M.Sc. Thesis
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
University of Amsterdam
MARIEKE SCHÖNING
Student number: 10965246
25 AUGUST 2016
TO BE OR NOT TO BE POLITICAL
Questions to international development discourse
through an investigation of active youth citizenship
among young, educated Syrians in Beirut
Graduate School of Social Sciences
MSc International Development StudiesThesis
To be or not to be political:
Questions to international development discourse through an investigation of active youth citizenship among young, educated Syrians in Beirut
25 August 2016
Marieke Schöning
Student number: 10965246 mariekeschoening@gmail.com
Word count: 30.882
Cover photo: Martyrs’ Square in Beirut during a rally on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Syrian uprisings, by M. Schöning, March 2016
Thesis supervision and evaluation
Supervisor:
Dr. Jacobijn Olthoff
Department of Pedagogy, Educational Science and Teacher Training University of Amsterdam Nieuwe Achtergracht 166 1018 WV Amsterdam The Netherlands j.olthoff@uva.nl Second reader: Dr. Martijn Dekker
Department of Political Sciences University of Amsterdam Nieuwe Achtergracht 166 1018 WV Amsterdam The Netherlands m.dekker3@uva.nl
ﺕﺭﺭﻗﻭ ﺔﻳ ِّﺭﺣﻟﺍ ﺔﺟﺍ ّﺭﺩ ﻰﻠﻋ َﻡﻟﺎﻌﻟﺍ َﻑﻭﻁﺃ ﻥﺃ.. ﺔِّﻳﻋﺭﺷﻟﺍ ِﺭﻳﻏ ِﺔﻘﻳﺭﻁﻟﺍ ِﺱﻔﻧﺑﻭ ﺭﻓﺎﺳﺗ ﺎﻣﺩﻧﻋ ﺢﻳﺭﻟﺍ ﺎﻬﻠﻣﻌﺗﺳﺗ ﻲﺗﻟﺍ.. ﻲﻧﻭﻟَﺄﺳ ﺍﺫﺇﻭ ﻲﻧﺍﻭﻧُﻋ ﻥﻋ ﺔﻔ ِﺻﺭﻷﺍ ِّﻝﻛ َﻥﺍﻭﻧﻋ ﻡﻬُﺗﻳﻁﻋﺃ ًﺎﻣﺋﺍﺩ ًﺎﻧﺎﻛﻣ ﺎﻬﺗﺭﺗﺧﺍ ﻲﺗﻟﺍ ﻲﺗﻣﺎﻗﻹ . ﻲﻗﺍﺭﻭﺃ ﻥﻋ ﻲﻧﻭﻟﺄﺳ ﺍﺫﺇﻭ ﻲﺗﺑﻳﺑﺣ ﺎﻳ ، ِﻙﻳﻧﻳﻋ ﻡُﻬُﺗﻳﺭﺃ.. ّﺭﻣﺃ ﻲﻧﻭﻛ َﺭَﺗَﻓ.. ِﻙﻳﻧﻳﻋ ﻥﺋﺍﺩﻣ ﻲﻓ ﺭﻔﺳﻟﺍ ﱠﻥﺃ َﻥﻭﻓﺭﻌﻳ ﻡﻬﻧﻷ.. ﻡﻟﺎﻌﻟﺍ ﻲﻓ َﻥﻳﻁﺍﻭﻣﻟﺍ ﻊﻳﻣﺟ ﻖﺣ ﻥﻣ And I decided to go Round the world on freedom's bicycle By ways illegal As the travels of wind. When asked for my address I give the address of all sidewalks I chose as permanent residence. When asked for my papers, I show them your eyes And am allowed to pass For they know that travel in the cities of your eyes, my dear, Is the right of all world citizens.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to express deep gratitude towards my research respondents, without whom the following pages would have remained blank. They were immensely generous to share their precious time, and really touched me with their kindness and readiness to help. I sincerely hope to have portrayed their thoughts in a way they will appreciate.
I furthermore thank all the other indispensable people in Beirut, directly or indirectly linked to the fact that my fieldwork period was full of enriching experiences, intellectual challenges, and pure joy. I have benefited greatly from the inspiring atmosphere at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and the exchange with so many dedicated colleagues. I am especially thankful for the kind supervision of my internship and research hints by Nadine Ghalayini and Hana Addam El-Ghali. A special thanks to Maja Janmyr, Malay Firoz, and Daniel Masterson for sharing their experiences and providing guidance and moral support in times of doubt. Nur Turkmani, thank you for leading me to IFI – and therefore Beirut – in the first place and for your curiosity and friendship. Genevieve Wenger, you were a great help through generously sharing contacts, as well as Nour Shams who even bridged my insufficient Arabic language skills at times. You made Beirut special to me, alongside Mouayad, Mohamed, David, Wajiha, Mahmoud, Abdallah, Salim, Fadol, Elena, Laura, Yasr, Cyril, Abboudi, Rami, and many more.
I am grateful for the patience, honesty, and trust with which my thesis supervisor, Jacobijn Olthoff, has guided me throughout the process. Your thorough comments and pleasant pragmatism paved the way for this thesis. The whole project might never have ended in Beirut, was it not for Martijn Dekker, my much appreciated second reader. Thank you for your genuine interest, and your manifold hints.
I am indebted to Jonathan Teoh for his rigorous, but encouraging review of the thesis draft and for his steadfast support and patience, often on short notice. Likewise, my thanks go to my class mates who made ‘everything awesome as part of a team’ – Adam, Kathi, Ruth, Zuleikha, Sam, Audrey, Jake, Woody, Bea, Katerina, Anna, Sharmin, and Chay.
Finally, I could have done nothing of this without my parents, who would themselves deserve a Master’s degree for their unconditional love and unwavering faith in me. I am thankful every day that I am born into such a supportive and loving family.
i
Abstract
The international development sector places hopes on active young citizens around the globe to advance their respective societies and the international community. Mainstream international development discourse therefore tends to transport an affirmative vision of active youth citizenship as individual obligation among highly educated youth, in coherence with the idea of global citizenship. In the context of displacement, however, the realms of citizenship and citizen identity become contested. This thesis investigates how and why young, educated Syrians in Beirut engage in the aid sector for refugees from Syria in Lebanon. By juxtaposing their subjective interpretations of the engagement with assumptions in international development discourse, the thesis highlights how substantive practices of active youth citizenship intertwine with abstract discursive structures. The thesis draws on empirical data in the form of in-depth interviews and participant observations, collected during a fieldwork period of eleven weeks in Beirut.
The thesis shows that the engagements under investigation constitute not necessarily conscious instances of active youth citizenship, which are grounded in self-interested motives and two forms of citizen identification. The respondents considered themselves Syrian as well as global citizens, and understood their engagements as stemming from both civil commitment towards fellow Syrians and the idea of universal human rights. What was striking was that the engagements were framed as apolitical, because ‘being political’ was assessed as either undesirable or impossible within the local context and the internationalised aid sector. These depoliticising circumstances contradict what international development discourse purports regarding active youth citizenship, and jeopardise the efforts of young Syrians. This thesis therefore concludes that the interdependent international interventions in the Syrian crisis disregard the potential of the legitimate gatekeeping role of young, educated Syrians for processes of reconciliation and inclusive development. Such long-term issues are largely overlooked in the climate of constant emergency surrounding current research on Syria.
Keywords: Syria; Lebanon; forced displacement; active youth citizenship; identity; international
ii
A note on language
The transcription of Arabic words followed the guidelines of the International Journal of Middle
Eastern Studies. Names of places and people adhere to their common spellings in English
publications.
American English spelling was contained in direct quotations from the literature, while the thesis generally follows the orthographic rules of British English.
Acronyms and Abbreviations
AUB American University of Beirut CSG Civil society group
CV Curriculum vitae
FPM Free Patriotic Movement
FSA Free Syrian Army
IDP Internally displaced person
IFI Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs INGO International nongovernmental organisation
LC Local Council
LCC Local Coordination Committee LCRP Lebanon Crisis Response Plan NGO Nongovernmental organisation PLO Palestine Liberation Organisation PRS Palestinian refugee from Syria USA, US United States of America
UN United Nations
iii
Glossary
Arab Uprisings Common term for a series of protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011
Ashrafieh District of Beirut
Baʿth Party State party in the Syrian Arab Republic, led by current president Bashar al-Assad
Beqaa valley Region in eastern Lebanon, bordering Syria, which hosts a large number of refugees fromSyria
Burj Barajneh Name of one of three refugee camps for Palestinians in Beirut
Cedar Revolution Non-violent protests in Lebanon in 2005, which eventually ended the Syrian military occupation of Lebanon
Dāʿish Arabic acronym for the Islamist group also known as Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL
French Mandate Colonial occupation of Lebanon from 1920-1946 Gemmayze District of Beirut
Green Line Informal border that divided the city of Beirut into a Muslim West and Christian East during the Lebanese civil war
Hamra District of Beirut
Hizbullah Shiʿi Islamist organisation, based in Lebanon
Mar Elias Name of one of three refugee camps for Palestinians in Beirut Mar Mikhael District of Beirut
March 8 Political faction in Lebanon, supportive of the current Syrian government March 14 Political faction in Lebanon, adversarial to the current Syrian government
Mukhābarāt Intelligence services in Syria
Muslim Brotherhood Sunni Islamist organisation, politically active in several countries of the Middle East and North Africa
al-Nakba Expulsion of the Palestinian population from their lands and the related ethnic cleansing in 1948,
Shabiyyḥa Informal militias at the service of the current Syrian government Shiʿi Sect within the Islamic religion
Shatila Name of one of three refugee camps for Palestinians in Beirut Sunni Sect within the Islamic religion
Table of Contents
Abstract i
A note on language ii
Acronyms and Abbreviations ii
Glossary iii
1. Introduction... 2
1.1 Problem statement ... 2
1.2 Relevance ... 4
1.3 Trajectory of the research project ... 8
2. Contextual Background ... 9
2.1 Contemporary relations between Lebanon and Syria ... 9
2.2 Crisis in Syria, 2011-2016 ... 13
2.3 The current refugee situation in Lebanon ... 17
2.4 A snapshot of Beirut ... 20
3. Theoretical framework ... 22
3.1 Active citizenship ... 22
3.2 Multilayered citizen identities ... 26
3.3 International development discourse on active youth citizenship ... 29
4. Research design and methodology ... 34
4.1 Research question ... 34
4.2 Conceptual scheme ... 35
4.3 Data collection ... 36
4.3.1 Sampling strategy and research population ... 36
4.3.2 Methods ... 39
In-depth interviews ... 39
Participant observation ... 40
4.5 Epistemological stance ... 42
1
5. Engagements in the aid sector as a form of active citizenship ... 46
5.1 Young, educated Syrians in Beirut and their engagements for Syrian refugees... 46
5.2 Motivations to engage ... 48
5.3 The engagements as active citizenship ... 53
6. The antithesis of being political ... 56
6.1 Being political in the local context ... 56
6.2 Perceptions of politics within the internationalised aid sector ... 60
6.3 Questions to international development discourse on active youth citizenship ... 64
7. Conclusion ... 67
7.1 Main findings ... 67
7.2 Theoretical and practical conclusions ... 68
7.3 Future research ... 70
2 1. Introduction
This thesis is about young, educated Syrians in Beirut, who actively engage in the aid sector which aims to support refugees from Syria in Lebanon. I am interested in how they personally interpret their own engagements with respect to questions of active citizenship, and what these interpretations may reveal about mainstream international development discourse that commonly promotes active youth citizenship.
The thesis is composed of five main chapters, nestled in two shorter sections of introduction and conclusion. The first three chapters establish a basis of core information by addressing contextual background, theoretical framework, and methodology of the research project. The ensuing two chapters elaborate on the empirical data, which was collected during a fieldwork period of eleven weeks in Beirut between the end of January and April 2016. These chapters analytically link the empirical data with the theoretical groundwork.
In the following introduction, I outline the research’s problem statement, relevance and scope. This section also makes explicit how the fieldwork was anticipated and adapted to the realities encountered.
1.1Problem statement
In its fifth year, there is still no end in sight for the war in Syria. The humanitarian situation in the whole region gradually worsens due to the displacement of at least five million people, for the most part hosted by Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt.1 While international peace
talks continue to fail, a dichotomy has begun to consolidate, in which the Syrian government under president Bashar al-Assad – evidentially responsible for the bulk of deaths among civilians2 – is increasingly portrayed as an ally in a global ‘war on terror’. In its combat against
ﺵﻋﺍﺩ
Dāʿish3and other Islamist groups, the West seems to (re)approach a regime that has for a
1 Population figures stem from the online Inter-Agency Information Sharing Portal provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 2016). Numbers are estimated to be considerably higher due to the incomplete nature of formal UNHCR registrations. The countries above host the highest numbers of registered refugees in descending order. This thesis had no capacities to take the even larger numbers of 6.6 million internally displaced people (IDPs) within Syria into account (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2016).
2 See a summary of data from the Syrian Network for Human Rights here:
http://whoiskillingciviliansinsyria.org/.
3 Dāʿish is the transliterated Arabic acronym for the Islamist group known as Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL in Western media.
3 long time exerted terror and oppression upon its people. This international dimension of the conflict neglects its origins as a non-violent uprising of the exhausted Syrian population against an authoritarian system, which has been in place for more than 45 years (Abboud, 2016). As is the general case for the 2011 uprisings throughout the Arab world, the young, educated segments of the population played a leading role in calling for social justice and substantive rights in Syria (Khouri & Lopez, 2011). These findings align with a common topos in international development discourse that constructs youths as agents of change. This indicates that the international development community places at least implicit hopes and demands for ending the conflict and rebuilding a stable, prosperous Syria upon the nation’s young, educated citizens – be they now inside or outside of the country.4 At the same time, their capabilities to act
politically are highly restrained in the context of displacement. Arendt (1968) has famously stated that it is not the loss of territorial, but political space that deprives refugees most gravely, since being a refugee entails the loss of citizenship status and as such the “deprivation of a place in the world which makes opinions significant and actions effective” (296). This thesis adopts her keynote for the broader context of displacement, without applying the legal framework that defines the term refugee, as has been done most influentially in the United Nations’ (UN) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees from 1951. The deprivation of political space however holds true for the matter of displacements in general. This is owed to the fact that current systems of national and transnational governance are based on a conception in which the nation state remains the superior political community that per se legitimates itself through the in- and exclusion of citizens and non-citizens (Mehta & Napier-Moore, 2010). International dealings with displacement – spearheaded by UNHCR – are thereafter based on the premise that “citizenship is a path to human development” (Gabiam, 2015, 496).
Turning back to the specific context of this thesis, Lebanon hosts the highest number of displaced Syrians per capita. In fact, given historically close ties between both countries, many Syrians had already migrated to Lebanon prior to the outbreak of the war. This diversity in socioeconomic backgrounds among Syrians in Lebanon is rarely perceived from outside the region; Western media predominantly portrays Syrians in Lebanon homogenously as war refugees in dire circumstances. To the contrary, Chatty (2015) has found that many Syrians in Lebanon do not see themselves as refugees, even if they were displaced by the conflict. This thesis has to see the concept refugee as fluid and situational; lines blurred when investigating linkages between Syrians from different socioeconomic layers of society who are eventually all displaced or restricted in their citizenship rights tied to their Syrian nationality. Since this thesis examines aid for refugees from Syria in Lebanon, the label refugee entails a combination of
4 Based on the research design, Syrian implies both formal citizenship and a subjective identification as Syrian.
4 displacement and socioeconomic hardship, derived from the need to resort to the respective aid provision. This classification was not employed to marginalise those already disadvantaged by socioeconomic measures further, but seemed necessary for making adequate use of the empirical data, as the research respondents drew this demarcation themselves without signs of contempt.5
Aid is a controversial term to define. What is important is that aid has little to do with
starry-eyed charity. It bears reciprocal features, which will be further clarified in the theoretical framework in Chapter 3. I attempted to encompass everything from individual forms of solidarity to a professionalised response. Since all my interlocutors were somehow linked to institutionalised entities in the form of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), I understand the engagements as situated within the aid sector for refugees in Lebanon, which includes local and international nongovernmental organisations (INGOs), among others that could not be considered further.
Indeed, many inhabitants of Lebanon – Lebanese as well as Syrians – endure grave socioeconomic deprivation, deriving both from the government’s inability to provide adequate services – a problem which existed already prior to the refugee influx (Hokayem, 2013) – as well as the insufficiency of the international humanitarian response. What can be observed under these circumstances is that many Syrian students or young professionals, whom are often based in Beirut, personally engage in the aid sector to ease the plight of other Syrians. This seems to be a new form of social solidarity among Syrian citizens, particularly remarkable given that earlier research depicts the absence of Syrian civil society and reluctant civic engagement among youth before 2011.6 The question arises if and how this engagement is a form of active youth
citizenship. This thesis thus investigates how young, educated Syrians in Beirut interpret their engagements and the aid sector in Lebanon. This aims to provide a deeper understanding of how questions of active citizenship unfold locally within the internationalised aid sector in the context of displacement.7
1.2Relevance
This section argues for the relevance of this thesis by presenting seven vital points of thought. Coming to the first point, Heater (1999) has proposed six intertwined factors for the increasing
5 The terms ‘interviewee’, ‘respondent’, ‘interlocutor’, and ‘participant’ are used interchangeably in this thesis.
6 Sources will appear below and in the contextual chapter under 2.2.
7 I drew inspiration from Kenny et al. (2016), who have proposed the ‘third sector’ (the sector of NGOs, next to the public and the private sector) as a key site for expressing active citizenship.
5 interest in the concept of citizenship since the 1990s, among them the rise of international migration and doubts about the capacity of the nation state to accommodate the complex diversity of today’s globalising world. The coherence of the ‘Westphalian’ citizenship model with the nation state as the predominant source of authority does not match today’s realities, in which migrants, minorities and ‘aliens’ experience citizenship as exclusionary and thus contest its conventional meanings (Isin, 2002; Mehta & Napier-Moore, 2010). The rights of ‘others’ and the boundaries of political community have attracted increasing interest in contemporary political theory (Benhabib, 2004). With numbers of refugees and stateless people on the rise, debates around political belonging are crucial not only from an academic perspective, but also for policy makers and practitioners in the development sector to critically assess and adapt international development discourse and practices currently in place. The international governance of displacement is still guided by the premise of restoring conventional citizenship rights, although there is little evidence that the world will turn back to “an ideal of a state with a bounded and sedentary group of citizens” (Mehta & Napier-Moore, 2010, 236). This is a fundamental insight that should permeate international development discourse. For this reason, research which bridges citizenship and development studies in a context of displacement is essential.
With respect to the second point, it has been questioned whether the concept of citizenship can actually offer insights into its own shortcomings. Isin and Nyers (2014) provided a convincing answer, namely that we can no longer think of citizenship in the way we used to – but that we are also not in a situation where the concept no longer applies, since it is “difficult to escape from the categories we inherit” (6). It is however important to recognise the distinctive nature of citizenship struggles. Academic scholarship on “understanding constructions of citizenship in the Arab world” remains scarce, making this research timely and relevant (Kiwan, 2014, 313). My third point relates to Isin’s and Nyers’s (2014) broad definition of citizenship as “the political struggles over the capacity to constitute ourselves as a political subject” in relation to the polities to which we belong (8). As such, citizenship exists regardless of formal recognition; it exists already in the struggle for what Arendt (1968) called the ‘right to have rights’. This substantive dimension of citizenship constitutes a helpful way of “framing anthropological enquiry into politics” (Lazar & Nuijten, 2013, 3). While the amount of literature on citizenship is overwhelming, empirical studies of substantive active citizenship are rare, despite the scientific need “to probe configurations of active citizenship and ask how constructions of citizenship and perceptions of rights and obligations differ according to context” (Kenny et al., 2015, 13). Cornwall (2002) likewise stated that little attention has been paid to “instances of participation as situated practices” (ii). This localised perspective is complemented by Gaventa and Tandon
6 (2010), who pointed out that “very few studies have looked empirically at how citizens themselves actually engage with and respond to the changing landscapes of global authority, and what this means for their own understandings and practices of citizenship” (10-11). This research agenda is especially relevant in the case of displacement: In both regular and irregular situations of forced migration, meaningful civil or political engagement is gravely constrained; people’s rights to citizenship and identity become contested (Boyden, 2001). Since national and transnational jurisdictions apply, it is useful to explore details about whom people see as duty holders with respect to their contested rights and how they construct their membership in any given political community (Mehta & Napier-Moore, 2010). When incorporated into policy making, such information can contribute to creating a more just legal and discursive framework for those people affected by forced displacement.
The fourth point of relevance considers that it implies an inherently political perspective to study the engagements of young, educated Syrians in the aid sector from the angle of citizenship. This may seem odd at first glance, considering that the leading principles of humanitarian aid are claimed to be impartiality, independence and neutrality. Indeed, the current situation in Syria is often portrayed as a dilemma between political and apolitical (meaning humanitarian) priorities. Having said this, the authors of a ‘new humanitarianism’ have shattered this illusion (Kenny et al., 2015, 20). The aid sector is inevitably entangled in the networks of power, in which it works, and can never remain completely neutral. Likewise, the aid for refugees outside of Syria is influenced by its local and global political backdrops, and used to advance political or economic agendas. Viewing that the boundaries between humanitarian and development aid blur in the case of this increasingly protracted displacement, and given that the funding for both approaches stem from at least partly identical, globally acting donors, it has been found to be relevant to untangle this situation. This thesis therefore juxtaposes humanitarian aid practices with international development discourse, based on the concept of active youth citizenship. Regarding the fifth point, a general paucity prevails with respect to empirical research on the opinions of young Syrians, in particular when it comes to politics, since any critique of the authoritarian Syrian regime could easily have turned – and still can – into a serious threat for oneself or one’s family (Mitchell, 2010). Pearlman (2016) has rightfully recognised that the uprisings in 2011 opened up truly new opportunities to access “the reflections of ordinary [Syrian] citizens”, formerly unattainable “due to their reluctance to speak about politics” (21). The sixth point of relevance clarifies this paucity. It can indeed be observed that studies on young Syrian refugees are on the rise, triggered by the complexity and global attention for the Syrian conflict, which United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called “the biggest refugee
7 and displacement crisis of our time” (UN, 2016). What still remains understudied, are socioeconomic layers of the (displaced) Syrian society, which are less exposed to the spotlight of the international research community. Hereby, Syrians from a higher education background constitute interesting interlocutors, especially for international development studies, given that they belong to the educational elite that will be at the forefront of leading future developments for Syrians. It has been found that the more highly educated an individual is, the more likely it becomes that he or she will participate effectively in all types of political activities (Campante & Chor, 2012). If we accept this to be convincing, then young, educated Syrians have great potential to shape future policies; their views on active citizenship and international development discourse provide valuable input and critique for the international community to learn from.
This ties in with my seventh and last point which draws attention to the vivid current discussions around an emerging Syrian civil society. Basically non-existent under the longstanding authoritarian rule of the Assad family, its rise has been a source of hope for many Syrians. Yet Syrian civil society is basically ignored in the international political process towards Syria’s future (illustrated by Dr. Rouba Mhaissen, founder and director of the Lebanon-based relief organisation Sawa for Development & Aid (2016), in her speech at the Supporting Syria and the Region Conference in London). The thesis can thus support those who advocate for the inclusion of Syrian civil society by presenting authentic voices of young, active Syrian citizens. Overall, this thesis is relevant because it leaves behind the stereotypical images of the deprived Syrian refugee in need of conventional citizenship, without omitting the reality that many do indeed live under harsh conditions. By approaching young Syrians who engage in the aid sector the thesis draws a more complex picture of what the mass displacements imply at the local and global level. Since lines increasingly blur between different approaches to international governance, both the field of international development and citizenship studies can be synergised and expanded by the following dyadic research question:
How and why do young, educated Syrians in Beirut actively engage in the aid sector for refugees from Syria in Lebanon, and how do their interpretations question international development discourse of promoting active youth citizenship? 8
8 Further definitions will be provided in section 4.3.1 Sampling strategy and research population, and 3.3 International development discourse on active youth citizenship.
8
1.3Trajectory of the research project
Initially, the research proposal was titled ‘Citizenship identity and practice in a situation of contested citizenship: The case of Syrian refugee youth in Beirut, Lebanon’. I had never been to the research site prior to my arrival; moreover, the project could not rely on the context of a larger research project or a local supervisor. It sprung from my own interest and was built upon a thorough literature review, which made me want to verify its relevance and feasibility on site. Through a parallel internship at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) of the American University of Beirut (AUB), I established contact with AUB-affiliated researchers working on related topics. All of them emphasised the difficulty of approaching any political topic related to refugees in Lebanon. As the course of events in Syria remains unpredictable and bearing in mind the country’s history of state-led surveillance, they highlighted the high levels of trust necessary for conducting reliable field research on citizenship and political activism among Syrian refugees. The same issue was raised by both the Lebanese country manager and a consultant of the Netherlands-based INGO ‘Spark’, with whom I had appointments during my first two weeks in the field. In view of the limited time available for my fieldwork, they advised me to forge a more concrete and accessible approach to the topic.
At the same time, I learned about the wide-spread engagements of young, educated Syrians in the humanitarian response and how the uprisings in 2011 had sparked an independent Syrian civil society for the first time after decades under authoritarian rule. I also found some journalistic contributions from activists that portrayed the issue as ignored, and even hampered, by the international aid community.9 After consultation with my supervisor, I decided to shift my
focus accordingly towards the engagements of Syrian youth in the aid sector for refugees from Syria in Lebanon, still considering how this could constitute a form of active citizenship and feed into the debates on Syrian civil society. These changes allowed me to not diverge from my theoretical framework gravely.
Furthermore, the adapted sampling strategy helped circumvent anticipated language barriers, as respondents came from a higher education background and spoke English. Instead of targeting the unspecific group of ‘Syrian refugee youth’, the research population was narrowed down to Syrian youth who were active in the aid sector. Overall, the reflections in the field enabled me to overcome my prior sketchy vision of this thesis and to develop a feasible and coherent research project, outlined in detail below. At the outset, I delineate the contextual background.
9 One eloquent example is the article of Fadi Hallisso (2014), co-founder of the established Beirut-based grassroots organisation Basmeh w Zeitooneh for Relief and Development, for the media platform OpenDemocracy.net that features comments by activists and scholars from around the world.
9 2. Contextual Background
This chapter attempts to equip the reader with sufficient background knowledge to follow the interpretation of the empirical data. Furthermore, it sets the stage for the subsequent theoretical framework, for which it has been unavoidable to narrow down the boundless body of literature to what is applicable within the limited scope of this thesis. Finally, the following contributes to affirming the thesis’ relevance, as asserted in the introduction.
This chapter begins by outlining the historical prologue of contemporary Lebanese-Syrian relations following the course of events that occurred on Lebanese territory. This perspective was firstly chosen because Lebanon was the site of the field research, and secondly because the dominant attitudes of Lebanese people towards Syrians today are motivated by the intertwined past of both countries. These attitudes play a major role for understanding the context of the current refugee situation. The chapter moves on to provide information about the Syrian uprisings of 2011 and their ramifications, which triggered the ongoing mass migration in the first place. A condensed excursion on civil society and civic engagement in Syria before and after the Uprisings was included to accentuate why the youth engagement under investigation constitute a recent phenomenon. The chapter moves on with an overview of the current refugee situation in Lebanon and concludes with a brief portray of Beirut, given that the city was the specific research location.
2.1 Contemporary relations between Lebanon and Syria
Today’s border between Lebanon and Syria constitutes a relatively young demarcation, as is the case with modern nation state borders in general and those in formerly colonised regions in particular (cf. Anderson, 1983). Since ancient times, the term Levant has been used for the territories along the eastern Mediterranean coastline, albeit in an inconsistent sense. Since the times of the French mandate from 1920 to 1946, the Levant geographically refers to the states of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and sometimes Cyprus (Graf, 2010).10 The region was
tied together for centuries under the reign of different Arab Muslim rulers and later the Ottoman Empire. However, following the decline of the latter during World War I, the victorious imperial powers of France and Great Britain drew what Barr (2011) has called ‘a line in the sand’ to divide the Levant among themselves. The Sykes-Picot agreement from 1916 served as the point
10 Designating Palestine a state follows the UN resolution 67/19 (2012) that granted it the status as a non-member observer state, which counts as an implicit recognition of its statehood.
10 of departure for the European acquisition of the Middle East. Although the European powers deviated from their secret negotiations and ultimately established the mandate system of the San Remo conference in 1920, the effect was the same: Against the will of the majority of local population, the parted states of Lebanon and Syria emerged within their locally baseless, modern borders (Traboulsi, 2012).
Map of Lebanon, retrieved from The Economist Intelligence Unit (2016)
This rupture of the traditional cohesion of the area has gained increased attention in the last years, due to the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The imposed
11 separation of ethnic and religious communities is often invoked as a root cause for the unstable and violent conditions in many countries of the Middle East in the recent past. What is insightful here is the disputed translation of the Arabic name to ISIL or ISIS, meaning Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria. The original term
ﻡﺎﺷﻟﺍ
al-shām can indeed refer both to Damascus (and in that regardto the Syrian Arab Republic) and to Greater Syria (hence the Levant) (Tharoor, 2014).11 This
exemplifies Syria’s great influence over the region. In 1919, Greater Syria was seen as the most favourable political solution by the bulk of the population, according to the King-Crane Commission, which collected local opinions for the international peace conference in Paris that same year (Traboulsi, 2012). When France and Great Britain flouted these demands and reneged on their earlier promises to the pan-Arab nationalist movement, they laid the foundations for the strife around Arab self-determination that has been enormously amplified by the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
The French legitimised the creation of modern Lebanon as it being a safe zone for the region’s minorities, especially for their close cultural ally, the Christian Maronite Church. Under the influential leadership of Patriarch Elias Huwayik and for economic reasons, the Maronite territory of Mount Lebanon was expanded considerably by the coastal cities of Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon and Tyre as well as the hinterland of the Beqaa valley, largely inhabited by Sunni Muslims and therefore traditionally seen as Syria’s foothills.12 France’s strategy for bringing Syria under
its control via Lebanon proved to be successful (Traboulsi, 2012).
The sectarian nature of contemporary Lebanon stems from this era and persists to the present day with 18 sects being officially recognised, among which the biggest groups are Shiʿi and Sunni Muslims; Maronite, Greek-Orthodox, Greek-Catholic and Armenian Christians; and Druzes. The formal constitution and an informal National Pact from the days of Lebanon’s independence in 1943 defined their power sharing, which included the calamitous primacy of the Maronites (Traboulsi, 2012). Hence, processes of othering and discrimination, and warring political affiliations after
ﺔﺑﻛﻧﻟﺍ
al-nakba (‘the catastrophe’, i.e. the expulsion of the Palestinian population from their lands and the related ethnic cleansing in 1948) unravelled along sectarian lines over the course of the 20th century and culminated in Lebanon’s horrendous civil war from 1975 to 1990.The limited word count of this thesis does not allow for the detail in depiction that this labyrinthine conflict would require. It must thus suffice here to follow David Hirst’s (2010)
11 To circumvent these debates, this thesis will make use of the Arabic acronym Dāʿish in what follows. 12 Transcriptions of place names follow the preceding map here.
12 simple distinction between two phases: The first ‘Palestinian’ one until 1982, in which the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) under the leadership of Yasir Arafat fought in the country, and the second, which is characterised by the rise of the “Iranian-backed, militantly Islamist [...] guerrilla movement” Hizbullah and its so-called resistance fight against the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon (103). For the purpose of this chapter, it is most relevant to note that the civil war entailed Syria’s deep involvement in Lebanon from 1975 onwards, as the war evolved into a proxy battle between Israelis and Arabs, swayed further by the dynamics of the Cold War. Guided by its own security concerns, Syria – since 1970 under the authoritarian rule of Hafiz al-Assad through his military coup – attempted to stabilise Lebanon, which was generally met with appreciation by the ruling Lebanese elites (Osoegawa, 2013). The Syrian army entered in 1976 and stayed for almost 30 years as Lebanon was de facto put under Syrian mandate by the international powers after its civil war. For decades, Syrian troops and security personnel exercised repression and control over Lebanese public and political life (El-Husseini, 2012).
Although the Cedar Revolution finally forced the Syrian army out of Lebanon in 2005, much of today’s mutual resentments continue to be fuelled by the protracted Syrian hegemony. The Lebanese political system is divided into pro-Assad and anti-Assad factions (known as March 8 and March 14 in this order); the official disassociation policy towards the Syrian war reflects the political deadlock of the country (Hokayem, 2013; Oxfam International, 2015). That said, the military presence of Hizbullah on Syria’s battlefields can scarcely be overrated. The Syrian regime had continuously supported Hizbullah – the only Lebanese militia it did not disarm after the civil war – as a stronghold against Israel (Hokayem, 2013; Osoegawa, 2013). Abboud (2016) leaves no doubt that the organisation’s deliberate “policy of regime preservation” since 2013 has been decisive and allowed Assad to regain control of territory and key transportation routes (114).
A last note is owed to important economic aspects: Since the Lebanese-Syrian economic union has been abandoned in the 1940s, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have migrated back and forth via more or less open borders, stipulated for example in the 1993 agreement for Economic and Social Cooperation and Coordination. This predominantly male Syrian diaspora has formed “the bulk of its [Lebanon’s] unskilled workforce” since the 1960s (Chalcraft, 2007, 28). Their share was still estimated as high as 17 percent in 2011, although many had left Lebanon after the Syrian withdrawal in 2005 (World Bank (WB), 2013, 83). I encountered this image of Syrians as menial workers frequently in Lebanese comments on the current refugee situation. Nevertheless, some of the research respondents stand as examples for the fact that movements across the border for reasons such as education, business, or private ties have occurred in every
13 stratum of society, long before the exodus from Syria’s war zones in recent years. What is crucial to keep in mind from this chapter is that what is happening in Syria now greatly influences Lebanon’s fragile stability in all sections of its society (International Crisis Group (ICG), 2012). Geographical, historical, communal and political ties are all too close for it to be different.
2.2 Crisis in Syria, 2011-2016
The following section contours how Syria plunged into this devastating war. The trajectory begins with the wave of popular protests across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. The revolts and their initial success in Tunisia and Egypt reopened a prospect for change to the Syrian people, a decade after the hopes of the Damascus Spring – a brief period of debate after the death of Hafiz al-Assad – were disappointed by the seamless transition of power to Hafiz’s son Bashar, the current president of the Syrian Arab Republic (Abboud, 2016).
The literature shows no consensus on the root causes for the outbreak of protests in Syria. Belhadj (2013) refers to the final exhaustion of the Assad regime, while others highlight the deteriorated socioeconomic situation in Syria due to the regime’s gradual shift from a socialist structure with a solid public sector towards unbridled market-oriented policies. Further contributions propose the impact of climate change and respective droughts as another explanation, especially given Syria’s large agricultural population (Abboud, 2016). Phillips (2015) and Belhadj (2013) both emphasise that sectarian tensions, projected from conflicts like those in Lebanon and Iraq, were of no notable importance when the uprisings began, but have since come to play a defining role. This is primarily owed to the intervention of regional players and the regime’s strategy of purposefully activating existing aversions. In the end, a combination of all factors manifests as the most plausible explanation.
Turning now to the run of events since 2011, it is difficult to identify a clear starting point. After first glimpses of civil unrest, thousands of people attended simultaneous demonstrations in different cities on 15 March, the second ‘Day of Rage’. The regime immediately reacted with brutal crackdown and mass arrests, perpetuating its notorious oppression of opponents. Horrific cases, such as that of the 13-year-old Hamza from Darʿā who was tortured to death after being arrested by Air Force Intelligence, incited popular fury and amplified protests all over the country (Yassin-Kassab & Al-Shami, 2016, 49). The president’s denial of the people’s demands and the exacerbating violence drove the early call for reforms, e.g. for the suspension of the state of emergency and the regime’s one-party policy, into an encompassing revolution with the goal of overthrowing the regime. As one revolutionary explains in Yassin-Kassab’s and Al-Shami’s
14 (2016) bottom-up account of the uprisings, “Bashar himself created the Syrian revolution, in his first speech. Then the people who had hope in him despaired of him” (42).13 What’s more, the
protests thrived off the ecstatic feelings of freedom and community that suddenly swept across Syria, notwithstanding the subsequent bloody punishments. The perception of the first protest as a second birth, as a relief from a culture of fear, echoes in the memories of some research respondents and young protest participants I later met in Beirut (cf. Yassin-Kassab & Al-Shami, 2016, 35).
Apart from stirring rather than discouraging participation in protests, the government’s brutalities – together with the failure of the political opposition to unite support – achieved what some suggest was its goal in the first place: the opposition took up arms. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) remains their most influential umbrella, even if this suggests a central leadership that does not exist on the ground (Abboud, 2016). Sometime between August 2011 and January 2012, the initial movement of citizens claiming their rights had developed into a civil war, according to a simple, but widely accepted political science definition based on death tolls (Phillips, 2015, 358). The rise of miscellaneous armed groups obscured frontlines and agendas. The conflict urgently attracted the major regional players, namely Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, contributing to the increasing internationalisation of the conflict. Given its key geopolitical position in the Middle East, Syria’s destabilisation was not tolerated by its neighbours. While Saudi Arabia and Qatar support different strands of the opposition, often in a contradictory manner, Iran backs the regime. In that way, the sectarian fight for regional hegemony comes into play. But it is also for economic reasons that these actors intervene financially and militarily, with help from their other allies. Besides the aforementioned Hizbullah and Shiʿi militias from Iraq, Russia leads the way here in backing Iran, also with respect to its own economic and geopolitical interest in a stable regime. Moving closer to the West, Turkey has served as the central retreat and base for the opposition’s fight and for those fleeing the regime. Coupled with its fear of a spreading Islamist extremism, it engages in actively battling its long-time Kurdish enemies whose autonomous advances in Northern Syria threaten its own territory (Abboud, 2016).
While these stakes and the political economy of the conflict have generated the current stalemate, the West is equally accused of apathy and the failure to end the conflict, let alone the humanitarian crisis. US president Obama practically ruled out a military intervention when he steered the dealings with Assad’s step over his ‘red line’ – the proven use of chemical weapons in
13 I standardised the spelling from ‘Bashaar’ to ‘Bashar’ here to remain consistent with the version that has been applied throughout this thesis.
15 August 2013 – towards a political solution. The three rounds of peace talks under the auspices of the UN in Geneva have not delivered pertinent outcomes, in addition to widespread critique of its detachment from the realities in Syria and Syrian civil society. On these grounds, the Lebanese intellectual Ziad Majed (2014), a frequent commentator on the topic and professor of Middle East Studies and Political Science at the American University of Paris, has called the Syrian uprising the ‘orphaned revolution’ (la révolution orpheline).
Having said that, the advent of extremist jihadist groups in the uncontrolled parts of Syria has aroused a lot of international interest, which concentrates in Western media on the threat Dāʿish might pose to global stability. Of late, a dichotomy between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the terrorism of Dāʿish has begun to define the international approach towards Syria. In light of this development, Abboud (2016) reminds us that this coalescence comes at the expense of the many Syrians who continually believe in and work on an alternative self-determined future for their country.
As linear as the development from popular protests to civil war to a global proxy battle may appear in this lean summary, recent monographs on the topic have emphasised that processes of non-violent revolution and war (still) happen in parallel, although certainly along blurred lines (Abboud, 2016; Yassin-Kassab & Al-Shami, 2016). Despite the ferocious war, the uprisings fired the starting pistol for Syrian civil society, which was basically not existent under authoritarian rule. This absence becomes comprehensible in view of the thorough system of control and surveillance, with which the Assad clan has been penetrating Syrian society since the 1970s in order to cement its position of power (Hinnebusch, 1995). The partly privatised security apparatus – so pervasive that it was able to cast its net deeply into Lebanese affairs – acted through army, police, intelligence services (in Arabic
ﺕﺍﺭﺑﺎﺧﻣﻟﺍ
mukhābarāt), and the notorious informal militias calledﺔﺣﻳّﺑﺷ
shabiyyḥa (after the Arabic word for ‘ghost’); these entities still possess great power and instil fear into the Syrian population, even in diaspora. For decades, the security system violently ensured that Syria remained calm and stable and became known as the ‘kingdom of silence’. The state’s grip was so tight and divisive that observers spoke of political opponents, rather than of political opposition, which could merely survive in exile. Already at that time, the regime crushed all signs of insurgency in a brutal manner. A protest in the city of Ḥamāa in 1982 for example was turned into a bloodbath to eradicate the activism of the transnationally influential Sunni organisation Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, which had organised the disobedience (Abboud, 2016). The international community however showed little interest as long as Syria’s foreign policy was considered acceptable. By positioning themselves as indispensable figures for the stabilisation of the region, the Assads successfully16 made Syrian society a so-called black box, meaning that authentic information about inner-Syrian proceedings scarcely slipped out or gained attention in world politics (Belhadj, 2013). In that respect, the uprisings in 2011 came as a surprise even to experts of the country. In Vignal’s (2016) review of Majed’s (2014) book about the ‘orphaned revolution’, she gives a comprehensive summary of what the author proposed was the steady ‘domestication’ of the Syrian population:
“The process of domestication also relied on a mix of ‘techniques’ that pertain to the very substance of an oppressive regime: the personification of power (whereby the president is the source of all things and the origin of all success), the suspension of time (given that the regime is there ‘for eternity’, as the 2000 father-son succession seemed to confirm), absolute control over social and physical space, confiscation of the public sphere, and monopoly over the narration of reality. Lastly, the institutionalisation of repressive and surveillance instruments instilled among Syrians the feeling of impending danger, generalised distrust, and fear, thereby enforcing obedience.”
This totalitarian control meant that civic engagement was only possible within the ramified order of the regime and its Baʿth Party; at the same time, the government’s attempts to revive the economy through market-oriented reforms in the 2000s framed active and self-responsible citizens as desirable (Mitchell, 2010). Several of my research respondents spoke of the ironic phenomenon of governmental nongovernmental organisations (cf. Kawakibi, 2013). This even made it possible that the regime “surfed on the wave of [international] civil society promotion, and basically extended the same rationale it had been applying to perfect its control over society” (cf. Kawakibi & Kodmani, 2013, 5). The only relatively independent exception was small-scale human rights activism on innocuous topics such as women’s rights, which was permitted according to a representative of the Beirut-based organisation Syrian League for Citizenship (in addition cf. Abboud, 2016). Concerning youth, Mitchell’s (2010) study for the Norwegian research institute Fafo about the engagement of Syrian university youth from before the uprisings is insightful. The author has found that, contrary to high levels of participation in the family, youth engagement in the public sphere was low. The proximity of youth organisations to the state as well as a lack of civic ethos and social trust among peers re-emerged as arguments for this deliberate retreat from active citizenship.
Owing to the lack of experience and external support combined with a prevailing climate of distrust and surveillance (to say nothing of the regime’s violent retaliation), the Syrian civil movements struggle to organise and sustain a coherent civil opposition. That said, the rapid and independent manner in which new civil structures emerged is remarkable. A recent grassroots survey counted 900 ‘civil entities’ in all regions of Syria and in neighbouring countries, of which the majority operate in relief work and media, followed by human resource development, health, research, and human rights, culture, and arts (Citizens for Syria, 2015). Local Coordination
17 Committees (LCCs) – later formalised as Local Councils (LCs) – became known as institutions of self-organisation. They appeared in many areas and filled the void left by the regime, since they often started with distributing information and organising protests, but eventually needed to take over functions of governance and the provision of goods and services, as the conflict dragged on and left many people cut off from resources (Khalaf, Ramadan & Stolleis, 2014). Solidarity among Syrians is reported to have reached unknown heights and several interviewees recalled feelings of personal inspiration and pride gained from witnessing this ‘birth’ of civil society in Syria.
2.3 The current refugee situation in Lebanon
The earlier section on the historical context of Lebanese-Syrian relations already remarked on the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homelands. The events of 1948 produced a unique situation of protracted displacement, which to date has led many Palestinians to the impasse of an inherited refugee status and statelessness. The repercussions of the ensuing influx of some 120,000 Palestinian refugees into Lebanon, combined with the country’s longstanding ties with Syria and the current political deadlock, greatly shape the present approach towards Syrian refugees, given that it has not signed the 1951 refugee convention (cf. Traboulsi, 2012, 114). The Lebanese government does not recognise Syrians as refugees, but refers to them as temporarily displaced and treats them as (irregular) migrants, based on previous bilateral agreements with Syria – mainly that from 1993 mentioned in section 2.1 (Janmyr, 2016; Lebanon Humanitarian INGO Forum (LHIF), 2014).14
Lebanon hosts roughly 1.5 million Syrians and approximately 320,000 Palestinians (Government of Lebanon (GoL) & United Nations (UN), 2015, 3). UNHCR has registered 1,033,513 ‘persons of concern’ as of 30 June 2016, but numbers are likely to be much higher, given that the government instructed registration to stop in May 2015 (UNHCR, 2016, Amnesty International (AI), 2015). The total population living in Lebanon is projected to be 5.9 million people in December 2016, meaning that one in three persons will be a refugee (GoL & UN, 2015, 3).15 In short, Lebanon hosts the largest per capita refugee population on the globe. The rapid
rise aggravates the country’s existing problems with ineffective state institutions and a high population density. Accommodation is scarce, leaving refugees stranded in what humanitarian
14 The term refugee is nevertheless used in this section to refer to all those who have fled violence in a broad definition, exceeding the official Lebanese stance and the 1951 convention. In the larger scope of this thesis, being a refugee furthermore entails certain socioeconomic hardship and a certain dependency on humanitarian aid, as defined in the introduction.
15 Demographic figures are hard to verify because the last Lebanese census dates back to 1932, and no reliable record exists for informal residents (Traboulsi, 2012, 91).
18 agencies deem ‘sub-standard shelter’, located mainly in urban areas, the already impoverished North and Beqaa Valley, or the Palestinian refugee camps (Yassin et al., 2015). Around 1,500 informal tented settlements exist in Lebanon, built usually at refugees’ own expense and effort, without precluding them from having to pay rent to the Lebanese landowners (UNHCR, 2015a). In line with this, exploitations of all kinds are daily fare.
In contrast to its dealings with Palestinian refugees, the Lebanese authorities apply a policy of non-encampment to refugees from Syria, a move initially applauded by human rights groups as providing a unique humanitarian sanctuary (e.g. Frelick, 2013).16 The policy has however been
attributed to the system’s paralysis, the country’s self-perception as a transit destination, and national concerns over national security and economy, as explained in a recent article by Turner (2015). Firstly, in terms of security, parts of the government strictly refuse to establish formal refugee camps for Syrians (Yassin et al., 2015). This stems from a fear of repeating the calamity of the Palestinian camps. As the authorities kept the camps in squalid conditions and denied Palestinians any form of integration, they became autonomous centres for the militant Palestinian resistance and combat zones of the civil war. Furthermore, influential stakeholders in Lebanese politics like Hizbullah or the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) prohibit Syrian refugee camps, as that might appear to welcome them permanently and “shape, strengthen and radicalize the identity of Syrian refugees in Lebanon”, a development seen as entirely undesirable by allies of the Assad regime (Turner, 2015, 391). In addition, my observations and conversations in Beirut confirm that overt political engagement of Syrians is highly monitored and obstructed in Lebanon. A protest in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the Syrian uprising on Beirut’s Martyr Square on 19 March 2016 took place under heavy police protection and was dispersed after a while, allegedly because of threats from pro-Assad thugs waiting for protesters downtown. Syrian NGOs do not exist on paper in Lebanon and can only act under the patronage of a Lebanese or international organisation. Young activists meet in private, without revealing much about their meetings even within a small circle of friends.
Turning now to Turner’s (2015) second point, it has already been stated that the Lebanese economy relies heavily on cheap labour from Syria. Lebanon’s policies of non-encampment and its open borders until October 2014 benefit the business elites and owners of capital (cf. ILO, 2014, 10). Because Syrian refugees are officially not allowed to work in Lebanon, most of them
16 Since mid-2014 and especially January 2015, Lebanon has tried to seal its borders and encourage Syrians to leave Lebanon, e.g. through expensive and onerous new regulations of visa and residence permits (UNHCR, 2015; Janmyr, 2016). Palestinian refugees from Syria (PRS) are in general more restricted in their search for refuge. Due to the limited word count, their special case could not be acknowledged separately. I speak of ‘refugees from Syria’ instead of ‘Syrian refugees’ in the research question to hint to the fact that not all refugees from Syria are of Syrian nationality.
19 are engaged in the informal sector, with 92 percent possessing no work contract (ILO, 2014, 9). The latest livelihoods-related data, collected since December 2014, reveals that on average 27 percent of adult Syrian refugees had worked at least one day per month. However, work is irregular and the average monthly income of USD 177 falls far short of the average monthly expenditure of USD 492, most of which is spent on food and rent. As a consequence, household debts increase continuously (UNHCR, 2016a, 3). During the fieldwork period, I attended a focus group organised by the INGO Spark to evaluate an intensive university course in project management for Syrian students in Lebanon. About two thirds of the 15 participants stated that they experienced difficulty making time for the course or other activities because most of their time was occupied by making a living for themselves and their families.
While both the Lebanese and the Syrian populations in Lebanon become increasingly vulnerable, resentment and racism are on the rise, fuelled by soaring prices, decreasing wages, unemployment, inequitable aid distribution only to Syrians, and the fear of resurgent sectarian strife. Already in 2013, a survey conducted by the research institute Fafo found that 70 percent of the Lebanese population favoured UNHCR refugee camps for Syrians (Christophersen et al., 2013, 7). Thus, despite the longstanding economic and kinship ties between the two countries, many Syrians feel cut off from Lebanese society (Chatty, 2015).
The less affluent areas of the country in particular suffer from the additional pressure. To illustrate: daily wages have fallen by 60 percent in some areas of the Beqaa (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2013, 36). The Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP), a cooperative between the Lebanese government and the United Nations, now tries to ease the plight for both Lebanese and Syrians with the overall goal of stabilising the country (GoL & UN, 2015). The national response is criticised as overstretching municipal capacities, which then see arbitrary governance measures such as curfews as their best option (AI, 2015). Municipalities and international organisations are the most prominent actors in the relief sector. The international humanitarian aid regime has been heavily criticised for their dealings with the Syrian crisis. Chatty (2015) has explained that the inconsiderate transfer of blueprint solutions to the specific context of the Middle East and the complete absence of initial consultation with either host communities or the displaced Syrian population has led to grave discrepancies and a tense atmosphere. The acceptance of international policy making and implementation – focused on containing the crisis in the region – is low. This criticism will be revisited in the empirical chapters.
In its final section, this contextual chapter will try to evoke the atmosphere of the concrete field site, namely Lebanon’s capital city Beirut.
20
2.4 A snapshot of Beirut
Beirut is the fabled capital of Lebanon, in which much of the country’s chequered history cumulated. Throughout the 19th century, the city developed into a global centre of commerce, culture and colonial strategy. Its location and advanced infrastructure made it a gateway between East and West; the road between Beirut and Damascus served as the principal channel of international trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. The flow of affluent and bustling immigrants leveraged Beirut’s rapid urbanisation and yielded a confident indigenous bourgeoisie. The venerable historian Albert Hourani spoke of Beirut as ‘a new kind of city, a new kind of urban society’ (Traboulsi, 2012, 55). The social barriers of the surrounding rural hinterlands became fluid and the city gained its enduring reputation as a multicultural melting pot.
After a period of famines and grievance during World War I, Beirut’s success story continued during the Mandate times and culminated in its metropolitan golden age as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ and capital of Arab writing and publishing. Its devastation during the civil war was hence mourned with shock and disbelief. Beirut’s roads and refugee camps indeed supplied the background for some of the war’s most atrocious massacres. The notorious ‘Green Line’ firmly divided the whole city into Muslim West and Christian East. The battles reduced the city’s glory to rubble. Beirut became synonymous with war (Kassir, 2010, 16).
The era of reconstruction was shaped by then-prime minister Rafik Hariri, who commissioned the private company Solidere to rebuild central Beirut. The result, today’s Downtown, is defined by exclusive boutiques, expensive apartments and security guards, which forms the bone of contention for broader discussions over Beirut’s neoliberal development and the severe social inequalities in the capital and the country (Sawalha, 2010). Surprising to some, the lack of social justice did not lead to the spread of considerable protest in the wake of the Arab Uprisings. Only lately has Beirut begun to rediscover its legacy of civic activism, as known from the Cedar Revolution against the Syrian occupation in 2005. The mobilisation against the government’s failure to dispose of the city’s garbage in summer 2015 and the secular campaign ‘Beirut Madinati’ for the recent municipal elections stand as current examples (‘Beirut shocks its old guard’, 2016).
The turbulences of history and the socioeconomic and ideological gulf between many inhabitants are omnipresent in Beirut’s cityscape today. Decaying Ottoman mansions stand next to facades cluttered with bullet holes. All kinds of street art, slogans and political posters spread
