May 23, 2007

Shatila

I had to do a story in Shatila today.

Going to the camps is always a tremendously humbling experience. For those not familiar with the Palestinian camps; Shatila is a camp which is situated right in between other West-Beirut neighborhoods. Shatila is also well-known for a 1982 massacre.

Shatila was never intended to be a camp, and it was never intended to house over 10,000 people. But there they live, and they do not have any other place to go to, so they really live on top of each other. There is no sign that says “Welcome to Shatila’, there is no fence or gate to indicate you have entered. It is one very poor neighborhood blending into another. One is filled with poor Lebanese, the next one with poor Palestinians. And even those blend.

Bourj Barajneh, 1983

There are some differences. Lebanese police and army do not enter the camps. I’m not sure whether they do not have the right, or whether they have come to an understanding with the Palestinian authorities not do so. But whatever is the case, they do not enter. Another difference is that their Lebanese counterparts are free to go and work wherever they want, whereas the Palestinians are prohibited, in order to protect the Lebanese job market, from a large number of employment. This result in half of the Palestinians having no work whereas the other half does menial and/or cheap labor.

They have little hope for a different future, as the majority of them possess Palestinian papers which cannot function as travel documents. Most of them have lived in squalor like this since 1948. As said before, this creates a situation that is less than desirable.
The vegetable market right outside the camp.

There are some roads in Shatila that will allow cars to pass through, but the majority of the infrastructure consists of narrow alleyways, crooked, like a labyrinth. It is dim, because sunlight does not reach that deep, and the wind does not blow here either. There is a stale smell of humans, refuse and food. Most of the alleyways are less than a meter wide. On both sides iron doors in the wall give access to dark rooms, where people sit on white plastic garden chairs and sleep on mattresses on the floor. I am not making this up, I’ve just come from there. You feel like in a time machine; like you are walking through a medieval town. The Middle Ages revisited. They wouldn’t be able to produce a more authentic set in Hollywood than this one.

I cannot understand how people can live like this; year in and year out. I sometimes wonder how I would feel and think and reason about the world, and this region in particular, if I were to live there for a year, in between the inhabitants of the camp. Would I become a suicide bomber? I think I could be. There really isn’t much else to do with your life anyway.

And while I sit here on my balcony, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in my two-hundred something square meter apartment, I realize that every time I come out of the camps, I am a little different.

Story can be read here here (in Dutch).

In the meantime, there is an interesting web site on the Palestinian exodus.

Update: The two bottom Pictures of Shatila were posted by Reuters yesterday(scroll to the bottom)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Act is most likely the result of aggression, injustice and for dealing with few immoral Lebanese policemen that happens to be neighborhood bullies in police uniforms with their awful competing interests and or just plain old fashion arrogance and in order to ensure the protection of the camps helpless children, women & men as it was essentially for the protection of their well being and dignity

The functions of this Act it self is not fool proof either, assumingly complex in nature, how would one enforce Lebanese laws by not being able to enter the Palestinian camps, how would Lebanese laws or anyone provide protection from the armed personnel’s of who’s who of the Palestinian leadership, commanders and thugs within the Palestinian communities

Anonymous said...

very evocatively written, for someone who does not know the circumstances in the camps! I also read your story in Trouw this morning, but liked the one in your blog more, because it is more personal. I keep reading your blog! anna

Anonymous said...

Dankjewel Anna.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Sietske for posting your recent experience at Shatila Camp in such an evocative way; for me, every time someone writes or speaks about the Palestinian camps, my memory takes me back in time Thirty some years ago when I was a teenager who lived not too far from Shatila “camp”; I would never forgot the misfortune and misery at this Palestinians camp as I witnessed it first hand one day after school when I was visiting a friend who lived there, it started raining, then it was pouring and before you knew these little alleys you described as well their homes were flooded, not only with rain but with everything else that had floated downward toward the low laying camp grounds; I need not to tell you about the overflowing sewer where it is partly open near the vegetable market entrance.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your blog. I read it when I lived in Beirut (I was there from May 2005-May 2006) and just found it again and I find it even more compelling now.

I worked in Chatila and also in Bourj al-Barajneh... speaking of that- have you been to Bourj and Haret Hreik? I need to read further back. I have no idea what happened to my students (I taught English).

I find myself torn between missing Lebanon and being grateful that I don't have to witness what is happening these days.

Thanks again for your writing.

-Amy

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your story. I am reading EXILE by Richard North Patterson - the whole thing is mind boggling.