Realities of Refugees

It's relatively easy to be a distant and detached witness to history. As I read various news sources each day, I am constantly reminded of the important events -- often in distant places -- that are nonetheless shaping the world in which my daughters will live in a few decades. The dizzying array of events in the Middle East in recent years play themselves out on a daily basis in the pages of the world's leading newspapers. Even when I read about these events from afar and think about their impact on the world, it is easy to see them in a disembodied, dehumanized kind of way. Sometimes, in the midst of thinking about the long-term consequences and patterns, I can lose track of how these same events are turning the lives of individuals and communities upside down. 

Today was one of those days when the sheer reality and human consequence of great events becomes so tangible as to become nearly suffocating. 

Lebanon is a small country of four million people wedged between Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The nation is stunning in its diversity and its natural beauty. Mount Lebanon rises above Beirut and divides the coastal plane from the long Beqaa Valley in the interior, along the Syrian border. The Beqaa is a place of stunning beauty, flanked by mountain ranges on both sides and filled with beautiful farms, lush orchards, and towns and villages with diverse religious identities. 

When I last visited the Beqaa, the view from a familiar spot was one of villages and towns, roads and farms stretching to the Syrian frontier. Today, that view is slightly different, punctuated by hundreds of small white dwelling places in clusters across the Beqaa. 

These dwellings belong to a large portion of the nearly two million Syrian refugees that have flooded into Lebanon and continue to arrive by the thousands as the conflict continues to deepen. Think a bit about those numbers -- two million refugees in a nation of 4 million. Into a nation that was occupied by the Syrian army for nearly 30 years. A nation still emerging from the terror of a 25-year-long civil war. A nation experiencing significant internal political, economic, social, and religious tensions. 

The refugees themselves are diverse, some fleeing the Syrian government, with others fleeing the Free Syrian Army. They represent Muslims and Christians of nearly every type and stripe, both urban and rural, rich and poor, old and young, highly educated and illiterate. Some with financial resources are living "on the market," renting homes, apartments, rooms, and hovels. Market forces have driven rents and many other prices up by two-three times, impacting not only refugees but the Lebanese population as a whole. 

Others live in tent cities popping up on across the Beqaa. I visited one of these places today, assisted (in a very minimal way) in the distribution of food aid, and visited a displaced family in their makeshift home. Even more than the concrete conditions I saw today, I am sheerly stunned by the scope and scale and human impact of what I saw. Words, frankly, fail. 

In some ways, those I saw today are fortunate ones. I heard other stories of family members of friends living moment to moment, knowing that their home could be hit by a mortar at any moment. I was told of fields and olive groves being burned by fast-moving, foreign-fueled armies of fundamentalists. I heard a brother and sister speaking in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, as they attempted to find their bearings in Lebanon, having experienced the grace of kind Lebanese who have taken them in. They have lost everything, including their tight-knit, ancient village that has endured for millennia. 

One cannot help but feel powerless. Contrite. Humbled. Angry. Aware. Fearful. Vulnerable. Human. 

Misunderstanding

The title of "misunderstanding" could, in many ways, stand at the top of many an article or reflection on the Middle East. Although western societies have spent immense time and effort seeking to better understand the Arab world and the broader Middle East over the past couple of decades, it seems to me that not a lot of this has flowed down to the level of popular understanding. In some ways, the quest to better understand this part of the world parallels in part the US investment in study of the Soviet Union in the 1940s onward. This earlier quest produced some of the great centers of study of Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, etc., that continue to function at places like Indiana University, where I had the privilege to study. Despite years of meaningful and insightful work designed in part to inform public understanding, simpler narratives seem to have prevailed in popular understanding. Perhaps that is just the way of things in this world. Simpler narratives are unquestionably easier to digest. 

A view over Beirut with the Mediterranean in the background

I travel to a lot of interesting places. But few raise eyebrows more than Lebanon. It seems that the popular conception of this place is one of a battered, war-torn Middle Eastern metropolis. Not all that long ago, this was true as the city rose from the ashes of their civil war. Yet Beirut historically and today is one of the world's most cosmopolitan and arguably most beautiful cities with variegated, intersecting cultures. Contrary to a lot of popular understanding in the West, Lebanon is in many ways the center of Arab Christianity. For many years, Lebanon's identity was defined by its predominantly Christian population. This has changed as demographics have shifted toward Muslims since the establishment of huge Palestinian camps in the south of Lebanon after 1948. The delicate balance of power between the Christian population, and large Sunni and Shia Muslim populations (along with others - Druze, Alawite, etc.) has been the defining element of Lebanon since World War II. 

Beirut and Lebanon are, it seem to me, some of the more misunderstood places on earth. Perhaps it is the enduring images of the Lebanese Civil War that endured from 1975-1990 or the iconic images of the bombing of the US marine barracks in 1983 that conjure a prevailing understanding of chaos, disorder, and extreme religious strife. Granted -- chaos, disorder, and extreme religious strife do constitute a significant part of Lebanon's history and culture, especially during my lifetime. Yet even this tension arises out of the incredible diversity and cosmopolitan nature of this beautiful land.