
recover from war trauma and reconnect again… “breathe again” by writing poetry.
Despite dealing with his own healing process, Salim was managing a project with
Al Ghawth
organization in Syria. “Unfortunately the project ended after few months
because we didn’t get the needed funding as international donors and NGOs were
not interested in finding partners to respond to the urgent need of Syrian
communities and kids under war but more interested to enslave organizations for
their own agendas”
Travelled for the first time in his entire life outside Syria and
Lebanon, he finally arrived to Sweden on 14th February 2012. “When I
arrived, I was surprised with the snow and the dark short days”. It took
sometime for him to adopt with the new weather, language, space, currency, lifestyle and to
understand “the strange situation” in
order to find his way in the new place. Despite the terrible situation in
Syria, there is an ongoing debate about the legitimacy of the choice of
activists who fled the country to seek refuge in the United States and
Scandinavia. Salim has clearly made this choice as an “individual salvation”…
“I claimed political asylum because I can’t basically go anywhere as
Palestinian from Syria but I made it to Sweden because I was just lucky!”
It is indeed a special case for
the Palestinians from Syria. When the UN adopted the Refugee
Convention and established the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, it excluded
those falling within the UNRWA mandate from coverage under UNHCR's mandate. “Outside UNRWA-mandate
area, which is Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, or the West Bank and Gaza Strip, we are without protection”. A concrete
example of Salim’s frustration is the recent case of the four Palestinian Syrian activists detained in Sri Lanka few weeks ago. “UNHCR Sri Lanka refused to
give a statement on the issue. Husam, Muhammad, Ali and Baha are now at Buddha military prison where they have been badly treated
psychologically and physically”. Recently, Palestinians
fleeing Syria are denied help even in Lebanon. Sadly, the tragic cases of Palestinian-Syrian refugees
continue, not only in the global north, but even in the Arab region and
especially in countries that sparked the revolutions in the region such as Tunisia,
Egypt among
other countries.. “in Damascus, we were celebrating the day Ben Ali fled
Tunisia, today when Syrian Palestinians arrived to Tunis, they remained stuck
in Carthage airport with no support”...
As the spokesman of the Human
Rights Palestinian League, Salim
closely follows these cases and releases statements to
support Syrian Palestinians without national or international protection. Having the advantage to understand
better such situation, Salim found himself working with refugees though he aims
to work more with youth and children. Beside joining the executive board of the
Human Rights Palestinian League earlier this year, he helps a Swedish
organization in group development of coming refugees, especially in terms of
communication with Arabic and French speaking refugees from Syria and African
countries.
“I’m still sad, frustrated… because of this ongoing war that is
rewarding to international community powers and Syrian regime rather than the
Syrian people but working with people here is also rewarding …”
Partially recovered from the war trauma … Salim regained his life, strength and energy
back and that what keeps him moving
forward in empowering himself and others.
I contacted Salim again today to ask him of what today, the World
Refugees Day, would mean to him as a refugee. He immediately answered “you
know… once you are a refugee, you are a refugee forever, at least for myself”.
He then took some silent moments and recalled the quotes of his friend Homi
Bhabha “the globe shrinks for those who own it… but for the displaced or
dispossessed, the migrant or refugee, no distance is more awesome than the few
feet across borders or frontiers” … then he continues “Today I achieved my few
feet, and if I can make one more human being achieve those few feet, I will
help!”
Having his family arrived to Sweden six months ago, Salim now
feels more safe, something he hasn’t felt for a while. Still hard for him to be
disconnected “twice” from where he belongs… then to be asked to belong
somewhere else… “I don’t identify myself as a citizen of any place…” at least
his confusion has gone since our first conversation a month ago and now he can
confidently identity himself as human being or citizen of the world…
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