A TIDAL WAVE of HUMANITY
Millions of displaced Syrians are reshaping the Middle East in a way that will echo around the world. Michael Petrou, this year’s R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellow, travelled to the region to hear the stories of shattered lives. This is the conclusion of a week-long series detailing the human tragedy unfolding.
Turkey has been one of the strongest opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule, and the Syrian war has had an enormous effect on its politics, security and foreign relations. It backs rebel groups fighting against Assad, and last August deployed troops to northern Syria to confront both the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the predominantly Kurdish militias that are ISIL’s most effective foes in the north. Although Turkey has declared a successful end to its campaign, dubbed “Euphrates Shield,” it maintains a military presence in the area.
And yet, of the three countries in the Middle East hosting the most Syrian refugees, Turkey is the least buffeted by the influx.
It is bigger, richer and more populous than Jordan or Lebanon, so the burden is comparatively smaller. And Ankara’s support for opposition groups inside Syria means Turkish authorities are generally sympathetic to Syrians who have fled Assad.
Omar Kadkoy, a research associate at the Ankara think- tank TEPAV, says Turkey is moving toward “a mediumto long- term integration policy” re- garding Syrian refugees. It has accepted that many Syrians will likely stay in Turkey and cannot be kept separate from the rest of the population indefinitely.
Turkey is therefore increasing access to the legal labour market for Syrian refugees — a move that is controversial, Kadkoy says, because of high unemployment rates in areas where Syrian refugees have settled. Already, he says, there are some 5,000 businesses in Turkey that are owned or were established by Syrians. And 10,000 Syrians study in Turkish universities.
Language is a barrier. Most Syrians speak Arabic rather than Turkish. And it can be difficult for older Syrian students who have missed several years of school to integrate into the Turkish public education system.
Some private charitable schools fill that gap. In Reyhanli, the Al Salam School, founded by the Canadian charity The Syrian Kids Foundation, teaches a modified Syrian curriculum — in Arabic, although Turkish and English are also taught. It educates, free of charge, some 1,500 Syrian refugees and has sent two graduates to study at Concordia University in Montreal.
“For a time, my sons were working picking up plastic,” says Ramzi Fatrwi, whose children attend Al Salam. “I put them in school because education is more important than money.”
Fewer than 10 per cent of Turkey’s Syrian refugees live in refugee camps. But conditions in those camps are significantly better than in Lebanon’s informal tent settlements — and indeed in many refugee camps elsewhere in the world. The Turkish government- run Nizip 2 camp near Gaziantep has ground covered in paving stones, a mosque, a school, medical care, a supermarket for which camp residents are given cash vouchers, and a community centre where kids take art classes and adults are taught vocational skills such as sewing.
Turkey’s hospitality, however, is not universal. “They cause problems, the Syrians,” says one resident of Reyhanli. “They have no money, no jobs, no houses. How many can we help?”
But Fatrwi recalls a Turkish man who came to visit him after the two prayed together in the local mosque. The man noticed that Fatrwi and his family were sleeping on the floor, so the next day he brought them mattresses.
“It is enough that they have let us come to their country,” Fatrwi says. “They have done enough. And I want to keep my pride and not ask for anything.”
Lebanon, by contrast, was fragile even before the Syrian civil war disgorged more than one million people into the country.
Syria’s decades- long occupation of Lebanon ended only in 2005. Parts of the Lebanon, including southern Beirut, were pummelled in a 2006 war between Israel and the Shia militia group and political party Hezbollah. More recently, political paralysis left Lebanon without a president for two years, until late last year.
At the best of times, Lebanon is a delicate patchwork of peoples and religions: Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Druze and others. Political power is divided accordingly. It’s done so on demographic assumptions that are now out of date, but no one’s interested in re-counting lest doing so fuels calls to re-shuffle how power is allocated.
That balance has been challenged by the arrival of the Syrian refugees, most of whom are Sunnis.
“If the refugees stay, Sunnis will be the majority. Christians, but also the Druze and the Shia, will emigrate because the Sunnis have an extremist mindset and will eventually take over,” says Diab Madwar, an agricultural worker from the Christian village of Ammiq in the Beqaa Valley.
“Of course, I support Assad. The Syrian people wanted freedom. Now they’ve destroyed their country,” he adds. “And we used to be jealous of them.”
Hezbollah fights in Syria on behalf of Assad. Its supporters are also unhappy about Sunni refugees in Lebanon.
“Why are most of them women and children?” asks Maher Dana, a journalist who works for Hezbollahaffiliated media outlets. “It’s because they have relatives fighting as terrorists inside Syria. That’s why they don’t flee internally. There are safe spaces inside Syria, but most are affiliated with terrorist organizations.”
It is suggested to Dana that Syrians may be leaving the country because they fear what might happen to them if Syrian forces detain them.
“There is definitely some torturing going on,” he says. “This is war and you can’t control everything. And most people being arrested are terrorists. We’re not going to put them in five-star hotels. The Syrian army and Hezbollah are doing a huge favour to humanity because they are fighting terrorism on behalf of the world.”
Anas, a Syrian refugee who lives with six children in a Beirut suburb, worries about sectarian division in her new home. Anas’s hus- band disappeared in Syria, and she is under extreme financial pressure. She gets by on cash-assistance provided by the UNHCR and the World Food Program. (Many NGOs and aid agencies have adopted the practice of distributing money rather than goods or food because it gives refugees the dignity of choice and channels money into local economies.)
Anas and her children previously lived among other Syrians in illegal apartments that were rented to them by a Lebanese landlord. Police raided the flats and she was evicted, losing much of what she had and spending a week homeless before finding a new two- room apartment with help from the UNHCR. She thinks someone in the neighbourhood tipped off the police.
“Because of the raid we feel unwelcome here, especially because most of our neighbours are Christians and we are Muslim,” she says. “I didn’t feel hostility before, but now I feel like the Lebanese are looking at us differently. We stay at home and don’t go out. If we need groceries, we go out at night.”
Beneath the religious tension, there are often more temporal concerns. “They took all the jobs because their rates are lower than what Lebanese charge, so Lebanese farm owners hire them. And they eat cheap food: sugar, tea, bread, lentils. Lebanese can’t eat like that,” says Karim Farah, who lives in Ammiq.
Michelle Cameron, Canada’s ambassador to Lebanon, says: “When it comes down to the fabric of Lebanon, we’re not concerned based on different religions. We’re concerned about social cohesion.”
Factors that might cause those ties to tear include competition over employment and services. She says much of the programming Canada funds in Lebanon aims to strengthen social bonds by targeting both refugees and members of host communities.
Canadian aid and development funding in Lebanon is given to UN agencies or NGOs, not the Lebanese government. Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon’s government hinders Canada’s relationship with it. “They are a terrorist organization and we have a no-contact policy,” Cameron says.
But Ottawa is supporting the Lebanese military. Canadian soldiers will soon be conducting training. And in June, Canada donated more than $ 4 million worth of winter clothing and mountain- climbing gear to help Lebanese soldiers secure the country’s border with Syria. “Building up a strong Lebanese armed forces means there is no argument for having a Lebanese paramilitary force in the country,” says Cameron, referring to Hezbollah.
Canada gives $15 million to UNICEF in Lebanon to help bolster the country’s education system, including improving schools and paying them to educate kids in two shifts so that large numbers of Syrian refugee students can be accommodated.
But research by the American University of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs suggests 61 per cent of school-age Syrian refugees in Lebanon are not in school, and that dropout rates for refugees in public schools may reach 70 per cent due to factors such as language ( much of Lebanese public education is in French or English), financial costs, bullying and adaptation difficulties.
MY SONS WERE WORKING PICKING UP PLASTIC. I PUT THEM IN SCHOOL BECAUSE EDUCATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY. IT IS ENOUGH (LEBANON) HAS LET US COME TO THEIR COUNTRY. THEY HAVE DONE ENOUGH. (I DON’T WANT TO) ASK FOR ANYTHING. — RAMZI FATRWI They cause problems, the Syrians. They have no money, no jobs, no houses. How many can we help?
IT’S BECOMING MORE LIKE FORCED LABOUR. THEY ARE AFRAID TO CLAIM THEIR RIGHTS. IF YOU ARE A SYRIAN WORKING FOR ME AND I DON’T PAY YOU AT THE END OF THE MONTH, WHAT CAN YOU DO? YOUR LEGAL STATUS IS AMBIGUOUS. — AYMAN HALASEH, AMMAN PROFESSOR
It’s where I was raised. It’s my homeland. YUSUF, 11
“You’re creating a segment of Syrian society that is stuck in a vicious circle of poverty and non- education,” says Nasser Yassin, director of research at the institute.
UN officials say the neglect is not intentional. Indeed, the task Lebanon faces because of the refugees it has absorbed is overwhelming.
That Lebanon has not buckled under these stresses is due to effective municipal governments and civil society groups, help from NGOs and the work that Lebanon’s agricultural sector provides for so many Syrians, says Yassin.
These factors probably have a shelf- life, he adds. Lebanon will become more vulnerable as the Syrian war grinds on.
Jordan, highly exposed to the repercussions of the Syrian war and refugee crisis, has been damaged by it. It is poor. Its trading economy has been devastated. Resources are taxed. Jordanians complain about competing with Syrians for work.
Last year, an ISIL suicide car bomb killed seven Jordanian soldiers on the border with Syria, prompting Jordan to close that border and stranding tens of thousands of Syrians in a makeshift camp on the frontier. Ten people, including a Canadian woman, also died in an attack in the town of Qatraneh, for which ISIL claimed responsibility.
And while Jordan is a member of the international coalition fighting ISIL, some 2,000 Jordanians have joined the group. A source close to the Jordanian government says Jordan isn’t too bothered by this, seeing the outflow as a way to get rid of jihadists.
Still, Jordan is relatively stable. Its intelligence services are competent. The country enjoys close relations with several Western nations, including Canada, which is currently conducting a military training mission in Jordan.
And, unlike Lebanon, Jordan receives direct funding from Canada. Since 2015, Canada has allocated at least $ 30 million in refugee- related funding to the Jordanian government. It has gone toward programming that aims to improve Jordan’s education system.
Canada has also given Jordan military supplies, including wet weather gear for its soldiers, and material for the construction of “defensive structures” along Jordan’s border with Syria to help prevent incursions by ISIL.
Peter MacDougall, Canada’s ambassador to Jordan, describes Canada’s aid to Jordan as humanitarian and strategic: “If Jordan was to tip over, you’d have even greater instability in the region. Our presence here is to provide stability for Jordan in ways we can help them respond to the tremendous pressures that the refugee crisis is putting on the country.”
But according to Ayman Halaseh, a professor of human rights and international public law at Al-Isra University in Amman, a factor inhibiting refugees from contributing to Jordan’s economic growth is the lack of protection against exploitation they receive from the state.
“It’s becoming more like forced labour,” he says. “They are afraid to claim their rights. If you are a Syrian working for me and I don’t pay you at the end of the month, what can you do? Your legal status is ambiguous.”
The result is that many Syrians who might have had highly skilled jobs in Syria are working in Jordan for low wages or under the table.
“Don’t think because we live like this we were poor,” says Abed Abdulhamid, a car mechanic from a village near Darayya. He now lives with his family in a small east Amman apartment and works as a security guard and general custodian.
“Oh, if I could have hosted you in Syria, you would have seen my workshop and our house. It has two storeys and a big garden.”
After Abdulhamid’s 14- year- old brother was shot by a sniper as he carried bread home from a neighbourhood bakery, he left Syria. His wife has three brothers of her own who are missing or dead.
“We want you to know we had no choice,” he says of leaving Syria. “We fled for the sake of our kids.”
Prime Minister Trudeau’s decision to increase the number of Syrian refugees Canada would accept for resettlement, and to make that policy a cornerstone of his public image, was a deft political move.
The refugees are screened abroad, diminishing the security risk they might present to Canada, and the numbers admitted to Canada, compared with those now in Germany, let alone in Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan, are tiny.
Trudeau’s embrace of the Syrian newcomers, when compared to the xenophobic nativism prevailing elsewhere in the world, helped cement his image as a global champion of pluralism.
“While that is a great story, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that Canada’s engagement must not stop at resettlement,” Trudeau told a UN conference last year, after a panel moderator mentioned Trudeau personally greeting arriving Syrians at Pearson Airport in Toronto.
Here was an acknowledgment that the real impact of the Syrian refugee crisis is not in Canada, but the Middle East. And while the amount of money Canada spends on foreign aid as a percentage of Gross National Income is now near historic lows, the $1.1 billion in aid and development Canada is spending in the countries most affected by the Syrian war and the refugees it has produced is significant.
It is also a diversion — a good deed that obscures the fact little has been done to address why Syrians left their homes in the first place.
“Syrians are blamed for being refugees,” says Mahmoud Haman, a Syrian exile in Turkey, “but the reason why we are refugees is not blamed.”
The reason he and so many other Syrians are refugees is, of course, the civil war. Far more Syrians have fled Assad’s forces than those of ISIL, and the Syrian regime and its Russian ally have killed more Syrians than any other party in the civil war.
Until recently, this fact wasn’t enough for Trudeau’s government to explicitly call for Assad’s departure.
“From our perspective, it has to be a Syrian-led initiative. It has to be what the Syrian people want. This isn’t Canada or other groups saying ‘ thou shalt’ or ‘ thou must,’ ” Cameron, Canada’s ambassador to Lebanon, said in a March interview, adding: “If we have free and fair elections, I personally could not imagine that the Syrian people would vote to keep Assad in power.”
That was before a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province in April. More than 70 people, including children, were gassed to death. Canada, the United States and most of their allies believe Assad’s regime was responsible. Syria and Russia denied involvement.
U. S. President Donald Trump responded by launching 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase. Days later, Trudeau, speaking at Juno Beach, where Canadian troops began the liberation of Western Europe during the Second World War, said the world needs “to move as quickly as possible toward peace and stability in Syria that does not include Bashar al-Assad.”
It’s unclear what, if anything, Canada is prepared to do to bring this about. Certainly, Canada can do little unilaterally, and Trump’s policy on Syria, if he has one, is difficult to discern.
But even if Canada will not act to hasten Assad’s downfall, it is nonetheless preparing for it.
Trudeau’s Liberal government, like Stephen Harper’s Conservative one before it, funds the Commission for International Justice and Ac- countability, an investigative body that gathers evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Syrian civil war, and in other conflicts, with a view toward prosecuting the perpetrators.
Bill Wiley, its Canadian founder and executive director, says the group has spirited out of Syria more than 700,000 pages of documents related to Syrian government activities. He says the evidence they have compiled implicating the regime in war crimes and other atrocities is strong.
Yet the day when Assad might face justice still seems far off, and so, therefore, does a time when Syria’s displaced might return. This means the instability and social tensions caused by the refugee crisis, in the Middle East and beyond, will persist.
So, too, will the cumulative life disruptions, personal tragedies and disappointments suffered by the refugees themselves.
At the Haya Cultural Center in a suburb of Amman, refugee and Jordanian kids together learn drama, dancing and other activities in a program funded by the Canadian government through the charity World Vision Canada.
They recently performed a play. It’s a story about a young boy who is forced to leave his home and who struggles in the country to which he flees, where he is scorned and beaten up.
The plot is a metaphor for the experience of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Yusuf, the 11-year-old Syrian refugee who plays the part of the protagonist, says he sees himself in the story.
“It was a chance for me to tell others what happened to me,” he says of his acting role. “I wanted them to feel how I felt when I came here. So I had to try really hard.”
In the play, the boy comes to the aid of those who had tormented him, and they reconcile. It’s not that different from Yusuf’s own experience in Jordan. He says he had a difficult time when he arrived and got into several fights with Jordanian boys before becoming friends with them.
The play could conclude happily there, but that’s not how it ends. The boy’s new friends help him go home. Yusuf wants the same thing.
“It’s where I was raised,” he says of Syria. “It’s my homeland.”