What can one say by way of advice to the refugees of Syria?
The body of a dead Palestinian girl who attempted to escape the Syria war with her family.
With time, our refugee status morphed from being a “problem” to an integral part of our identities. Being a “refugee” at this stage means insisting on the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees as enshrined in international law. That status is no longer just a mere reference to physical displacement but also to a political, even a national identity.
Political division may, at times, dominate Palestinian society, but we will always be united by the fact that we are refugees with a common cause: going home. While, for the Palestinians of Yarmouk near Damascus, being a refugee is a matter of life and death – often by starvation – for the larger Palestinian collective, the meaning of the word has become more involved: it has been etched onto our skin forever.
But what can one say by way of advice to the relatively new refugees of Syria, considering that we are yet to liberate ourselves from a status that we never sought?
There can be only reminders and a few warnings ..
Excerpts from Dear Syria: From one refugee to another – Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Eye.
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