helene1234
New member
Hello everybody.
My name is Helene. I am Berg1948´s daughter, and the person who wrote an e-mail meant for my friends, but that was published here on this forum by my father. I am 30 years old, and in the middle of a carreer change which is what allowed me to take this time off.
I was astonished to see how many people had read my little travel report and also all the comments that followed it. I do feel, however, that many things need to be clearded up.
My reasons for going to Syria
It started with the fact that I like travelling, I have spendt most of my adult life abroad, and now I live in Barcelona, Spain. I find it extremely fulfilling to not just travel, but to be in a culture for a certain time, allowing me to understand more about the world that surrounds me, and also about myself. This far I have lived in Norway, Mexico, Australia, the USA, Ecuador, and now Spain, as well as having travelled to a few more.
I saw a tv-program this summer about volunteer projects. It immediatelly appealed to me, since it combines two things that I find important in life: 1) doing good, and 2) getting to know another culture up close from the inside, not from the outside like a tourist normally does.
The TV-program was about the international NGO "Service Civil International". In the US it´s known as International Voluntary Service. The organization is non-political and non-religious, and acts as a coordinator between people looking to do voluntary projects, and voluntary projects looking for people.
On their page, one can scroll through hundreds of projects in every imaginable corner of the world, and make searches based on personal interests (human rights, AIDS awareness, environment etc), by country /region and by date. By combining these factors I made a selection of projects that seemed interesting to me.
This particular project seemed interesting to me because it dealt with children, and I thought it would be a fun and 'easy' way to meet the locals. Among the group of volunteers that ended up choosing this camp, there were many different reasons for choosing this program. Some chose it for political reasons, being interested in the "Palestine case". Others chose it because they were interested in learning more about life as refugees, other again were students of political science and similar degrees wanting to learn more about the political situation in the Middle East.
Another reason for chosing this project, was that it was taking place in Syria in the Middle East, a region I had never visited. I of course did extensive research on the country before putting it on my application, and everything said the same; this is one of the safest countries in the Middle East with hospitable people and wonderful historical sights. I also have to admit that I had never made too big an effort to understand the complexity of the political situation of the Middle East, and this was an interesting opportunity for me to learn. I feel that it is very important not only to admit where one´s knowledge is limited, but also to try to do something about it.
A third reason was that I wanted to test myself, how I would function under different living conditions, to find out really how dependent I am on the luxury goods that I surround myself with; everything from western-style bathrooms to my electrical toothbrush and hairdryer, to the commodity of having a big double bed all to myself.
As you see, I did not choose this program because I had a special inclination towards the political situation of Palestine refugees.
Preparations for leaving
I booked a ticket that gave me two weeks of holidays after the end of the official program of the workcamp I had been accepted in, having the intention to travel around Syria and Jordan to get to know the region more after. I have to admit that I focussed most of my preparations on reading about the people, culture and sights to see in these countries, not so much on the palestine situation or the complex middle eastern politics, but after all my motif for going was more to get to know the local culture than to get political training.
Normally, the coordinating organization organizes a preparatory weekend workshop to prepare the participants on the situations they might face themselves with. In my case, I applied so late that there was no time to do this introductory seminar before leaving.
The volunteers
There were in total 11 European volunteers at the summer camp. They came from the following countries: Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Italy and Spain. They were between 21 and 34 years old. 2 were boys, the rest were girls.
The host organization
The host organization is Jafra Youth Center. It is an organization that is run by and for Palestine youth in Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus, Syria.
Jafra is unique in a Syrian context, it´s the only organization that not only receives volunteers from abroad, but it also sends out youth to participate in solidarity projects around Europe. It is supported by The European Commission and the before mentioned Service Civil International. They arrange different work camps that include differet workshops based on the dialogue between participants where they exchange their points of view and experiences, -not just between themselves but also with the local palestinian volunteers.
The local volunteers arrange a wide range of activities for the children of the camp to provide them social activities that keep them off the streets. This includes a football group, a theatre group, music and folklore dance groups, and workshops in photography, art and multimedia.
The work camps they arrange with international volunteers, focus on issues involving human rights, in particular 1) Human rights for refugees, 2) Women´s rights, and 3) Children´s rights.
The Children´s Summer Camp is a tool that is aimed at joining children from different refugee camps in Syria to meet and have fun, exchange experiences and build independent personalities. The organizers also aim at normalizing open and friendly relations between boys and girls in a mostly muslim society where they are rarely interacting, fostering this by having smaller groups with both sexes, and activities that never exclude sexes.
The international volunteers were invited to come help out at the summer camp for a couple of reasons. Mainly it was to make the children curious about the world, by having the opportunity to have the world coming all the way to them. This is particularly important due to the fact that few Palestinians have the opportunity to travel abroad, since they simply do not have a country or a passport. We were also there to let the children and the Palestine community know that there are people elsewhere in the world that care about their destiny and about the "Palestine case".
We spent the first week getting lessons on the political and historical background of the palestine refugeers, receiving lots of information about how the UNHCR and UNRWA work (the UN agencies in charge of refugees in general and Palestine refugees in particular). We were given an overview of the history of the Palestine refugees, and explanations of the political parties involved in the Palestine case. Throughout all these sessions we were able to ask many questions, ask for additional information and voice our opinions. The local volunteers who taught our classes made it clear to us that this was the Palestine side of the story, but still aimed at giving relatively balanced and neutral information and made it clear to us that the best way to understand the political situation in the Middle East, is to take this information from them, but also to compare and contrast it with what we find in media and other places.
When asked directly about their opinion about suicide "martyrs", the response from most were that they do not agree with it, since it kills civilians and actually hurts the palestine case in the public opinion in media worldwide. But on the other hand they also said that the did not agree with the action, but could understand why people did it -out of desperation in a situation where all other political and democratical means have failed to resolve the situation. For those interested in learning more about what happens inside the head of a possible suicide bomber, I recommend watching "Paradise Now", an Oscar-nominated film about two young men that are recruited to a suicide bombing attack on Israel. This movie was part of the curriculum during the preparation classes.
It was in other words no indoctrination and brainwashing of the international volunteers, but more an introduction to the lives of the palestinians and thereby the children that we were going to spend the Summer Camp with. The background information proved being really helpful when we "deep dived" into the Palestine reality when we started the work in the camp.
An introduction to the Yarmouk refugee camp
In the fifties Syria gave the palestine refugees a large piece of land outside of Damascus, Syria. Each family was given 50m2 where they could build homes. Syria accepted the Palestine refugees but never gave them citizenship, unlike for example Jordan, where all refugees were given jordanian citizenship and thereby the same civil rights as the originally jordanian citizens. The result is that now, in 2007, the third generation of Palestine refugees in Syria are growing up without the same rights as their Syrian neighbours, basic human rights such as the right to have a passport and to travel abroad. They do have residence though, and receive basic rights such as schooling and health care, although most of it is provided by the UN relief agencies.
Yarmouk today is a suburban area of Damascus. Its streets are similar to any other streets of Damascus, bursting with people, businesses, traffic etc. There are no borders surrounding it, and the citizens can move freely in and out of it. So what is the difference between being a Yarmouk Camp resident, and residing in any other part of Damascus? The main difference lies in that most of the citizens of Yarmouk are of palestine heritage, and therefore have different civil rights from those of people living in other parts of the city. The most obvious difference is the lack of a nationality, these people are neither palestinians (because the country no longer exists) nor syrians.
Activities in the summer camp
As I understand, summer camps are quite common among palestinian kids, but they do in general have a more military concept, with arms training, martial arts etc for example. This camp has a completely different focus, with no military training (although the morning routine of standing in lines and crying palestine war cries might seem military to some), the focus is on "normal" activities such as arts, sports and playing. From what I understand, this is something new to most palestinians, and the host organization told me that they had some problems explaining this to parents, since they too expect a more military-style camp. These camps are not usually mixed. The result is that the families that sent their children to this camp, are more likely to be among the more liberal families. I can not have much opinion about what "other" families in "other" camps with "other" activities are, since I have not had any contact with them.
The children had a quite full program every day, starting with morning gymnastics at 7, then breakfast from 8-9, and then from 9-10 they would be with their groups receiving classes about Palestine history. This means receiving stories about palestine war heroes, poets (such as mahmoud darwish, I recommend checking out his webpage for more information and inspiration) etc. Later the children had playtime for some hours, with group games of quite innocent character, palestine versions of children´s games that we all played as kids. In between activities, there would be some time spent parading and screaming palestine fight cries. Not that I understood much of what they said, but I assume it to be patriotic cries reenforcing their palestine identity.
After lunch there would be workshops, in the evening more playtime, then supper, then more games and playing in the evening, until about 11, 11:30 every night. And for whomever of you that has ever participated in a children´s camp, - I think one of the only ways of making all these kids go to bed at night, is to make them so tired from all the activities that they just pass out when it´s bedtime.
Culture shock in the workshops
The disturbing part would show up in the workshops of the afternoons, The international volunteers were assigned different activities that we would help out with. The different workshops were; dance, theatre, newspaper, ceramics and arts. Every group had one or two local volunteers in charge of them, and us Europeans helping out where we could. Most of the groups were unproblematic, but some issues surprised all of the volunteers in the theatre-group and in the art-group. We found it astonishing, and sometimes almost scary, how young children (aged 8-13) had imaginations so influenced by their violent history. For example, in the theatre group they were divided into smaller groups, and each group had to come up with a short play that they could act out on parent's night in the end of the camp. Most of the ideas that the children came up with, dealt with enacting lives of people near them who had suffered from zionist (term used by palestinians regarding israeli jews) aggressions. There were stories about how soldiers killed off entire families and how people managed to escape from this and eventually made it to safety in Syria. Everything was described in such violent and bloody terms, from children that were soo young.
A similar thing happened in the art classes, when asked to draw "whatever they felt like drawing", the children would draw palestine flags and maps, and sometimes they would depict assasinations that they had heard about in their families. It is important to mention that this conduct was not incited by the local volunteers, they were at times equally surprised.
This was something that surprised the local volunteers alot, and that shocked some of the international volunteers very much.
By facing a culture so drastically different from my own, it became very clear for me that in an intercultural setting, there are many things that cannot be judged from my ethnocentric point of view, it has to be judged based on the setting where it occurs. For example , I come from an extremely peaceful corner of the world, Norway, a corner of the world so non-violent that not even police officers carry guns. Based on that, it is very very very difficult for me to see the point of weapon training of children. But it has to be understood in it´s context, however strange it may be. My point is; many things I don´t necessarily agree with, but I observe them in their context, and in their context they somehow make sense. Weapon training for minors makes more sense when you know that you could be attacked any time, and that weapon training might be necessary for protecting your family.
A couple of the volunteers passed through quite a cultural shock, becoming very distressed with what they saw, and choosing to refrain from dealing with the situation, insisting that "our" European way of thinking IS the ONLY correct way of thinking, and whatever these kids were experiencing was just plainly wrong.
Yes, to a certain degree I can agree that we should not blindly accept any behavious under the pretext of "intercultural understanding", but still we should make sure that we understand that we are in a different context with a different culture, history, and daily life.
I can sit down next to a politically quite extremist palestinian and discuss with him, and as two adults we can exchange opinions, and I can choose to agree or disagree, and I can choose to respect or disrespect the opinions voiced. So even if our cultures are different, we can accept eachother and eachother's opinions. But when it comes to childhood, the differences become extreme. The difference between European childhoods and Palestinian childhoods was almost too big to comprehend.
We "westerners" grow up in a very overprotected society, as children we are protected from all things bad in the world. Our parents turn off the television when there are violent images of wars or other atrocities. We grow up in countries in peace, where our main concerns will circle more around the brand of jeans that are "in" this year, not worrying about our human rights - since we have all the rights in the world, and there´s very little possibility that anything will happen to change that situation.
Here on the other hand, people grow up in a refugee situation, with limited human rights, and with war very very close (both historically close and geographically close, and even close in family). Most have family members who have been killed in the conflict in the last 60 years. Everybody has been driven away from their land. And they define themselves as Palestinians, even though they don´t live on Palestine land, but are forced to live in refugee camps in a neighbouring country. They are the grandchildren of the people that were driven out of Palestine in '48, but they are still suffering from it. But, again readers, please don´t take this as me agreeing with the palestinians or against israelis. These are mere observations.
The future of Palestine
When it comes to political solutions of this issue, I have absolutely no idea what the best solution would be. The current discussions of a two-state solution do not appeal very much to the palestinians that I have talked to, since most of them want to go back to the town of their ancestors, and have little interest in being put on a random piece of Palestine land.
Apparently most discussions regarding a two-state solution leave out the palestine refugees living outside of Israel, since it mostly focuses on the ones living in the Palestine territories in Israel. I recognize, however, that I don't know enough about the political contents of these solutions, so please do not attack me if some of the details here are slightly incorrect.
What I DO know is what has been the opinions of the people I have spoken to. The majority believes in living in peaceful coexistence with jews in Israel. Several people referred to the peace process that South Africa has gone through in recent years after the end of the apartheid as a model that they would like to follow. A model of reconciliation. A situation where both parties would have to give and take some, but that in the end the result would be worth it.
My personal final conclusions
We were asked in the end of the work camp what we would do now with the experience. Most said that they would let the information sink, and then probably look for information contradicting or confirming what we had seen and heard while in the refugee camp. Some were looking to become more actively involved in the Palestine case. I can´t really say too much here about what other people will do or won't do regarding the palestine case. But I can tell you about my personal conclusions.
I have come to a conclusion that the Palestine case is not my fight to fight. Yes, there´s a lot of injustice happening to Palestinians, but I feel that one actually has to be palestinian to be a part of it. However if I were to be involved, it would be at a more generic level, speaking about human rights in general, and the suffering of ANY refugee in the world.
I would also like to add that all in all my month in the Middle East was spectacular. I have never before met some many kind and friendly people. It was safe for me to walk around everywhere alone. People treated me with respect everywhere I went. The hospitality was astonishing, several people invited me to dine at their place. A lot of people speak very good English and every time I found myself on public transport, people were always volunteering to help me and to make me feel secure and make me feel extremely welcome everywhere I went. During the time there I made lots of friends that I hope to keep in touch with, both from the local volunteers and from the other international volunteers, the people that shared this experience with me.
I found the local muslims not very conservative, and very accepting to other forms of dressing, acting etc. I think this is a result of Syria being a country with a relatively big minority of christians (appx 10%), that dress and look just like any Europeans, without receiving any hassle or being deprived of any rights. These muslim are not extremists that hate the west, like media prefer to picture arabs, but the absolute majority are kind and friendly people interested in other cultures and other ways of being. Of course, there will be "crazy" people there as well. I just tell you what I´ve seen and about the people that I have met, and my impression was absolutely 100% positive.
You might call me naïve for going on this trip, but I do believe that my reasons were clear, and I got out of it what I expected to get- and more.
Remember, my reason for going was the simple fact that I did not know enough, and I wanted to do something about that.
I am already planning my next trip to Yarmouk.
My name is Helene. I am Berg1948´s daughter, and the person who wrote an e-mail meant for my friends, but that was published here on this forum by my father. I am 30 years old, and in the middle of a carreer change which is what allowed me to take this time off.
I was astonished to see how many people had read my little travel report and also all the comments that followed it. I do feel, however, that many things need to be clearded up.
My reasons for going to Syria
It started with the fact that I like travelling, I have spendt most of my adult life abroad, and now I live in Barcelona, Spain. I find it extremely fulfilling to not just travel, but to be in a culture for a certain time, allowing me to understand more about the world that surrounds me, and also about myself. This far I have lived in Norway, Mexico, Australia, the USA, Ecuador, and now Spain, as well as having travelled to a few more.
I saw a tv-program this summer about volunteer projects. It immediatelly appealed to me, since it combines two things that I find important in life: 1) doing good, and 2) getting to know another culture up close from the inside, not from the outside like a tourist normally does.
The TV-program was about the international NGO "Service Civil International". In the US it´s known as International Voluntary Service. The organization is non-political and non-religious, and acts as a coordinator between people looking to do voluntary projects, and voluntary projects looking for people.
On their page, one can scroll through hundreds of projects in every imaginable corner of the world, and make searches based on personal interests (human rights, AIDS awareness, environment etc), by country /region and by date. By combining these factors I made a selection of projects that seemed interesting to me.
This particular project seemed interesting to me because it dealt with children, and I thought it would be a fun and 'easy' way to meet the locals. Among the group of volunteers that ended up choosing this camp, there were many different reasons for choosing this program. Some chose it for political reasons, being interested in the "Palestine case". Others chose it because they were interested in learning more about life as refugees, other again were students of political science and similar degrees wanting to learn more about the political situation in the Middle East.
Another reason for chosing this project, was that it was taking place in Syria in the Middle East, a region I had never visited. I of course did extensive research on the country before putting it on my application, and everything said the same; this is one of the safest countries in the Middle East with hospitable people and wonderful historical sights. I also have to admit that I had never made too big an effort to understand the complexity of the political situation of the Middle East, and this was an interesting opportunity for me to learn. I feel that it is very important not only to admit where one´s knowledge is limited, but also to try to do something about it.
A third reason was that I wanted to test myself, how I would function under different living conditions, to find out really how dependent I am on the luxury goods that I surround myself with; everything from western-style bathrooms to my electrical toothbrush and hairdryer, to the commodity of having a big double bed all to myself.
As you see, I did not choose this program because I had a special inclination towards the political situation of Palestine refugees.
Preparations for leaving
I booked a ticket that gave me two weeks of holidays after the end of the official program of the workcamp I had been accepted in, having the intention to travel around Syria and Jordan to get to know the region more after. I have to admit that I focussed most of my preparations on reading about the people, culture and sights to see in these countries, not so much on the palestine situation or the complex middle eastern politics, but after all my motif for going was more to get to know the local culture than to get political training.
Normally, the coordinating organization organizes a preparatory weekend workshop to prepare the participants on the situations they might face themselves with. In my case, I applied so late that there was no time to do this introductory seminar before leaving.
The volunteers
There were in total 11 European volunteers at the summer camp. They came from the following countries: Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Italy and Spain. They were between 21 and 34 years old. 2 were boys, the rest were girls.
The host organization
The host organization is Jafra Youth Center. It is an organization that is run by and for Palestine youth in Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus, Syria.
Jafra is unique in a Syrian context, it´s the only organization that not only receives volunteers from abroad, but it also sends out youth to participate in solidarity projects around Europe. It is supported by The European Commission and the before mentioned Service Civil International. They arrange different work camps that include differet workshops based on the dialogue between participants where they exchange their points of view and experiences, -not just between themselves but also with the local palestinian volunteers.
The local volunteers arrange a wide range of activities for the children of the camp to provide them social activities that keep them off the streets. This includes a football group, a theatre group, music and folklore dance groups, and workshops in photography, art and multimedia.
The work camps they arrange with international volunteers, focus on issues involving human rights, in particular 1) Human rights for refugees, 2) Women´s rights, and 3) Children´s rights.
The Children´s Summer Camp is a tool that is aimed at joining children from different refugee camps in Syria to meet and have fun, exchange experiences and build independent personalities. The organizers also aim at normalizing open and friendly relations between boys and girls in a mostly muslim society where they are rarely interacting, fostering this by having smaller groups with both sexes, and activities that never exclude sexes.
The international volunteers were invited to come help out at the summer camp for a couple of reasons. Mainly it was to make the children curious about the world, by having the opportunity to have the world coming all the way to them. This is particularly important due to the fact that few Palestinians have the opportunity to travel abroad, since they simply do not have a country or a passport. We were also there to let the children and the Palestine community know that there are people elsewhere in the world that care about their destiny and about the "Palestine case".
We spent the first week getting lessons on the political and historical background of the palestine refugeers, receiving lots of information about how the UNHCR and UNRWA work (the UN agencies in charge of refugees in general and Palestine refugees in particular). We were given an overview of the history of the Palestine refugees, and explanations of the political parties involved in the Palestine case. Throughout all these sessions we were able to ask many questions, ask for additional information and voice our opinions. The local volunteers who taught our classes made it clear to us that this was the Palestine side of the story, but still aimed at giving relatively balanced and neutral information and made it clear to us that the best way to understand the political situation in the Middle East, is to take this information from them, but also to compare and contrast it with what we find in media and other places.
When asked directly about their opinion about suicide "martyrs", the response from most were that they do not agree with it, since it kills civilians and actually hurts the palestine case in the public opinion in media worldwide. But on the other hand they also said that the did not agree with the action, but could understand why people did it -out of desperation in a situation where all other political and democratical means have failed to resolve the situation. For those interested in learning more about what happens inside the head of a possible suicide bomber, I recommend watching "Paradise Now", an Oscar-nominated film about two young men that are recruited to a suicide bombing attack on Israel. This movie was part of the curriculum during the preparation classes.
It was in other words no indoctrination and brainwashing of the international volunteers, but more an introduction to the lives of the palestinians and thereby the children that we were going to spend the Summer Camp with. The background information proved being really helpful when we "deep dived" into the Palestine reality when we started the work in the camp.
An introduction to the Yarmouk refugee camp
In the fifties Syria gave the palestine refugees a large piece of land outside of Damascus, Syria. Each family was given 50m2 where they could build homes. Syria accepted the Palestine refugees but never gave them citizenship, unlike for example Jordan, where all refugees were given jordanian citizenship and thereby the same civil rights as the originally jordanian citizens. The result is that now, in 2007, the third generation of Palestine refugees in Syria are growing up without the same rights as their Syrian neighbours, basic human rights such as the right to have a passport and to travel abroad. They do have residence though, and receive basic rights such as schooling and health care, although most of it is provided by the UN relief agencies.
Yarmouk today is a suburban area of Damascus. Its streets are similar to any other streets of Damascus, bursting with people, businesses, traffic etc. There are no borders surrounding it, and the citizens can move freely in and out of it. So what is the difference between being a Yarmouk Camp resident, and residing in any other part of Damascus? The main difference lies in that most of the citizens of Yarmouk are of palestine heritage, and therefore have different civil rights from those of people living in other parts of the city. The most obvious difference is the lack of a nationality, these people are neither palestinians (because the country no longer exists) nor syrians.
Activities in the summer camp
As I understand, summer camps are quite common among palestinian kids, but they do in general have a more military concept, with arms training, martial arts etc for example. This camp has a completely different focus, with no military training (although the morning routine of standing in lines and crying palestine war cries might seem military to some), the focus is on "normal" activities such as arts, sports and playing. From what I understand, this is something new to most palestinians, and the host organization told me that they had some problems explaining this to parents, since they too expect a more military-style camp. These camps are not usually mixed. The result is that the families that sent their children to this camp, are more likely to be among the more liberal families. I can not have much opinion about what "other" families in "other" camps with "other" activities are, since I have not had any contact with them.
The children had a quite full program every day, starting with morning gymnastics at 7, then breakfast from 8-9, and then from 9-10 they would be with their groups receiving classes about Palestine history. This means receiving stories about palestine war heroes, poets (such as mahmoud darwish, I recommend checking out his webpage for more information and inspiration) etc. Later the children had playtime for some hours, with group games of quite innocent character, palestine versions of children´s games that we all played as kids. In between activities, there would be some time spent parading and screaming palestine fight cries. Not that I understood much of what they said, but I assume it to be patriotic cries reenforcing their palestine identity.
After lunch there would be workshops, in the evening more playtime, then supper, then more games and playing in the evening, until about 11, 11:30 every night. And for whomever of you that has ever participated in a children´s camp, - I think one of the only ways of making all these kids go to bed at night, is to make them so tired from all the activities that they just pass out when it´s bedtime.
Culture shock in the workshops
The disturbing part would show up in the workshops of the afternoons, The international volunteers were assigned different activities that we would help out with. The different workshops were; dance, theatre, newspaper, ceramics and arts. Every group had one or two local volunteers in charge of them, and us Europeans helping out where we could. Most of the groups were unproblematic, but some issues surprised all of the volunteers in the theatre-group and in the art-group. We found it astonishing, and sometimes almost scary, how young children (aged 8-13) had imaginations so influenced by their violent history. For example, in the theatre group they were divided into smaller groups, and each group had to come up with a short play that they could act out on parent's night in the end of the camp. Most of the ideas that the children came up with, dealt with enacting lives of people near them who had suffered from zionist (term used by palestinians regarding israeli jews) aggressions. There were stories about how soldiers killed off entire families and how people managed to escape from this and eventually made it to safety in Syria. Everything was described in such violent and bloody terms, from children that were soo young.
A similar thing happened in the art classes, when asked to draw "whatever they felt like drawing", the children would draw palestine flags and maps, and sometimes they would depict assasinations that they had heard about in their families. It is important to mention that this conduct was not incited by the local volunteers, they were at times equally surprised.
This was something that surprised the local volunteers alot, and that shocked some of the international volunteers very much.
By facing a culture so drastically different from my own, it became very clear for me that in an intercultural setting, there are many things that cannot be judged from my ethnocentric point of view, it has to be judged based on the setting where it occurs. For example , I come from an extremely peaceful corner of the world, Norway, a corner of the world so non-violent that not even police officers carry guns. Based on that, it is very very very difficult for me to see the point of weapon training of children. But it has to be understood in it´s context, however strange it may be. My point is; many things I don´t necessarily agree with, but I observe them in their context, and in their context they somehow make sense. Weapon training for minors makes more sense when you know that you could be attacked any time, and that weapon training might be necessary for protecting your family.
A couple of the volunteers passed through quite a cultural shock, becoming very distressed with what they saw, and choosing to refrain from dealing with the situation, insisting that "our" European way of thinking IS the ONLY correct way of thinking, and whatever these kids were experiencing was just plainly wrong.
Yes, to a certain degree I can agree that we should not blindly accept any behavious under the pretext of "intercultural understanding", but still we should make sure that we understand that we are in a different context with a different culture, history, and daily life.
I can sit down next to a politically quite extremist palestinian and discuss with him, and as two adults we can exchange opinions, and I can choose to agree or disagree, and I can choose to respect or disrespect the opinions voiced. So even if our cultures are different, we can accept eachother and eachother's opinions. But when it comes to childhood, the differences become extreme. The difference between European childhoods and Palestinian childhoods was almost too big to comprehend.
We "westerners" grow up in a very overprotected society, as children we are protected from all things bad in the world. Our parents turn off the television when there are violent images of wars or other atrocities. We grow up in countries in peace, where our main concerns will circle more around the brand of jeans that are "in" this year, not worrying about our human rights - since we have all the rights in the world, and there´s very little possibility that anything will happen to change that situation.
Here on the other hand, people grow up in a refugee situation, with limited human rights, and with war very very close (both historically close and geographically close, and even close in family). Most have family members who have been killed in the conflict in the last 60 years. Everybody has been driven away from their land. And they define themselves as Palestinians, even though they don´t live on Palestine land, but are forced to live in refugee camps in a neighbouring country. They are the grandchildren of the people that were driven out of Palestine in '48, but they are still suffering from it. But, again readers, please don´t take this as me agreeing with the palestinians or against israelis. These are mere observations.
The future of Palestine
When it comes to political solutions of this issue, I have absolutely no idea what the best solution would be. The current discussions of a two-state solution do not appeal very much to the palestinians that I have talked to, since most of them want to go back to the town of their ancestors, and have little interest in being put on a random piece of Palestine land.
Apparently most discussions regarding a two-state solution leave out the palestine refugees living outside of Israel, since it mostly focuses on the ones living in the Palestine territories in Israel. I recognize, however, that I don't know enough about the political contents of these solutions, so please do not attack me if some of the details here are slightly incorrect.
What I DO know is what has been the opinions of the people I have spoken to. The majority believes in living in peaceful coexistence with jews in Israel. Several people referred to the peace process that South Africa has gone through in recent years after the end of the apartheid as a model that they would like to follow. A model of reconciliation. A situation where both parties would have to give and take some, but that in the end the result would be worth it.
My personal final conclusions
We were asked in the end of the work camp what we would do now with the experience. Most said that they would let the information sink, and then probably look for information contradicting or confirming what we had seen and heard while in the refugee camp. Some were looking to become more actively involved in the Palestine case. I can´t really say too much here about what other people will do or won't do regarding the palestine case. But I can tell you about my personal conclusions.
I have come to a conclusion that the Palestine case is not my fight to fight. Yes, there´s a lot of injustice happening to Palestinians, but I feel that one actually has to be palestinian to be a part of it. However if I were to be involved, it would be at a more generic level, speaking about human rights in general, and the suffering of ANY refugee in the world.
I would also like to add that all in all my month in the Middle East was spectacular. I have never before met some many kind and friendly people. It was safe for me to walk around everywhere alone. People treated me with respect everywhere I went. The hospitality was astonishing, several people invited me to dine at their place. A lot of people speak very good English and every time I found myself on public transport, people were always volunteering to help me and to make me feel secure and make me feel extremely welcome everywhere I went. During the time there I made lots of friends that I hope to keep in touch with, both from the local volunteers and from the other international volunteers, the people that shared this experience with me.
I found the local muslims not very conservative, and very accepting to other forms of dressing, acting etc. I think this is a result of Syria being a country with a relatively big minority of christians (appx 10%), that dress and look just like any Europeans, without receiving any hassle or being deprived of any rights. These muslim are not extremists that hate the west, like media prefer to picture arabs, but the absolute majority are kind and friendly people interested in other cultures and other ways of being. Of course, there will be "crazy" people there as well. I just tell you what I´ve seen and about the people that I have met, and my impression was absolutely 100% positive.
You might call me naïve for going on this trip, but I do believe that my reasons were clear, and I got out of it what I expected to get- and more.
Remember, my reason for going was the simple fact that I did not know enough, and I wanted to do something about that.
I am already planning my next trip to Yarmouk.