Dealing with the Refugees in the Middle East

"There is no humanity in diplomacy," said a commentator on television recently when discussing the Syrian crisis. Indeed, many of the immediate concerns of "humanity" are left to humanitarian organizations to manage, while other critical dimensions - like providing dignity, legitimacy, and lasting answers - are lost in the turmoil of interest-driven politics.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, wrote an article in the Cairo Review detailing the refugee crisis in the Middle East today. He explains how the creation of a new refugee problem in Syria, combined with the older question of the Palestinian refugees and other lingering problems, have now overcharged the region. The challenge is now vast, leaving host countries with an overwhelming burden:

• Syrian Refugees: 1.3 million refugees in other countries; 4,000,000 internally displaced
• Iraqi Refugees: 94,000 refugees still in Syria and Jordan; 1,000,000 internally displaced
• Yemen: 230,000 refugees in Yemen, most of them Somali; 400,000 internally displaced
• Libya: 500,000 refugees of 800,000 from 120 nationalities who had originally crossed Libya's borders in early 2011; 60,000 internally displaced
• Palestinian Refugees: 5,000,000 (eligible for UNRWA services) dispersed throughout the Middle East and beyond.

(Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan) 

Without counting Palestinians, this amounts to 2,124,000 refugees and 5,460,000 internally displaced in the Middle East. The grand total who have been cast out of house and home is over 12,000,000. The scale can be likened to the situation of Europe at the end of the Second World War, but in the Middle East, this is happening during a rolling and ongoing series of crises. 

In some smaller countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, the recent influx of Syrian refugees amounts to 10% of the local population. Host countries are doing their best but they cannot manage such numbers alone. Furthermore, their citizens feel threatened by unwanted strangers whose presence, they believe, is the cause of an increase in prices and crime. As Guterres points out, the Middle East's tradition of generosity and hospitality is now under heavy pressure. 

What can be done?

International humanitarian organizations such as UNHCR and UNRWA are doing all they can to deliver aid and services (and everyone can donate on their websites). They provide as much material aid as possible; however, the refugees' loss of status, legitimacy and security, equally important needs, are barely attended to. 

Can the region itself do more to address these problems? The automatic answer is that regional actors today are barely managing their own affairs and, although the Arab tradition of social hospitality is strong, it does not translate well into the political sphere. Interestingly, however, some Gulf states, especially the UAE, have become more active in providing funds or serving as logistical hubs. 

As we had mentioned in a previous post, a key problem in the region today is a lack of empathy between groups. There is a desperate need for common purpose and a greater sense of identity than family or tribe. Also, "solutions" in the region all too often take the form of local violent reactions, or, ironically, international intervention. But, there is a large spectrum of possible action in between, especially at the regional level.

Practically speaking, it may be more effective to meet the refugees and host countries' needs through a regional framework. Such an approach would provide greater autonomy and control over the problem, improve coordination between affected countries and the capacity to act locally, and create more organic and cultural links to the refugees, including improving their status in host countries.

Such a potential "Middle East Refugee Organization" can continue to work in close coordination with and through the support of international actors. Critically, such regional responsibility would begin to move the Middle East away from a deep reliance on others to solve problems, and also create a way to begin to chip away at the tribal reflexes that plague the region. Although distrust is rampant in the Middle East, and a core obstacle to cooperation, host countries, like the Lebanese, would do well to remember their own recent experience as refugees. Others may also yet suffer such a fate in the future, i.e. this is a common human problem.

There is no doubt that, as Guterres stresses, the ultimate resolution to this problem is through new political arrangements. However, until this happens, if regional actors and host countries attend to the refugees material and emotional needs, they are far less likely to become the threat that many in the region fear.

As much as this seems contrary to the tough political habits of the Middle East, dealing with the refugee issue regionally may spur a badly needed virtuous cycle in the region, and, in the process, infuse some badly needed humanity into diplomacy. It may also may add backbone to the resolution of other problems, such as regional economic, water and food security issues. 

At the end of the day, these millions of individuals that we call refugees are the victims of history and the dysfunctional politics of the region. Their lot does not mean that their basic needs have disappeared, including the need for dignity despite the loss of home and security. A greater attendance to these common human needs could at least mitigate their tragic experience. 

For a look at the state of Syrian refugees, see this powerful photo essay.

Al-Azraq Oasis

A unique and little known community that flies below the radar of most tourist itineraries can be found east of Amman, along Jordan’s desert highway to Baghdad. There’s not much on the surface to distinguish the oasis town of al-Azraq from the many other pit stops frequented by the region’s truckers. Some may even call the place uninspiring, or even ugly. But a few elements make the community stand out.

For thousands of years al-Azraq (meaning "the blue one") has been known for its large abundance of water. That rare Middle Eastern commodity, which long ago bubbled to the surface to form large pools, not only magnetized migratory birds travelling between Asia and Africa, but also whole communities of foreigners. Both Chechens from the Caucasus of Russia and Druze peoples from present-day Syria and Lebanon flocked to Azraq in the early 20th century to escape persecution and start new lives. They are communities that endure in al-Azraq to this day.

In recent decades, large-scale extraction of that water by the Jordanian government has unfortunately depleted those marshes. But the downsized pools, along with the water buffalo brought by the Chechens, can still be seen there. 

A few kilometers away there is a wildlife reserve housing exotic animals (including the Arabian Oryx). And an ancient stone castle whose foundations date back to Roman times, and which was used as a temporary base by T.E. Lawrence in his guerilla campaign against the Ottomans during World War One, is also open to the public. 

In all directions surrounding al-Azraq is a wide expanse of desert imbued with history, characters and points of interest that beckon the curious. 

You can read more here about Al-Azraq Oasis and Jordan’s seldom visited Eastern Desert.  

Mujib Nature Reserve

Overshadowed by the heavily trafficked tourist sites of Petra and Wadi Rum, is one of Jordan’s least known treasures. Ninety kilometers south of the capital Amman, off a main highway is Wadi Mujib – a massive riverine gash in the mountains running in an east-west direction to the Dead Sea.

Comprising numerous tributaries and located within the Mujib Nature Reserve, Wadi Mujib begins inland at around 900 metres and drops to more than 400 metres below sea level to reach the Dead Sea. The main wadi is fed by several seasonal and permanent streams and is a major source of H2O replenishing the ever-receding shores of the world’s lowest body of water.

Like its iconic cousins to the south, Wadi Rum and Petra, The Mujib Nature Reserve is breathtakingly beautiful, and exudes the same Biblical profundity and rock-hewn drama as the other sites. But there is an added feature here that the other venues lack: water and few people.

The area’s stark disposition (marked by canyons as narrow and as steep as the famous rock cleft that leads to the Treasury at Petra) is brilliantly juxtaposed by the life-giving rivers that run through it, creating an impression of a kind of secret paradise flowing with milk and honey. It is a safe-haven resonating with an almost sacred quality.

But it's not so much the wadi itself that is Mujib's real worth. Instead, it is what’s contained within it. The area’s relative remoteness and inaccessibility to humans has allowed a large biodiversity to thrive here – including both rare and endangered animals.

Mujib is an important home and way station for around 200 species of birds, many of them migratory. They include birds with such colorful names as the Black Stork, the Honey Buzzard, the Levant Sparrow Hawk, the Short-Toed Eagle and the Barbary Falcon.

Three hundred different species of plants grace the wadi’s walls and floors. Walking through the shallow, clear waters of its streams, one is surprised to find small schools of fish and even frogs.

And although they are not easily seen, Mujib is also home to jackals, wolves, mongoose, hyenas, Nubian ibex, and caracals (a medium sized cat with black and white ear tufts that can catch birds in mid-air). The animals’ continued survival here is owed, in part, to the special care given to the site.

The 212 square kilometer Mujib Nature Reserve was created in 1987 by Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN). There are three main trails for hiking and canyoning and no more than 25 people are allowed on each trail per day. The dry trails are open year round. The wet ones, where you can sometimes wade up to your chest in fast-moving torrents of water, are open between 1 April and 31 October.

(These photos were taken on the Malaqi Trail, which follows part of the Mujib and Hidan Rivers).

The Hejaz Railway

My grandfather helped rebuild the railway that Lawrence of Arabia helped destroy. Robert Smith Bell, graduate of engineering from Columbia U. and hailing from Philadelphia, came to the Middle East in 1917 and ended up with the British team in Amman assessing how to rebuild the Hejaz railway after the First World War.

That line, first conceived in 1864 by Sultan Abdel Hamid and completed by the Ottomans in 1908, extended from Damascus to Mecca, and was intended to facilitate the pilgrimage to the Holy City.

The railway was a major financial undertaking for the Ottomans, trying to vault themselves into technological competition with European powers. Building railways was a major financial exercise requiring its establishment as a 'waqf' or religious endowment with innovative funding techniques including 'donations' on the part of Turkish soldiery.

Its construction was fraught with dangers - lack of water, fuel, risky and hostile terrain. Indeed, many Arab bedouins and caravan operators attacked the line because it threatened their ancient livelihood of escorting pilgrims to Mecca. The line saw 8 years of solid service (1908-1916) and carried 300,000 passengers in 1914 until the First World War and T.E. Lawrence presented its destruction in the great Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

My father was born in Amman because of the Hijaz railway and my grandfather's death in 1937 was a result of the desert conditions and the scourges of such difficult engineering endeavours. 'Mr. Lava' as he was known succumbed to a stroke in the upper eastern arm of what is now Jordan while building the road on the lava plain in that area. The road was needed to construct the oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa.

He is now buried in the British cemetary in Haifa near the very railway lines that run along the Mediterranean coast, once stretching from Cairo to Beirut.

A View of Amman

Amman, Jordan

Photo in this post copyright John Zada and John Bell