UN Resolution 194: "Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and those wishing not to return should be compensated for their property."
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Living in the Diaspora as a Palestinian, home was always found in romantic meanings of a nation, far away from anything I grew up knowing. While, foreignness left me forging my own identity, those Palestinians, who live in the refugee camps are surrounded with a different meaning of belonging, of history, and of what it means to want to return home. For millions of Palestinians living in the refugee camps, the very symbolism of the camp was the reality of their obvious difference; their predicament; their inevitable problematic: politically, socially, psychologically and even physically through the spaces that surrounded and limited their very mobility. I talk about this more in my thesis: Intergenerational Differences of Identity...
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However, while so many stories resonate empty sheets with emotions and warm hearted realities of he-stories and her-stories, I'd like to share Ahmed's story with you ....
Ahmed Mohammed Qatawi: 78 year old 1948 first-generation refugee. Ahmed talked about his exiled journey from the village of Lid, when he was 17 years old. After sleeping under olive-trees, and eventually reaching Ramallah, where he lived scattered for months, he ended up in Zarka, in Jordan in 1949. Ahmed spoke of the refugee camp development, as he emotionally motioned to how he built every part of his tiny home in the camp; from what was a mere tent, to zinco-based housings, until 1981 when they were finally able to construct their homes out of concrete/ bricks. He spoke to me of his family, his children, his brothers and sisters ... and that even after years of looking back, he tells me of how proud he is to what the Palestinians made out of themselves, despite their circumstances. I asked Ahmed if he would go back if he had the chance and why he continues to live in the refugee camp, despite the fact that it doesn't provide him with any services and the fact that it doesn't benefit him anymore. He replied, "So long as the Israelis occupy our land, we'll never be able to return. There is nothing for us to do, but wait, we've waited for over 63 years, and no matter how much they pay me to give up my right to return, I would never do it. These camps are a reminder, every single day, both to us and the international community that we are still here, waiting to return, we're not going anywhere." Ahmed felt that the camps, were the very perpetual representation of the Palestinians International right to return to their homes and return to their lands. More than ever, Ahmed wasn't gullible to the political dynamics that play a large role to his current protracted situation, if anything, he was persistently aware of his place and role in the camp....
Today, as we witness thousands of Palestinians refugees marching towards the borders of Palestine, from Syria to Lebanon to Jordan, and those inside the West Bank and Gaza, I think about Ahmed, and his desire to return to a home, no longer occupied, but free again. Ahmed is only another refugee amidst so many others, with stories that carry more than these pages could ever hold.
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