Open blog

I am Nairouz  Al-Ghishan , I’ve studied interior design and visual art and I’m now participating in the CaBuReRa (Capacity Building Relay Race) project, which is funded by ENPI. It takes place in six Euro-Mediterranean countries: Italy, Greece, Portugal, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon. The project is aimed to provide us an international and local work experience, so finding a job later could be easier. I’m spending 3 months in Palermo-Italy, then I’ll spend 3 months in Jordan.

At the beginning, when I applied for the project, I wished to be placed in Portugal. My second choice was Italy, so after the interview when I was told that I would be doing my internship in Italy, after feeling a little bit of disappointment I became excited. But before moving to Sicily, I had some fears concerning my flat mates and my roommates because they would be total strangers to me and I didn’t know how I would handle different cultures. Only after one day, I discovered that my fears were unfounded and I got along well with all types of people and I immediately felt at home.

The experience is really nice: meeting people from around the world, working and living with them, learning their cultures and learning Italian. Through this experience I’m really improving myself in many ways.

I’m really happy and thankful for this mobility, and I would apply for it again and again and again if I could, because I’m learning a lot. I feel like I’m getting closer to my goals and I’m getting to know myself more during this mobility by understanding many things I didn’t know before, things that sometimes were already inside of me; at the same time I’m discovering new things I’m able to do.

Well, about my expectations from this experience:

• Learn Italian
• Improve my English
• Meet new people, learn new things and know more about their culture
• Be more serious and accurate in my work
• Write projects, because I always have a problem with writing. To find the right words and put them together, it’s really hard to start something like that but I’m trying.
• Know about other training courses I can take in the future, to improve myself more and more through experiences.
• Work on giving my work experience back to my country.

I also joined this program so I could have more experience in dealing with different kind of people,because someday I would like to be able to teach other people in being more self confident, helping them to improve their ability of public speaking.

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Your first entrance in the Palestinian Occupied Territories from Israel could be impressive, it is up to you to decide whether the impression could be positive or not.

The monumental wall separating Jerusalem from the West Bank, erases from your sight the whole imaginary of olive trees and yellow lands, replacing it by grey horizontal bricks made of concrete: from each and every brick, you can hear an illusory voice screaming “the entrance here is forbidden and against Israeli law”.

The sight of that grey monster chasing you along the journey, calls from within feelings of regret, disappointment, despair into being, because this is likely not the Palestine you imagined. Nevertheless, those few minutes it takes to go through iron cages, passport controls, traffic and urban noise, opens your view and your expectations to a completely different scenery. Not yet dabkeh and olive trees, but peddlers of any kind of good, kids who run around you, trying to catch your attention for bargaining lighters or lollipop, mothers and children waving hands from faraway balconies, dozens of young men and women in a worried hurry before their passage through the checkpoint.

Then, going ahead towards the city, as the service runs along, a kaleidoscopic landscape can be perceived, made of palm trees, high building, and refugee camps. Indeed, this is a first introduction to the complex and critical aspects of the occupation.

Just after the cease of Second Intifada, from 2003 Palestine has been enclosed by walls and fences, designed to protect Israeli state from the illusory enemy of Palestinian violence. Since then, cities like Qalandiya, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, and others, are prisoners of tons of grey concrete and barbed wire. As a new step in the occupation process, it dragged the whole West Bank into new forms of displacement and restriction of movement, factually splitting the region into disconnected areas, and blessing all the inner contradiction to be exacerbated.

Palestinians reacted,  many times , with unexpected moves:  turning the monster into a “canvas” for intense graffiti like the ones in Bethlehem; climbing over the high bricks during Ramadan just to reach al-Aqsa for the Friday prayer, and losing their own life instead, protesting every Friday against a closer and closer trespassing in Bil’In.

The wall is, as a matter of fact, a physical boundary, but is not yet a state of mind. Fences did not surrounded hope as the occupation cannot wipe out any wish to look further. It weighs the burden down changing the face of resistance.

No one knows how separation would affect Palestinian commitment in the long run. For us, passive audience in a controversial play, on the Palestinian flank, those same grey and high bricks do not state “the entrance is forbidden”, they scream out loud “this wall will not exist anymore”.

And beyond this wall? A never-ending sea, Gaza and the land of Return.

One of the first thing that strake you as you arrived in Beirut is the massive presence of soldiers, check points are spread all around the city, as well as around the all country. The awesome deployment of soldiers, a great employment of barbed wire and anti-breakage barriers, had a great impact on my mind and I started to imagine Lebanon as a big fortress.  It happens often in the simplest circumstances of daily life – take a bus, travel with a car or a taxi – to spot checkpoints with a large number of militaries and small flags with the inscription “Jaysh  Lubnān”  “Lebanese army”.

Despite the fact that Beirut looks as a  large,  modern metropolis with every comfort,  the proliferation of checkpoints and controls in almost every area and neighborhood, make the same town take on the appearance of a giant “military box”.  Control procedures are usually quite quick (a look at the passports, and maybe a few questions about the reason of your presence in Lebanon), but still the whole atmosphere is perceived, through the eyes of a foreigner, as  heavy and, in some ways, forced.

Despite the foreign observer perceives the overabundance of military controls as something abnormal and strange, observing the military armed to the teeth going around the streets of Beirut also exudes an unusual air of normality : Lebanese citizens seem to oscillate between  a passive acceptance of the status quo (“this is the situation and cannot be changed”) and a kind of gratitude for the presence of the Army  that, in a context of unstable government authorities and fear for what is happening in neighboring countries , provides some assurance –  or at least a semblance – of protection and safety.

***

The use of military checkpoints is not only limited to the control of the border areas , but, being employed widely even within Beirut, it  multiply and amplify its internal boundaries, taking the form and the role of a control device for immigration, especially among the many Syrian and Palestinian refugees, who are often living  in the city since many years, but  still in a marginalized condition, since the equality of  rights is not yet recognized for them.

The increasing control of borders and their multiplication in and outside the countries reflects in my opinion a general trend in the international migration management. Check points are actually working in Beirut as real border for an amount of people without documents living in the refugee camps in Lebanon further limiting the free of movement of a lot of people now residing in the country. The great enforcement of the border control and of the ongoing securitization process, justified by the Syrian crisis, propagated as a security threat, not only became a tool for the government to canalize popular resentment toward a xenophobic or racist victimization of  Syrian refugees, but above all it works as a device of discrimination that produces different status connected with different access to the rights, and make migrant people vulnerable to different practices of exploitation.

Stemming from this consideration, what seems clear to me is that borders are not acting as mere barriers and the border management has not as main goal to prevent or block human mobility once for all, rather both are devices to create differentiated degrees of inclusion, that means differentiated access to the rights and vulnerability to the exploitation.  Border becomes a tool of inclusion which select and filter people through a process that includes different forms of violence, that have nothing to envy to those employed in exclusionary measures.

All these considerations about securitization and border management directly remind me to Europe, where the new policy regarding border management is sharply connected with the restrictive spirit of contemporary migration policies. The border politics implemented by Europe and the whole discourse about migration as a threat in term of security, national identity and welfare, has a lot in common with what is going on in Lebanon. European borders are more and more controlled: increasing patrol agents today can rely on technological and advanced equipment; new actors are implemented in the border control, but still, the idea which run under all these new ways of control, is not to avoid migration rather to articulate and manage it, to create exceptional space where the rights can be not recognized and suspended in an eternal limb.

The institutionalization of the border management in the Mediterranean sea is a clear symptom of this process of border enforcing, but then it should be recognized that this process has always to face with the challenges put into practice by migrants who every day break this order, forcing the politics of control to come in term  with the practices of migration that structurally exceeds its re-bordering  methods. What I would like to underline is the importance to recognize the border not as something fixed once for all, rather as a place of tension between denial and access, mobility and immobilization.

Considering the power of border not only in negative term provide with the possibility to situate the new control politics within wider logics of governmentality and management as well as it allows us not to look at migrants just as needy people but as new emerging political subjectivities. It provide with the possibility to go beyond  the worn-out securitarian and humanitarian rhetoric, making more intelligible a phenomenon that becomes more and more important on a world-scale, and that contributes to organize and to structure different spheres of our lives.

As much as you know about how an orientalist called Ahmad Al Shugairi becomes when he compares different nations, taking all of his observations out of their contexts and using, as subjects of comparison, shallow observations with small or no search about the discourse in which they happen within, just like him you can always be fooled into becoming an orientalist.

As soon as I landed in Italy I started convincing myself that I have enough knowledge and research skills to learn about the culture, but as soon as I stepped out of the plane I started making the same mistakes. I developed stereotypes, prejudices blinded me, I sugar-coated and romanticized what I liked, and kept myself away by prejudice from things that I would have loved.

The key for solving this problem is simple: acknowledge the problem, be empathetic, ask and question, listen carefully, search, learn then repeat the whole circle. Being afraid of making mistakes will get you into more mistakes, and a false information or a false observation will create stereotypes. It’s really simple as long as you start practicing it.

When I first came to Palermo I found myself trying to be the Mr. Know-It-All, trying to impress myself with my knowledge of the new culture, but later I realized I was fooled by myself and became the Ahmad Al Shugairi of my trip to Italy. The way to get out of it was to embrace the little hidden tourist inside of me, accepting the lack of knowledge and experience and listening to others, experiencing their same journey in a tourist’s shoes; who am I to fool? I had only 3 months and limited resources, I could not really learn everything. And so, I had to make a good use of it.

I tried many types of food with almost no limits, lost my MasterCard and went through the process to get a new one, went out with friends all night till the sun rises up and then went to the flee market, got burned by the sun on the beach and almost broke my leg on the rocks, got eaten alive by mosquitoes in Baida, got lost twice in the city for a short time because I have GPS which ruined the experience of getting lost for everyone, I travelled and slept for 12 hours in the airport, I got sick and went to the doctor, missed out on many things I could have done or seen in my home country, felt nostalgic to the point where I cried, missed people, said goodbye to many people and cried again, I got caught in the routine of life and work, got bored and did so many other things like a tourist and owned the title.

But every time I look back to the experience I had between these little events, I see hundreds of conversations in between where I leaned about the different cultures, and more experiments by which I learned about myself, and more yet to come. And even if I’m no more in Palermo, I shall not stop being the foolish tourist, because that was the best and the most entertaining experience I’ve ever had.

I will tell you a short story about a girl who wanted to go to Jerusalem. She lives in a small village near Ramalla, she is 15 years old, nothing special an ordinary girl. One Sunday she decided to go to Jerusalem, she took a shower early in the morning, she put on her nice blue dress and she was ready to leave.  The dress was a gift from her grandfather, maybe the dress wasn’t that nice but the memory of her grandfather was more important.

She took the bus and she noticed that she was the youngest one in it. She didn’t care, she actually felt special for that matter. She wasn’t afraid, she taught herself not to be afraid. The bus took them to the security control, in order to be checked and continue the road to her Jerusalem. The place felt more crowded than the last time she was there and for a moment she didn’t know which way to go. ‘How is it possible’, she whispered,’ I have done this too many times’. In an instance she had found her spot in the crowd. She was very careful  because  she didn’t want to ruin her nice dress.

No one seemed to move, or you couldn’t understand the movement because of the yelling and shouting. “Why is it the same every single time?” she whispered again. For a glimpse she closed her eyes and imagined to be in charge of this place. She had a plan of creating 3 lines, one for women and children, one for the grandparents and one for the men. On her face appeared  a smile of satisfaction. Yes an ordinary girl from a village could make a difference, could remove the burden out of the people even though she knew that the men and women with uniforms from the other side will remain.

‘Noooo’, she screamed in the middle of her thoughts, someone has pushed her and she fell on the ground. ‘My dress’. She was about to burst into tears but she didn’t. She stood up and yelled to everyone ‘You let them control you’ and she left. She knows that she has to face the brutality of the people with uniforms and she has managed to do so. In her mind she kept the look of  a man from the other side looking at them with twisted joy and satisfaction. ‘No’ she said to herself I will not make them a favor.

She didn’t go to Jerusalem that day. To be honest she hasn’t been to Jerusalem for almost 10 years.

She admitted to me that she has only one fear. The uniforms may remain, unfortunately alongside with that the Palestinian society will remain standstill.

P.S: If you find any similarity with reality, don’t be upset I assure you that is fictional.

Eftychia Psarra

Mario sits in the front, because someone at the beginning told us that it is more appropriate for women to stay in the back seats. I’ve never been fully convinced by this advice, but most of the time we all just tacitly comply to these unwritten codes of the alleged Jordanian bon ton. So, I said, Mario sits in the front and elegantly greet the taxi driver trying his best to pronounce correctly the Arab international hailing formula: “Salam aleikum”, to which is punctually followed the common reply.

The first couple of minutes pass in quiet. The driver sweats silently and ascetically endures the massive traffic. The radio plays an Egyptian classic. We mentally curse the heat and the lack of public transportation in the city. Mario is sensing the situation. I can see him thinking. He starts twisting his blond lock compulsively. He is becoming fidgety, the worn-out leather seat is starting to itch beneath him.

He turns towards me: “How do I say can I smoke here in Arabic?”. I tell him. He thinks about it. He asks me again. I tell him again. He thinks a bit more. Then he finally gives it a try. “Mumkin adakhin hun?”. I know it’s not really because he needs to smoke. The thing is that he wants to establish a connection. The man smiles extensively and offers him a cigarette. Mario thanks and shows that he has his own pack and to return the courtesy offers him one of his, but after a long negotiation he ends up having to accept the man’s. I don’t know how or when it starts and I don’t know in what language it is but I suddenly find them finding themselves in an intricate and deep conversation ranging on a impressive variety of thrilling subjects.

This pattern is subject to small but unpredictable variations. The outcomes are unforeseeable, and usually splendid.

Once there was a boxing glove-shaped keychain hanging from the rear-view mirror. It had the colours of the flag of I don’t remember which country, somewhere in central Asia. Mario pointed at it, uttering the name of the country accompanied by an eloquent question mark. It ended up with the driver showing him videos of boxing matches on his mobile. The guy used to be a professional boxer in his country. He had to stop then. No money, no time.

Another day the taxi driver revealed he was a football commentator renown in all the Arab world. He also had recordings on his smart phone. We listened. He had a passionate powerful voice. Mario and him started to talk about Napoli and Italian soccer in general. He even knew the names of football players of Italian serie C.

Sometimes, many times, the taxi driver is Palestinian. We ask from which city, and at a name like Nablus, the memories of our recent trip to the West Bank start flooding our minds, and instead of asking him questions, we blurt about our own experience, of how much we liked Palestine, how beautiful it is, and what we did and visited and ate. We see pride and sadness in the man’s eyes and we just smile.

Once me and Mario had a conversation, I don’t remember if I started the conversation, or if he started it, or if I only imagined to have this conversation with him, maybe it happened  only in my mind, but all these details are not really so important. It was after a crazy ride with a crazy taxi driver driving at high speed and zigzagging and racing among the cars with the radio at full blast playing disco music and him dancing on his seat and speaking as fast as he was driving, about football and Italy and expensive cars and Filipino immigrants. Well, after this ride me and Mario found ourselves making conjectures about the life of the guy, does he have a wife waiting for him after his crazy drives, what does he tell her when he is back, does she wait for him awake when he comes late, does he pass by a bar to smoke argila with his friends before going home. I can’t really explain why this is something I thought worth mentioning or even remembering. I guess I just felt that we were sharing this “spying” interest, this “curiosity” of strangers’ lives..  doesn’t ever happen to you to look at one window and try to imagine the lives of the people living there?

But there are times, usually at night, when the radio fills the taxi with the enchanting melody of the Quranic recitation. Then we all keep quiet, we abide by the silence of the man absorbed in his tranquil drive, and we just drown in our own thoughts, contemplate the lights of the city, and let the voice of the tajweed lullabying us till home.

Mario has this way to break a breach in the wall that usually stands between strangers who know they are going to share just few irrelevant minutes together. What I think is that maybe he likes a look, a wrinkle, an object of the man. Thus he starts questioning using those three Arabic words that he has learnt, pushing the man to speak that little English that he knows, and when the language resources are running out, the communication moves to another level, which I assume is what they call body language, but which I would rather define metaphysical.

This brief rides along the streets of Amman, which might had passed unnoticed in the chaotic flux of the days, give us instead a glimpse on the lives of an amount of accidental humanity. A driver just supposed to take us to the other side of the city, lets us instead make a tour into his microcosms, revealing pieces of life, of dreams, of memories, of experiences that we would never see if we just stared out of the window.

Alessia Carnevale

Living in Palermo

I am Husein Smadi from Jordan and I work as a lawyer and in the field of human rights. I decided to apply for this project because I wanted to discover a new culture,as well as language and way of living; but I also wanted to share my experience, so Palermo was one of the best decisions I have ever took in my entire life.
During my mobility period I worked at the Human Rights Youth Organization: we worked with refugees and for women rights. I learned many things in this career and I met a lot of beautiful kids and good people.
But now let me tell you about Palermo! Good friendly people who like to have fun, they are funny but crazy drivers and they have the best night life you can ask for. You just have to look for those hidden little streets where you can find music and people partying all the time – street clubs are all over the city. In Palermo they have also a lot of food – I mean street food – so tasty and cheap. Palermo is full of beautiful beaches and green beautiful mountains, but you can also find a lot of history in Palermo, I mean a lot for all generations and time. This is a beautiful city for a peaceful living, and it is also a very cheap city.

I am really happy that I chose Palermo for this project , I met a lot of people that I would never forget , and I learned a lot about new things, culture, language, food, nationalities. One day I will go back to Palermo to visit the new friends I met and this beautiful city as well. I really miss it so much.
Finally I would to thank CESIE and Al Hayat Center for this opportunity.

 My personal experience in Palermo

My name is Dyaa Mubaideen, I had my experience in Palermo, that is a city located in the South of Italy. Palermo is rich in Architecture, Art and Culture; there are a lot of museums and arts in the street, especially in the center of Palermo, as well as several public libraries.

I was really surprised when I saw the nightlife there: they don’t sleep, and the streets are always full of cars and people drinking, eating, dancing and chatting. My favorite areas in the center of Palermo were “Chiavettieri”, “Piazza Magione”, “Piazza Marina” and “Vucciria”; my friends and I usually went there at night, to meet people and chill.

According to me, the thing I liked the most in Palermo was the food. I’ve loved it, especially the street food: it’s too cheap and so delicious that you should try everything: seafood, fishes, “Panino con panelle” …etc. You can find it wherever you go in Palermo, you don’t need to sit on a table and pay a lot, just buy and enjoy the food.

The only problem I had there was about speaking English. It’s hard to find someone who speaks or understands English, not only in Palermo but in different places in Italy, especially in the South. Sometimes it’s good to have a person with you who speak Italian language.

Visiting my fridge is a habit I liked to do often (it’s not that now I don’t) but now it takes more than just grabbing something to eat. I end up with an endless stream of memories pouring out of the fridge magnets that I’ve bought from every place I have visited.

I came back with thousands of pictures and lots of souvenirs, things to comfort me when I feel nostalgic. But most of them time, what you are missing can’t be revived with a picture or a souvenir. It’s something you lose contact with the moment you leave. In Portugal, I met my true self for the first time.The Culture there has allowed me and the other participants (who’ve become my family) to experience feeling liberated and free but yet responsible. No society pressures or judgments for being who you are. Two months have passed since I came back and I wake up everyday longing to feel the same. Me and my friends still maintain daily contact, share thoughts and express how life has stopped being the same for us. We were respected and accepted effortlessly.

Sarah Qabbani