[News] Why Palestinians are wary of joining Lebanon's protests

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-palestinians-are-wary-joining-lebanons-protests/28811 



  Why Palestinians are wary of joining Lebanon's protests

Amena ElAshkar <https://electronicintifada.net/people/amena-elashkar> - 
5 November 2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Elia Square in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, Nashwa Hammad 
last week stood holding a Palestinian flag in one hand and a Lebanese in 
the other. The freelance journalist was chanting alongside her Lebanese 
friends.

“I am one of very few Palestinians on these protests. But my mother is 
Lebanese, that makes me Lebanese as much as Palestinian,” Hammad, 26, 
told The Electronic Intifada. “I have lived my entire life in Lebanon. I 
was in Lebanese schools. And I never lived in refugee camps. What more 
does it take to be Lebanese?”

As thousands of Lebanese flood public squares in big cities, the role of 
the country’s many different communities will be closely scrutinized. 
Among those communities are Palestinian refugees, so often a lightning 
rod for sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

This is especially true as the protests enter a critical stage after the 
resignation 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/analysis-saad-hariris-resignation-means-lebanon-191029192013901.html>, 
on 29 October of Saad Hariri, the country’s prime minister.

But this time, perhaps, communitarian strife is harder to whip up.

The demonstrations erupted after a series of legislative measures to 
impose new taxes, including one that would have levied a charge to use 
WhatsApp on cellphones.

A week before those proposals were made in parliament, the country faced 
fuel and bread shortages. Together, these proved the final straw for a 
population tired of government mismanagement.

Thus the protests, directed as they are against official corruption and 
incompetence, have united communities that in Lebanon have traditionally 
been seen as estranged.


    Staying cautious

Some chants were directed at Gebran Basel, Lebanon’s foreign minister 
and head of the Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement.

Basel was widely derided as racist in the summer over tweets 
<https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/racist-lebanese-foreign-minister-sparks-twitter-storm-1.64510278> 
that seemed to encourage Lebanese employers not to hire Palestinian or 
Syrian refugees.

“Basel out, out!” protesters chanted, in support of more rights for 
Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Lebanon. “Refugees in, in!”

“Whatever affects the Lebanese people affects us too. Corruption, 
sectarianism and inequality harm all of us,” Hammad said. “My father has 
a Palestinian travel document issued from Egypt. I have to renew my 
permit in Lebanon every few months. But my mother is Lebanese. I am not 
even asking for a Lebanese citizenship, even though I believe it should 
be every woman’s right to pass on her citizenship to her kids.”

Ghassan al-Naji, 29, was in Martyrs’ Square in Beirut on 26 October with 
his Lebanese wife Mariam.

“I am here to support her and her cause,” Ghassan, a social worker, 
said. “We have been coming here nine days in a row now.”

Mariam al-Naji, 25, who is from Beirut, explained why participating in 
the protests was so important for her.

“My boy will grow up in this country and will have no rights whatsoever 
only because his father is Palestinian. This is not fair.”

Nevertheless, in the refugee camps, Palestinians have largely decided to 
keep themselves away from the demonstrations.

“We absolutely support the Lebanese people in their demands.” said Ahmad 
Safadi, 55, a taxi driver from Burj al-Barajne camp. “But we cannot be 
part of their uprising. Given our history in Lebanon, some Lebanese 
parties that are against the uprising would use us as an excuse to 
sabotage the protests.”


    Moments of joy

There have been exceptions to this rule. On 20 October Samir Geagea, 
head of the Maronite Christian Lebanese Forces party announced the 
resignation of his ministers from the Lebanese government in response to 
the protests.

These included the minister of labor, Camille Abousleiman, notorious in 
Palestinian refugee camps for having taken a hard line on preventing the 
employment of refugees.

In July, people saw labor ministry billboards erected that warned 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/jobs-clampdown-stirs-unrest-lebanons-camps/28411> 
– or perhaps urged – entrepreneurs that “your business moves forward 
only by the hands of your country’s sons.”

News of his resignation was therefore met with a celebratory march on 20 
October at the Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp.

Samia Hussein, 49, participated in that march with a mixture of glee and 
relief.

“Of course, we are going to celebrate his resignation. Abousleiman 
wanted to prevent all of us from working in Lebanon. Now he is the one 
who lost his job,” Hussein, a homemaker, said laughing.

Nevertheless, she urged caution on her fellow camp dwellers.

“My heart is loaded with hope seeing all these people demanding reforms, 
but I am not allowing any of my children to participate. We have to be 
prudent. We do not want the scenario of Palestinians in Syria to be 
repeated.”

Hussein said Palestinians in Lebanon are stereotyped as subversives.

“This is why we support [the protesters] from inside our camps. I am 
happy that young women and men are aware of this and are not 
participating. Maybe some Palestinians are but they are mostly 
Palestinians from outside the camps, who are entirely submerged in 
Lebanese society.”

/Amena ElAshkar is a journalist and photographer based in Burj 
al-Barajne refugee camp in Beirut./


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20191106/63bf3af9/attachment.htm>