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.

Another India

It has been a short six years since I first visited India. Yet the pace of change in most of the major cities of this nation is nothing short of astounding. My earlier post on Gurgaon -- a test-case in unbridled globalization -- represents that increasingly globally integrated, English-speaking, wealthier India. That world comprises tens or perhaps a couple of hundreds of millions of others who are some how caught up in a world that increasingly includes cars, shopping markets and malls, restaurant culture, and the like. It is a very influential part of India. 

But there is another India. It is the India of the many hundreds of millions. It disappears only in those most elite gated enclaves of the wealthy in the biggest cities. Elsewhere, it is woven continually into the ever-changing fabric of this nation. It is the barefoot sixteen-year old carrying a ton of grain in bags on the back of a bicycle cart, weaving amidst the traffic of a major city or on a busy highway. It is the hardened migrant laborer from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh sipping a cup of tea from a flimsy plastic cup beneath a tree with coworkers after a long day's work. It is the sprawling slums where even a cursory glance reveals things that are truly hard to see. 

Few places raise more questions for me about justice, politics, and economics than India. Simple solutions just don't fit.

Streets of the old city of Ahmedabad

But there's another more subtle and more beautiful divide in India as well. It is the divide between the "old India" and the "new India." This is, no doubt, a hopelessly simplistic device employed by an inexperienced foreigner. The city of Amritsar was for me quintessentially "old India," an India that I have seen in numerous places, but rarely on the scale of a whole city of 1.5M. I can only describe it as about a billion moving pieces and parts that all appear ready to fall in upon one another at any moment. But they do not. They just keep moving, flowing, pulsing. Like many North Indian cities, Amritsar's old city is surrounded by the remains of a city wall, with numerous gates issuing in various directions. Within the old city (and to some extent throughout it) streets are narrow lanes shadowed by ancient 3-4 story buildings, many in a state of seemingly continual ruin and rebirth. The streets flow with cars, horse carts, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, bicycles, motorbikes, and pedestrians. The goods of thousands of tiny shops spill out into the street and vendors cook every imaginable treat over hot flames and oil. 

One of many varieties of transport in India

The "new India" is the traffic-choked streets and highways of Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, with their new flyovers and freeways. It is the world of overcrowded parking lots in popular restaurant districts, of efficient and timely transportation options. It is the new frontiers of social networking that are everywhere in India. It is the India of "progress." 

The lines between these worlds are not sharp. Elements of the old India that are quaint and beautiful butt up against things that are so unjust as to label them deplorable, if not evil. And then the rickshaw driver's mobile phone rings and the "new India" bursts into the picture. Just as lines between worlds are not sharp, value judgements seem very difficult to make, not just for this outsider, but for Indians themselves. Who doesn't value the economic development of the last 20 years in terms of opportunities it has afforded to middle-class Indians and even the slight boost given to some of the poor? Yet it's hard to avoid simultaneous questions that wonder about the effects of these changes on community, communality, and culture. As is so often the case, such questions are hardly unique to India.

A rural scene in Punjab

The Golden Temple

One of the highlights of this Indian trip was a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. 

The Golden Temple is the center of the Sikh religion that is dominant in parts of the Punjab. There are about 26 million Sikhs living worldwide. One of the most readily identifiable markers of a Sikh is the turban worn by most Sikh men. Sikh rulers once controlled a large part of what is now northwest India and Pakistan before their Empire was defeated by the British in the mid-19th century. 

The Golden Temple surrounded by the "tank"

Today, the Golden Temple is to a Sikh what the Vatican is to Catholics and Mecca is to Muslims. Sikhs come from all over India and from large Sikh communities in America, Canada, and Europe to venerate the Sikh holy books that are in the Golden Temple. I read and heard in several places that it is not unusual for 100,000 people to visit the shrine on a given day. I find it believable, given my experience. 

A man taking a ritual dip in the holy tank

One begins the visit by storing your shoes in a massive and well-coordinated shoe-storage warehouse. You then trek through market stalls toward the entrance to the temple. Along the way, Both men and women are expected to cover their hair and enter the temple with completely bare feet. As you enter, you are asked by large Sikh guards in resplendent regalia and holding spears to wash your feet in a narrow stream. You then descend steps into the courtyard of the Temple itself. It is a huge affair, at least the size of a football field. The Temple sits in the middle, surrounded by a large tank of water that reflects the golden cupolas. Sikh men bathe in the tank, while Sikh women go to a special covered section for ladies. The faithful line up to enter the Temple itself and venerate the sacred Granth, or holy books. The words of the holy book are sung continuously, with words displayed in both Punjabi and English on giant screens in the corners. 

Crowded streets outside the temple

One of the striking things about visiting the Temple is the openness of it. While certain regulations are clearly enforced by spear-wielding Sikhs, the general atmosphere is one of relaxation and sharing the beauty of the place, Sikh or not. A free meal is always available to anyone who comes, and I'm told tens of thousands are fed daily. This openness allows for appreciation of the architecture and beauty of the place, another study in the complexity that is religion in India and South Asia. 

The Grand Trunk Road

I spent a good part of the day today on the Grand Trunk Road, traveling between Chandigarh and Amritsar in the Indian state of Punjab. 

Map of the Grand Trunk Road (from Wikipedia)

The Grand Trunk Road is an ancient highway, stretching from Kabul, Afghanistan over the Khyber Pass into Pakistan and then down through North India and Bangladesh to the port city of Chittagong. Overall, the road stretches 2,500 kilometers or 1,600 miles. The route we took today is a particularly interesting piece of the "GT Road," connecting Ludhiana and Amritsar in the far northwest of India. This was once a part of the busy highway connecting Delhi and Lahore, the capital city of the Raj Province of Punjab before the Partitions of 1947. The border crossing at Wagah now divides what was once a united province. Northbound traffic leaving Amritsar appears to be quite light. Lahore is so very close, yet at the same time so very far away. 

The Lahori Gate, Amritsar

The GT Road ranges from modern four-lane freeway to two-lane highway. Buses, cars, trucks, tractors, bicycle carts, and every other imaginable form of transportation jockeys for position continuously. Our bus seemed to be honking its horn more than it wasn't. It's an elaborate dance whose steps I have most certainly not learned.

Sunset over a river along the way

Impressions of Delhi

Delhi is, without question, one of the world's great cities. It seems that it has gained the swagger and self-assurance of the capital of a powerful nation combined with a business and cultural center. By some measures, it is the world's second largest metropolitan area after Tokyo, with a population of 22 million. Regardless of how you measure, it is a "mega-city" defined. It is a dizzying place. 

Some impressions:

It still is not clear to me exactly where the line is between [old] Delhi and New Delhi. Despite the fact that one seems to flow into the other, they stand in startling contrast, at least on the surface. Old Delhi is marked by its maze of narrow streets, ancient homes and mosques, and the domination of the Jamaa Masjid (one of the largest mosques in Asia) and the Red Fort (the home of the Mughal Emperors). To be honest, I don't think I can imagine a thing that I could see in Old Delhi that would surprise me. 

The gate of the Red Fort in Old Delhi

New Delhi, by contrast, is an intensely linear place. It was designed by British architects after the capital of the Raj was moved from Calcutta in 1911. Much of New Delhi still bears the imprint of the preparations for the Delhi Durbar of 1910, when King George V and Queen Mary visited India to be crowned Emperor and Empress of the greatest jewel of their Empire. New Delhi is dominated by the Rajpath, a broad avenue that stretches from the Presidential Palace and Parliament buildings to the India Gate. It has a bit of a feel of the Champs Elysees, but with a much more austere feeling that comes from the stone buildings built in a combination of European and Indian classical styles. 

One of the buildings of the Secretariat in New Delhi

Delhi is an inherently multi-lingual place. Roads are signed in four languages: Hindi, English, Punjabi, and Urdu, all of which are written in their own distinct scripts.  Punjabi represents the presence in Delhi of large number of Hindu Punjabis who migrated to Delhi following the Partition. It seems that it is not without some meaning that Urdu falls at the bottom of the list (more below). Although there are parts of Delhi where one sees nothing but English (wealthier areas of South Delhi, especially), the language of the street is without question Hindi. It seems that it would be difficult to nearly impossible to live in this metropolis without knowledge of that language.

A quadrilingual sign in New Delhi

Delhi in many ways represents a clash of cultures. Although there are a few sites in the city that relate to Hinduism, the vast majority of the cultural patrimony is Islamic, as Delhi was the capital of a state ruled by Muslims from the 12th century until the early 19th. Nowhere is this more clear than in the Red Fort, which epitomizes the blending of South Asian and Islamic architectural traditions that reached their zenith in the Taj Mahal. I found it a bit sad that many of the architectural and other treasures of the Red Fort are in very poor repair. Sixteenth century illuminated manuscripts and 18th century robes decay before your eyes in a museum space that is not air conditioned. I don't think that this is due exclusively to a lack of resources, as I have visited a number of museums and historical sites in India that are preserved in a world-class way. Perhaps this disrepair has more to do with the dissonance between this Islamic architecture and a growing vision of Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) that sees Muslims only as invaders, rather than a vision that sees the complex interplay of numerous religions in the formation of modern India? 

Throne Chamber - the Mughal Palace

The courtyard of the Mughal Palace - Delhi

It sounds cliche to suggest that Delhi is a place of contrast, but it is really impossible to overstate. The contrast between the expensive global shops of Connaught Place in central New Delhi and the squalid slums lining the train tracks leading out of the city could not be starker.

A slum on the edge of Delhi

Gurgaon, India

Delhi is one of those global mega-cities that pushes most of the boundaries of comprehension of what a city can be. Although this is my fourth visit to Delhi, it is my first of any substance or duration. One of the most striking things is the endless pulse of flowing traffic. This is not the kind of "flow" that one sees in those time-lapsed photos of Los Angeles freeways that show seemingly endless neat rows of headlights and taillights flowing down a broad freeway. It is a much more syncopated and unstructured dance of modern cars, Indian-made Ambassador taxis and government cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, and the occasional cow, camel, or temple elephant. The actual infrastructure on which this flow happens may not look all that much different from Los Angeles after the infrastructure boom of recent years, but the pace and rhythm of that flow is a world away. 

The new Gurgaon (from wikipedia)

We spent most of yesterday in meetings in the city of Gurgaon, which adjoins the city of Delhi in the neighboring state of Haryana. Located 35 kilometers from central Delhi, it was once a free-standing small town in Haryana state. The endless spread of the megacity of Delhi has engulfed it, leading to population growth from about 800,000 in 2001 to over 1.5 million today (in a Delhi metropolitan area of 22 million). The presence of Indira Gandhi International Airport, one of the busiest in Asia, between Delhi and Gurgaon, has led to the city becoming a hub for any number of multinational corporations. The night sky over Gurgaon is lit by gleaming names of almost any multi-national you can think of on the tops of an ever-growing number of skyscrapers. Because of the presence of so many offices and the relatively breezier climate outside of Delhi, Gurgaon has become the home of many of the wealthiest and most powerful of India. Apartments in prime locations regularly start at around US$300k. 

Yet a drive down the main roadways of Gurgaon shows another India as well. Along one street, a row of small mud-huts lined the road. Women cooked over open fires and sold vegetables, while others were carrying water from some distant source. A small, informal market in all manner of goods existed in a tangle of tables, and bullock carts. Behind this rose multiple brand new glass towers, gated and guarded, with well-dressed Indian ladies and men coming and going. A world of contrasts indeed. 

Contrasts in Gurgaon