Saturday, 24 May 2008

Day 15: Tripoli/Batroun/Beddui Refugee Camp - The Intifada loves ping pong

CL and I got up fairly early. Today was to be the day we went to Bcharre, the mountain village from which we would hike through the Kadisha Valley, spend the night and then continue on the Baalbek. We were accompanied by Kris, a Polish guy we had met at the Pension Haddad. What we had not counted on was that the area of Lebanon we were in is Christian. Today was Sunday. There were no buses to Bcharre from Tripoli. Bukra, we were told over and over again. Tomorrow.

We heard that there might be a bus from Batroun to Bcharre, so we hopped a minibus to Batroun and were again confounded by the lack of transport. One taxi driver wanted LL100,000 to drive us to Bcharre. 50 euros. Insanity. Captain Libya went off in search of oranges. Kris and I stayed with the rucksacks and made conversation with a flamboyantly camp hairdresser named Jacques. Jacques was Lebanese and lisped manfully from beneath a meticulously groomed beard. He told us about the nightclubs in Batroun and Beirut. His vote went to a club called Acid, a notorious venue where the $20 entry price also includes free drinks all night. It also regularly gets busted for excessive quantities of gayness. It was Jacques who, while tittering gaily at the thought of it, told CL and me that the beach we had skinny-dipped at was a local gay hotspot. When I said that that explained the watchful guys on the shore, Jacques erupted into peels of laughter, squeezed my arm and called me honey. He gave me his number and told me to come see him at his salon for a haircut. I asked him where his salon was. In Casablanca, Morocco. It's called Jacques. Genius.

Upon CL's return with a sack of oranges, we hopped the shuttle back to Tripoli and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. We all agreed that we wanted to see a Palestinian refugee camp. There were two in the immediate vicinity, Nahr-el-Bared, which had been destroyed by Hariri's forces about a year ago, and Beddui (pronounced bed-daow-wee), which was just on the other side of town. I called up Zach, a Palestinian guy we had met the night before, to ask him if he wanted to come with us. Zach said that if we wanted to see a camp, we should go to Beddui. I asked him if he wanted to come. He said absolutely not and hung up, but not before wishing us luck. For the record, Zach was one of the few Palestinians who ran a business in Tripoli outside of the camp and lived outside the camp as well. His business was selling car stereo equipment and mods.

Kris, CL and I took a taxi to the entrance to the Beddui camp. The entrance was sandbagged. A Palestinian flag fluttered in the breeze. A group of soldiers fish-eyed us from the pillbox. I smiled my best shit-eating grin and waved. The soldiers smiled back at us and waved us through. We were in.

The difference could be felt immediately upon entering the boundary of the camp. In Tripoli proper, Hariri is popular and posters of the Future party and Hariris pere et fils adorn every building and window. In Beddui, pictures on walls and windows are of Arafat, Nasrullah, Yassin and a young man who was identified to us later as Mohammed Khalili. Hamas and Hezbollah banners fly side by side with Palestinian flags. Arafat beams down from every wall from beneath his keffiyeh. Saddam Hussein is another popular face, cropping up in shop windows and collages glued to walls.

As we walked deeper into the camp, I spotted a white building adorned with flags, pictures of Palestine and pictures of martyrs. By the way, when I refer to pictures of Palestine, all pictures of Palestine that are displayed are of the whole country, including the Israeli territory. The Palestinian idea of Palestine is not the West Bank and Gaza but of the whole kit-n-kaboodle, as we would find out later from the horse's mouth, as it were. OIutside the white building was a fat guy with ginger hair. He had a huge grin. In one of his hands he was twirling a walkie-talkie. Next to him was sitting a younger, darker-skinned guy. The ginger guy, I would find out, is named Zakariyah. The younger guy, who would become our impromptu interpreter during our visit, is named Hussein. I asked if we could take pictures of the edifice. They agreed. CL and I took pictures. I asked what the writing superimposed over the image of Palestine and the flag meant. Hussein explained that this was the clubhouse of Fatah-al-Intifada, an organisation whose nature he would never elaborate on beyond it's name. I asked if we could go inside. Zakariyah nodded, beamed his infectious grin at me and shook my hand. We were in.

Inside the clubhouse were banners featuring Saddam Hussein, Arafat, Yassin, Nasrullah and a brace of martyrs. What caught my attention was a massive ping pong table in the middle of the room. Surrounded by so many pictures of angry, preaching men and backed by a massive mural of the Palestinian flag and map, the ping pong table seemed very incongruous. I asked Hussein if we could play. He wrinkled his brow at me. I made the semi-spanking back-and-forth motion of ping-ponging. Hussein grinned and said something to Zakariyah. Zakariyah spoke into the walkie talkie and then replied. Hussein explained that the paddles were in the office.
'Who has the keys?" I asked.
"The boss," he replied.
"Can we go see him?"
Hussein called something to Zakariyah and Zakariyah spoke into the walkie talkie again. Captain Libya and I exchanged a Look. This was going to be good. Zakariyah waved us out of the cool dark clubhouse and back into the brilliant sunlight. He whistled and a man dressed in black carrying an AK47 came out of the alley behind the clubhouse. Zakariyah motioned for him to take over the watch. The gunman sat down. I smiled at him and waved. He waved back and grinned. I made the ping-pong motion. He gave me a thumbs-up. The Intifada loves ping pong. Who knew?

Zakariya and Hussein walked us through the labyrinth of houses and alleys that compose the centre of the Beddui camp. We eventually got to a nondescript house with an immaculate interior. We were met at the top of the stairs by a quiet, bearded man in house pants and slippers. He had a very firm handshake. I introduced myself and asked his name. After a pause, he told me his name was Abou Yasser. I was shaking hands with the head of Fatah al-Intifada in northern Lebanon.

Abou Yasser spoke serviceable English and, whenever he didn't pick up on a point, Hussein happily translated. CL, Kris and myself were invited to sit down in his living room and we were given cold fruit juice which we gulped down greedily. I asked Abou Yasser some questions about the camp to begin with.

The Beddui camp has been in existence since 1948 and was one of the first refugee camps to be built in Lebanon. Abou Yasser himself was born in the camp and, despite his high position int he organisation, has never been outside of Lebanon. This is a very common problem for the Palestinians designated as refugees. They are given Lebanese papers, but only for identification purposes. Their papers state that they are refugees. They are not allowed to vote, they have a hard time getting jobs outside of their camps and, while officially permitted, international travel is practically impossible because nobody will issue a visa to a Palestinian refugee. The refugees who live in the camp are born there, live there, get married there, have children there and die there. They blame this situation on the Lebanese authorities in particular and the Arab League in general. Abou Yasser pointed out more than once that if the Arab countries had done a better job of absorbing and assimilating the Palestinians, the feelings of separatism and the urge to return might not be as strong as they are under the current circumstances.

The Beddui camp held about 30,000 Palestinians until late last year. After the assault on the Nahr-el-Bared camp, the survivors of Nahr-el-Bared were brought to Beddui and assimilated there. Abou Yasser said the best estimate put the population of Beddui camp at about 45,000 people. They are not given access to Lebanese public services. Lebanese police do not patrol the camp or respond to calls from it. Ditto the fire department. The Beddui camp is in essence an entirely self-contained society, providing its own police and utility infrastructure. Papers are published inside the camp. Books are printed. Music is recorded. It functions completely outside of Lebanese society and Palestinians are apparently viewed with distrust or outright hostility by the Lebanese population at large. Under conditions such as those we saw at the camp, it is no wonder that the Palestinians feel only an allegiance to their idea of Palestine, a Palestine they have never seen and, in most cases, a Palestine their parents and even grandparents have never seen. How could they feel any different when they are given no opportunity to assimilate into their host country?

The conversation turned to the sensitive question of Israel and the possibility of a resolution to the current problem. Abou Yasser told me that whatever the official statements, the out-and-out goal of the Palestinian movement is to achieve a single country. He said that a two-state solution would only be temporary. The intention, he said, is to have one country, called Palestine, run democratically by the concensus of all citizens, Jewish, Muslim, Christian or whatever. I asked him if he thought it would be possible for Palestinians to live with Israelis side by side after all the animosity that has flown between the two sides. He said that in his opinion, and in the stated aims of his organisation, the single state solution would be achieved in a minimum of another sixty years. I asked him how it felt to work towards something that he would never see and never experience for himself. He squeezed Hussein's shoulder and told me that the idea of Palestine was taught to every child throughout their lives. Wherever they live, whatever they do with their lives, the idea of Palestine as their home and birthright is always with them. I asked him if money from the camp was sent to other organisations such as Hamas or Hezbollah. There was an awkward pause. Abou Yasser said, quite delicately, that of course money is sent to certain, ahem, organisations, because they have the same aims and are brothers of the Palestinians. I asked him if he forsaw a problem between the Palestinians and Hezbollah in the future, since Hezbollah are Shia and Palestinians are Sunnis.
"We will solve that problem when we have a country," he replied with a smile. "For now Hezbollah are our brothers."

Abou Yasser was at pains to repeat time and time again that religion was not an issue in the struggle. Jews, Christians and Muslims would all be safe and welcome in the state of Palestine, he told me, but it had to be a state named Palestine and run by a democratic government. He also told me that the other Arab nations use the Palestinians as an excuse for their own political maneuvres, something that evidently bothered him very much. He also repeated that the Palestinians do not only have a problem with the Israelis, but also with the Arabs that oppress the Palestinian people, restrict their rights and use their plight as PR fodder for other aims.

I asked Abou Yasser about the pictures I had seen of the young man, Mohammed Khalili. He told me that Mohammed Khalili was his son. I asked what happened. He told me that Mohammed Khalili had been killed in Beddui camp, trying to break up a fight. He had been stabbed to death. Abou Yasser had manufactured posters of his son to be put up all over the camp as a reminder. He posed for a picture next to his son's poster, smiling up at him and then another, looking directly into the camera.

All in all, our conversation must have lasted just under an hour. At times it was surreal, sitting there next to a man who runs a leg of an organisation referred to as terrorist by so many. All I could think of was that the same guy that prints posters of his son holding a machine gun also has a key to the office where the ping pong paddles are kept. And he gave us really good juice. Very strange.

After taking our leave of Abou Yasser, Hussein accompanied us through the camp as our translator. We stopped off at a gift shop where Hezbollah and Hamas keychains and necklaces are sold alongside ones with the image of Che Guevara.
"Che Guevara," Hussein said, "is a hero to Palestinians."
"Why?"
"He is the ultimate fighter for the oppressed."
I didn't mention the numerous executions of the oppressed by Che Guevara in stadiums around Cuba during the revolution. It didn't seem like the right time or place. I bought a postcard from the hunched-over old lady behind the counter to send to my wife.

On our way out of the camp, Zakariya invited us to his home. We walked up the steps to his flat, which occupies the top floor of a four-storey house. The other apartments in the building are occupied by his brothers and their families. Zakariya has seven brothers and eight sister. Sixteen siblings in all. He has five children himself, all of who have his freckles and infectious smile. Kris and CL smoked an argileh and chatted in Polish as I played with the kids and spoke to Zakariyah through Hussein. Zakariyah had shwarmas brought for us from his brother's shwarma stall and as we ate, they asked me questions about England and my wife. A friend of Zakariyah's arrived and, after a few minutes, asked me what I thought of the Danish cartoon fiasco, something that cropped up very often during my trip.

I replied that in Britain offending someone is not against the law. In a democracy, I said, making someone unhappy should not be punishable. That was what democracy was about. Being able to offend people. The answer seemed to satisfy them and we continued our conversation.

After several cups of tea and a few false starts at saying goodbye, CL, Kris and I left the Beddui camp. Zakariya, Hussein and the guy with the AK47 all waved cheerfully to us as we left. Hussein asked me when I would be back and gave me his email address. I also was given Abou Yasser's email address. He has a Hotmail account. I found that very funny, but not in front of him.

We walked back to the Pension Haddad, talking about our impressions of the camp. We had been told that Lebanon was dangerous and had not seen or felt any threat. We had been told that the camps were dangerous and the Palestinians were crazy. They had given us juice and tea and spoken calmly if passionately about democracy and statehood. It was hard, walking home that night, to believe the things I had been told were anything more than hearsay. Surely if people had seen these places and met these people they would have, if not a different, then at least a more sympathetic opinion. The hidden sharp edges in Abou Yasser's talk of a Palestinian state for all peoples and a democracy that protected Jews and Muslims equally couldn't be ignored, nor did I find it easy to believe that after so many years of acrimony the Jews and Muslims would just lump together under one flag and all sing Kumbaya while holding hands. However, if the purpose of going to these places is to find out what the people there really feel and think as opposed to what the media says they feel and think, then surely part of the deal is that I have to be willing to take a certain amount of what they say at face value.

On the one hand, I doubt if Abou Yasser and Hussein would prance in the moonlight together with the Israelis if they had one country called Palestine for both peoples, but on the other I couldn't help but notice that everyone who was a member of Fatah al-Intifada enjoyed luxuries that were not available to the rest of the camp at large. They had nice apartments with beautifully tiled floors, functioning bathrooms, large bedrooms. How much of their passion for the cause was because of their inner fire and how much of it was because of the benefits the cause affords them? They were never anything less than courteous and hospitable to me, even when I asked them questions about their organisation and its aims. Their use of language was always very delicate though, never referring to violence, terror, attacks or war. They used words like "problem", "resolution", "democracy", "solution". For people with at best an intermediate grasp of the English language, their vocabulary was very well attuned to the intricacy of political discourse.

Only Hussein, a 21 year-old who had just broken up with his girlfriend, betrayed any obvious sense of anger. His eyes flashed when he talked about Israel and he referred to himself and the Palestinian people as victims. Hussein had lived in the Nahr-el-Bared camp until it was bombed by Hariri last year. When I asked him what the siege had been like, his face hardened and he mentioned briefly that he and what was left of his family had been brought to Beddui afterwards. I didn't want to press him and he didn't give me the impression that anything would be forthcoming if I did.

It's hard to produce any sort of Doogie Howser-esque summing up of the Palestinian ideology, their living conditions, their existence. What I would say is that everyone I met who was part of their cause had never seen or set foot in the land they were fighting for. They themselves had been told about their history by parents or grandparents, people who may or may not have given honest representations of what really happened. What I did see is that the circumstances in which they live are not conducive to a resolution or an assimilation into another country. They are treated at arms length and, most of the time, with great disdain. To the West, the Palestinian cause is trotted out as a grand struggle of the oppressed, but the Arab nations that tout their piety so aggressively in the Western media are loathe to actually do anything for these people on their own soil. Faced with that kind of deadpan hypocrisy on one side and the perceived indifference or aggression of the West on the other, it is no wonder that so many of them, as Hussein put it, consider themselves "the victims of both sides".

Hussein had just broken up with a girlfriend. He told me about their relationship. In his society, they had to meet in secret. Only when they were prepared to marry could they reveal their relationship to their parents. Sex before marriage was not only forbidden for women but also frowned upon for men. Hussein threaded his arm through mine as we walked in the Arabic gesture of familiarity that takes so much getting used to for a Westerner. He was wide-eyed when I told him that in the West it was considered naive to marry before having sex and that a person's experience with the opposite sex was largely considered a good thing when settling down. Even with the internet and the countless films, songs and books made by our Western culture, there are huge swathes of people who have no idea of how we actually go about our days. It is easy for them to be told we are immoral because our side is never represented except by Britney Spears or Warner Brothers, neither of whom do a very good job of showing us as anything more than vapid sex-obsessed monomaniacs. Hussein and I parted ways with a kiss on both cheeks and a firm heartfelt handshake. Zakariya, fat and jolly as always, gave me his enormous grin and a huge hug. He pressed his mobile phone number into my hand and told me that if we ran into any trouble with the Hez to get them to call him and he would smooth it over. Abou Yasser had told me it was a pleasure meeting me and asked me to come with a professional translator next time so that we could have a better, more in-depth discussion. Time and again when I was asked about the Danish cartoon thing, I told them my honest opinion which is that disrespect or ridicule should not be prevented by law in a democratic country and, despite their religious indignation, they all seemed to accept my answer as reasonable. Throughout our time at the camp, the most affecting contrast of all was the warmth of the welcome we received from the people while surrounded by grim and sometimes outright gruesome propaganda plastered on every available surface. When I say grim and gruesome, I don't mean that as a value judgement, I mean literally pictures of gunmen, blood-soaked weapons, cartoonish murals of children bleeding and fighting, all surrounding a people who were so open and friendly that it seemed inconceivable that any of them could have drawn any of the pictures that surrounded them. My favourite picture was of Zakariya's son, beaming into the camera with his father's smile, behind him to one side the images of glamourous women in the window of a shop and to the other side a mural of a young mujahed crushing a helicopter in his fist and bleeding.

Captain Libya, Kris and I arrived back at the Pension Haddad exhausted from the long walk. We drank some tea, provided for free by the incredibly hunched grandmother, and played crackgammon until we all fell asleep.

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