Syrian Displacement: Neither Peoples Nor Causes

When the Nakba occurred in Palestine in 1948, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled to neighboring countries, most of the host peoples and countries received them in two ways: On the one hand, pledging ad nauseam to liberate Palestine and return it to the Palestinian ‘brethren,’ and to return them to Palestine; and on the other hand, subjecting the displaced ‘brethren’ to bad and humiliating living conditions, marked from time to time by overt oppression.

The conduct exposed the discourse, and demonstrated that the matter had nothing to do with any “brotherhood” or so-called cause. Palestine, at the level of discourse, strengthened certain communities in the host countries at the expense of others, and intimidated weak communities who now feared other communities in countries that had a weak and fragile fabric. For this reason, it was required for the political discourse to give it a spacious and solid space, whether in adopting or rejecting it, before the nascent military regimes put their hands on it and proceeded to exploit it.

Concerning conduct, other factors more linked to the facts of life came into play. Here, in addition to narrow factional concerns, a xenophobic culture spread among almost everyone, in addition to stances related to work, housing, and living conditions, which segments of the local population almost always tend to blame shortfalls and deficiencies in on strangers.

In discourse, the Palestinians were brothers whose cause was our national and sacred cause. In conduct, they were strangers, while the actual issue was to benefit from their cause when it appeared useful, and ignore it when it appeared harmful.

Something like this is happening in Lebanon, not in the communities that are against the Syrian revolution, but in the communities that support it, sometimes enthusiastically. Indeed, it is no longer an exception or an anomaly for support for the revolution to be accompanied with reservations about the Syrian refugees, sometimes amounting to hostility and repressive and persecutory practices.

We, in this sense, are on the side of the Syrian ‘brethren’ there. We want them to win against tyranny and enjoy a better tomorrow in their country. However, we are against the ‘mischievous’ Syrians here, and do not want them to enjoy any decent day in our country, or spare them a tyranny that we grace them with sporadically.

This, in light of the influx of refugees resulting from the Syrian catastrophe, in parallel with a sharp crisis blighting entire economies in the region, goes beyond the scope of accusations of racism. Or in other words, that accusation, which is often true, is not enough to diagnose the problem in its many complexities, just like it fails to move from discursive construction to provide useful suggestions.

But the most important outcome resulting from Syrian displacement in this regard, is perhaps not that much different from the outcome of Palestinian displacement.

Indeed we, in this part of the world, do not have “causes” except inasmuch as we coalesce into “peoples.” This requires, when trying to understand the Sunni sectarian sympathy with the Syrian revolution, some bad faith equivalent to the bad faith in understanding Shiite sectarian sympathy with the Syrian regime.

We are a graveyard for causes and meanings, and the test of the relationship with the Syrians in Lebanon only confirms this. Pity the Syrian victims who discover this reality in their country, then seek refuge in our country to rediscover it in different names and titles.

alhayat