Digging in Damascus

The “tyre explosion” in the Syrian capital last week has raised a few questions, many of which may never be answered.

Ruins of bus in Damascus

 

A friend and colleague of mine Richard Hall has decided to do some investigating, in the form of some good old fashioned digging.

Demolition experts in the UK seem to think there is more than meets the eye with this incident.

“If the damage process had indeed been started by an exploding tyre, then it is most unlikely that it could have been sufficiently powerful to cause the damage shown, unless the fuel tank had been near-by and had disintegrated under the impact. However, the fuel tank arrangements are unknown,” the specialist, who did not wish to be mentioned due to the sensitivity of the case, said.

“Even if the tyre had exploded and burst the fuel tank, the fuel explosion would only occurred if the engine had been hot, i.e. the engine must have been running for some time.”

None have ruled out the possibility the culprit, if there is one, could be a smaller terrorist group or offshoot of Al-Qaeda. But whether Syria gets to the bottom of this, or whether they will even try, is unclear.

Hizbullah’s right to bear arms upheld

Lebanon’s new cabinet has agreed on a policy statement that recognises Hizbullah’s right to use arms against Israel, despite reservations from the Western-backed ruling majority.

The cabinet had already met eight times in an attempt to iron out the clause which refers to the party’s substantial arsenal, with some ministers arguing it undermines the authority of the state.

The clause in question states the right of “Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance” to liberate all Lebanese territory.

Hizbullah is commonly referred to as the resistance in Lebanon.

Christian members of the majority, including the Phalange Party and Lebanese Forces, argue that group’s arsenal runs counter to UN resolutions.

However Hizbullah, which has two ministers in the new 30-member unity cabinet, has made it clear the group’s right to use weapons against Israel is not up for debate.

The Shiite group, considered a terrorist organisation by Washington, maintains that Israel poses a serious threat and it is necessary to protect the country against future acts of aggression, citing the 2006 war between Israel and southern Lebanon.

Body of British journalist unearthed in Lebanon

The body of British journalist Alec Collett who was executed by Palestinian militants has been found this week in Lebanon after a 24-year hunt.

The search for the 64-year-old’s remains, organised by the British embassy in Lebanon, began last week in the eastern region of Bekaa after the excavation team received a tip-off.

Alec Collett's body was found in Lebanon after 24-year hunt

Both the British Foreign Office and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) confirmed the DNA results Monday.

Collett, who was on an United Nations assignment covering refugee camps in Lebanon, was kidnapped at gun-point by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Abu Nidal during the height of Lebanon’s civil war in 1985.

The team of Metropolitan counterterrorism police and two forensic archaeologists found the bones at a site formerly used as a military base by the group near the border with Syria.

The UN gave their condolences in a statement released by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s spokeswoman. “He is grateful for the work done by the Department of Safety and Security in helping to determine what happened to Mr Collett.

“Although he is saddened by Alec Collett’s death, he hopes that the actions taken to find his remains can provide a measure of comfort to his loved ones,” the statement said.

Private arrangements are being made to fly the body back to his family, according to Britain’s Foreign Office, who said they were “pleased to have closure after so long.”

Abu Nidal’s leader, Sabri al-Banna, had reportedly thought that hostage Collett could be swapped for three members jailed in Britain after the attempted assassination in 1982 of Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to London.

One year after he went missing with no exchange made, his captors killed Collett and released a grainy video showing a hooded figure that appeared to have been hanged, though no positive identification could be made.

Collett was one of at least 88 foreigners to be kidnapped in Lebanon between 1984 and 1991. Fourteen of which were British nationals, including television reporter John McCarthy.

Until this week, the United Nations had tried four times in vain to find the body of the missing Briton.

They expressed relief the body had finally been unearthed this week and that their searches had paid off. “The secretary-general appreciates the role played by the relevant authorities in the United Kingdom and in Lebanon to resolve this matter after so many years.”

Modern day slavery in the Middle East

Maid in Lebanon found hanged from her employer's balcony

It is being called modern-day slavery by human rights groups, and is claiming the lives of hundreds of women each year in the Middle East.

You wouldn’t think it, but domestic labor is a deadly business for migrants here, where up to 30 women have committed suicide, or died trying to escape intolerable working conditions in the last few weeks alone.

Rather than being anomalies, unfortunately, their deaths are the most recent in an alarming trend.

The women, mainly from developing countries Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, come in their millions to the Middle East in search of better pay and opportunities, but soon discover the move comes at a higher price.

Last month, 26-year-old Ethiopian Matente Kebede Zeditu, was found hanged from an olive tree in southern Lebanon. Kassaye Atsegenet, 24, jumped from the seventh floor of a Beirut building days later, having left a suicide note. Another, a Madagascan named only as Mampionona, leapt from the balcony to escape her high-rise virtual prison, tired of the daily grind of cleaning and minding the children.

Without the legislation to protect their basic human rights and with little access to justice in their host countries, sadly it is not uncommon for many women working as maids to experience forced confinement, food deprivation, excessively long hours and even sexual abuse at the hands of their employers.

One of the girls left a simple parting message for her employer, reading “Here are your f***ing bedsheets, Madame. I will not be cleaning them today,” before tying a noose around her neck and jumping from the balcony.

“She is one of the brave ones,” a young woman named Angelique working as a maid for a Lebanese family in Beirut tells me. “I think about killing myself almost every day. When I am hanging clothes out to dry, I watch the tiny people going by from the seventh floor and wonder how long it would take me to hit the ground.”

At 19-years-old, Angelique should not be thinking about ways to end her life, but that is all she has done since leaving her home in rural Ethiopia eight months ago.

“Anything would be better than my life as it is now,” she says, during the first time out of her employer’s house in over two months.

Angelique, who did not wish to give her full name, has had her hair cut short by her female employer, who complained she looked too pretty with it long. She is forced to wear the traditional pink maid’s uniform six days a week, 14 hours a day, and sleeps on the floor of the kitchen.

Like many other women in her situation, she was lured to the Middle East with false promises made by the agency that employed her. These agencies sell women to “sponsors,” or employers, who then pay wages depending on their nationality.

The newest on the market; Nepalese women can earn as little as $150 a month, while the older hands, the Filipinos, known for their good English and affable manner, can make as much as $300.

Angelique gets just $175, which she sends home to support her family each month. “But I don’t get paid if I am ‘bad’,” she says, “or when Madame is not in a good mood. I didn’t get any money for four months when she was arguing with her husband.”

It is not surprising human rights workers in the region are calling it slavery when these women are literally being worked to death, often for nothing in return.

US-based organization Human Rights Watch has found that at least one woman dies a week in parts of the Middle East, while many more are injured trying to escape their abusive employers and harsh working conditions.

Lebanon, Jordan, UAE and Kuwait have seen the highest suicide rates, where it is not uncommon for women to have passports confiscated or to be locked inside the house for years at a time.

In the past year, both Ethiopia and the Philippines took the step of banning all travel to Lebanon and Jordan due to the high number of suspicious deaths among the domestic worker community.

 The ban has only pushed the trade underground, however, and agencies in the two countries now smuggle women through third countries like Yemen. As long as there are women from developing countries desperate enough to be smuggled in, the onus should be on the countries letting it happen to pass the legislation ensuring their basic human rights.

Yet all but three countries in the Middle East have refused to sign the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers, as cheap labor makes up an integral part of the region’s economy.

Not even the needless deaths of hundreds of women have given governments the impetus to sign; leaving migrant workers’ rights the gap in the law that seems no one is willing to fill.

Middle Eastern countries should sign the convention, or at least introduce their own labor laws, in order to stop more women returning home to their families in coffins.

Lebanon school bans ‘Zionist’ Anne Frank

A Beirut school has removed a textbook containing excerpts of The Diary of Anne Frank from its syllabus after Hizbullah claimed it promotes Zionism.

Anne Frank

“The book focuses on the persecution of Jews during the war, but even more dangerous is the theatrical and dramatic method employed to narrate the diaries in an emotional way,” MP Hussein Hajj Hassan said on Hizbullah’s TV station, Al-Manar.

“These respected, established schools are teaching the so-called tragedy this girl lived — how long will Lebanon remain an open arena for this Zionism?”

Attorney Naim Kalaani, a member of the Committee for the Boycott of Zionist Goods, told the channel the use of the book in a school constituted a violation of Lebanese law, which bans the import of Israeli goods and cooperation with Israeli institutions, and is “tantamount to a step toward normalisation” in ties with Israel.

Soon afterwards, a private English-language school removed the book. Others are still discussing the possibility. The Diary of Anne Frank was recently translated into Arabic and Farsi by the Paris-based Aladdin Project, which aims to spread awareness of the Holocaust among Muslims.

The project said in a statement that it “condemns this campaign of vilification and intimidation by Hizbullah’s TV.”

Thousands have downloaded the project’s translated versions from over 50 countries, including Lebanon.

This marks the second campaign by the group in as many weeks against material in textbooks, after it forced a leading Lebanese school to remove pages from a history book that described Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist organisations.

How the scales of justice fall in favor of men: a law of discrimination

The road to equality is still a long one in Lebanon. The promises following the period of civil peace were betrayed, especially those intended to forge equality for women, which was a fundamental demand of Lebanese civil society.

Lebanon ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1996 in response to continuous pressure from civil society organizations. 

Despite this, the Lebanese state continues to maintain reservations on nationality, arbitration and marriage and family life, and the Lebanese Penal Code still discriminates against women in a number of its provisions, including rape, adultery and impudence.

I publish here a list of key legislation restricting women’s rights in Lebanon, and breaches of the laws aimed at upholding them.

Lebanese Penal Code 1943

* Rape is permitted within marriage [Articles 503 and 504].

* If a man rapes a woman but then offers to marry his victim, he is given a pardon [Article 520].

* An adulterous woman is sentenced to three months to two years of imprisonment [Article 478] .

* “Honor killing”: Men benefit from an extenuating excuse if he catches his wife, daughter or sister during the act of adultery or sexual intercourse and kills or unwillingly injures one of the two people involved [Article 562].

Nationality Law

Lebanese citizenship is granted to:

- The children of a Lebanese father

- The person born in Lebanon and did not prove that he/she has acquired on birth another foreign nationality by filiation.

- The person born in Lebanon from unknown parents or parents whose nationalities are unknown[Article 1, Law 1925].

 Personal Status and Family Rights Law 

* In all sects, the father is the mandatory custodian over children. He is, therefore, the only one entitled to authorize their travel or open banking accounts [Family Rights Law].

* Couples cohabiting outside of marriage have no legal protection [Personal Status Law]. 

For Sunni and Shiite sects:

* The testimony of one man is equal to that of two women [Family Rights Law: Article 34]. 

* The husband has the right to forbid his wife from leaving the home of the married couple, to watch her visits, to bring her back to the house against her will and to educate her [Family Rights law: Article 73].

* A man has the right to inherit twice the amount that a woman does.

 For Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Evangelical sects:

* The man must protect his wife and the woman must obey her husband and follow him to wherever he sees appropriate for her to live. 

Key International Conventions on Human Rights signed by Lebanon:

* The Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women in 1996: reservations on Article 9 pertaining to nationality, Article 16 pertaining to marriage and family life, and Article 29 pertaining to arbitration 

* The Convention for the Political Rights of Women in 1948 (ratified in 1955).

* The Convention against Discrimination in Education 1960

* The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of other in 1956

* Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women

* Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1972

 Lebanese Constitution:

* “Lebanon is … based on respect for … social justice and equality of rights and duties among all citizens without discrimination.” [Paragraph (c) of the Preamble]

* “All Lebanese are equal before the law. They equally enjoy civil and political rights and equally are bound by public obligations and duties without any distinction.” [Article 7]

Lebanon celebrates Jerusalem as controversial Arab Culture Capital 2009

Lebanon is to mark occupied Jerusalem’s appointment as “Arab Culture Capital 2009” with events across the country for the Palestinian diaspora next month, as Israeli authorities quash celebrations at home.

The much-contested capital Jerusalem was chosen by UNESCO and the Arab League this year to receive the annual award for its unrivalled contribution to Arab culture, despite Israeli protestations that the holy city is its own.

A Palestinian girl celebrates the Al-Quds honour

With Lebanon home to almost half a million Palestinians, the Culture Ministry has decided to celebrate the achievement with two months of cultural and artistic events to begin next week in Beirut, which was itself last awarded the honor in 1999.

The ministry’s coordinator of the Arab Culture Capital events, Dima Raad, said that with large number of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon it was important the country mark the occasion.

“What we are doing with the events is highlighting the Palestinian cause. Its people should be allowed back, but because they are not we have to make it like home for them here in Lebanon,” Raad said.

“We plan to start the events now and carry on until the last day of 2009, so that every moment until then is a celebration for Palestinians in Lebanon.”

The first event is scheduled for November 9, which will see a week of film screenings at ARESCO Palace on various Palestinian themes, produced by Lebanese directors.

International touring dance troupe “Wishah” will then perform at Palestinian refugee camps across the country, aimed at sharing the Arab cultural history with those unable to return.

The last event on the agenda, “Made in Palestine,” will exhibit installation work, famous paintings and poetry readings in early December. The event will explore the modern history of Palestinians and their national struggle to liberate, as told by artists living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, however it is recognised by all members of the Arab League as the Palestinian capital.

Most of the celebrations in the capital have either been dispersed or banned in advance, as according to Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, the events would constitute a violation of the interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which includes a clause that forbids the Palestinian Authorities from organizing activities in Israeli territory.

Many Palestinians living in the occupied territories are now making the trip to Lebanon to join with the some-400,000 refugees in the country’s festivities.

Raad, however, expressed regret that two top visiting speakers have been stopped from leaving Israel to attend the events.

Lecturer Mohammad Atta and Islamic history professor Nazmi el-Jabah of Birzeit University in Palestine were programmed to speak during a series of talks, but have been forced to pull out.

“They stopped them just at the last minute which is a shame because it is people like these that have given Jerusalem its culture.”

However, Raad stressed that the 60-day-long series will not be dampened by the travel ban. “The celebrations must go on and the Palestinians are very grateful for these events. It is something for their destiny, something to show they will exist always.”

Simultaneous ceremonies took place in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gaza, Nazareth, and Al-Rashadiyeh and Mar Ilias refugee camps in Lebanon via satellite link at the official opening back in March, after its January start was delayed by the 22-day Israeli offensive on Gaza.

The synchronized celebrations were aimed at building a cultural bridge between Palestinian people in the territories and those living in the diaspora.

Memorial postage stamps bearing the Arab Culture Capital motif, designed and created in honor of Jerusalem’s appointment, have also been released in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Qatar.

A celebration was held earlier this month under the auspices of President Michel Sleiman at the headquarters of UNESCO in Beirut to launch the program for the Jerusalem Arab Capital of Culture 2009.

The general director of the Lebanese Culture Ministry Omar Halablab gave a speech in which he described the city of Jerusalem as “the true representative” of Arab culture and praised the Arab League’s choice.

The dark tourist Dom Joly comes home to Lebanon

Any good comedian will tell you that from great tragedy you must make laughter. Dom Joly, a Beirut-born British comic heavyweight would know the technique a little better than most.

A comedian and writer who found fame a decade ago with his hidden camera show “Trigger Happy TV,” Joly was born high up in the mountains overlooking east Beirut, giving him the panoramic view of the Lebanese Civil War that would shape the course of his life.

Returning to Lebanon after a long lull for research for his new unusual travel book “The Dark Tourist,” Joly reflects on whether his deep-seated need to laugh in the face of danger came from this moment; watching the chaos unfurl beneath him.

To merely say he had a strange childhood would be an injustice to its true absurdity. The 40-year-old comedian spent his early years at prestigious Lebanese Quaker school Brummana High with Osama bin Laden’s brothers.

The humorist jokes that somewhere out there is a grainy school photograph of him with the bin Laden brood.

You can almost picture it – Joly pulling the sort of ridiculous face that makes him so instantly recognizable today, and the young bin Laden boys with their more cerebral smirks.

“I’ve tried looking them up on Friends Reunited…but nothing,” he says, disappointedly

It is his off-the-wall humor that has gained Joly international recognition, exemplified by sketches in Trigger Happy TV where he shouts at obnoxious volumes into an oversized telephone in inappropriate public places. Another gag sees Joly casually perusing the aisles of a china shop dressed as a bull. To this day he says he still can’t shake off the show’s more memorable catchphrases.

It turns out the show could have gone in an altogether different direction; Joly says his original plan to film in Lebanon was scuppered by problems in getting insurance. It is doubtful it would have enjoyed quite the same success over here: The comedy mostly derives from the friendly sending up of characteristic British reserve.

Dressed as a giant snail, another skit shows Joly slowly crawling along a zebra crossing at a busy intersection, with not the merest toot of a horn or the ultimate display of

British displeasure – a dramatic exhale of breath – to interrupt the farce.

“In England it’s like ‘just don’t stab me and I won’t get in your way,’ whereas in Lebanon people would get involved,” Joly jokes. “If I did that same sketch here I would have been run down and then probably shot by hunters.”

Joly’s return to his birthplace marks the end of a long absence. He says much has changed in the intervening time.

“I am seeing Lebanon in a completely different way than how I remember it,” he says, taking in the sites of a newly-restored downtown. “It is a country of constant renewal.”

Joly’s new book will document his travels in the world’s least popular destinations.

Having always had a penchant for holidays in hazardous locations, Joly has already paid a weekend trip to the eerie site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in northern Ukraine and visited the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

It is odd for Joly, who spent the first decade of his life in Lebanon, that its inclusion in his book about “dark tourism” does not feel out of place.

“Beirut is still seen as a place for hardy back-packers,” he says. “Most people still think it is a war zone or, more peculiarly, a country made up of nothing but desert and camels.”

Joly admits to being happiest when he is off the beaten track and wants to fill his upcoming book with stories from places as far-flung as Rwanda and Hiroshima. He had also hoped for Libya, but had to strike it from the list after being denied a visa last month.

“I thought it had something to do with the whole Lockerbie bomber Scottish government fiasco, but no, they were actually just banning me.”

It turned out the Libyan government had taken offense to a piece Joly had written some four years earlier in his weekly column for British paper The Independent about the Syrian secret service, making him persona non grata.

“I love that it is a personal ban against me,” Joly says. “It feels like a badge of honor.”

He admits to being a danger junkie, constantly thinking of how he can add more excitement to a situation: “I think it all began in my childhood. Living in Beirut you had to face things that scared you or they would get the better of you.”

Joly thought growing up in a conflict zone was a normal part of life until he moved in England at the age of eight.

“On my first day of school I flipped open my suitcase ready to swap my M16 shrapnel with the other boys as you would do in Beirut to make friends,” Joly recounts. “It wasn’t long before an ex-SAS guy came and quietly disposed of my collection.”

Joly is not used to being set such boundaries, and says that apart from arrests in America for small traffic offenses he has never been in any trouble, which he calls “quite disappointing.”

“But I know deep down I’m chicken,” he says. “If I ever actually have a bad experience I would probably stop immediately, run home to my family, break down in tears and promise never to go away again.

“I am a coward and that’s the note on which I am going to start the new book.”

“The Dark Tourist” is just one of many projects the busy comedian has lined up. Joly is also planning to take Trigger Happy from the small screen to the silver screen by next year, but is worried about the particulars.

“We need to avoid … taking something that is essentially great on TV and giving it a storyline. All of a sudden [Trigger Happy’s] big mobile guy has a romantic interest and then it wouldn’t work,” says Joly.

So long as he emerges unscathed from his adventures in international danger zones, fans of Joly have much to look forward to.

Photo courtesy of fellow Daily Star staffer Sam Tarling

World’s ‘last man’ calls for action on climate change

The last man on earth is sitting inside a clear glass cube on the Beirut Corniche, suffering under the sun’s unbearably harsh rays and rising sea levels. The summers are far hotter than he remembers and the rain much heavier. 

While this scene may not actually be a reality today, one Lebanese activist who chose to live inside a transparent box for three days to highlight the dangerous effects of climate change is certain it soon will be. 

 Environmental activist and actor 24-year-old Rami Eid spent 72 hours inside a tiny 2×2 meter box, coming out a little worse-for-wear Sunday, to highlight the damaging effects of global warming and to push Arab world leaders to take fast and effective action against the problem at Copenhagen summit later this year. 

The climate change demonstration “The Last Man,” set up in Ain al-Mreisseh on Friday and organized by independent Lebanese activists IndyAct, visually showed the bleak future for mankind where we failed to act against global warming when we had the chance. 

 As part of the demonstration Eid was forced to put up with simulated “climate changes” to show the future of food shortages, extreme temperatures and rising water levels, which threatened to fill up the very cube he was living in. 

 The cube itself represents the earth in which we all live and the “last man” the future generations forced who will bear the brunt of our inaction today, organizers IndyAct said. 

 “He represents the last man enduring a fierce struggle for survival against climate change effects,” the environmental rights group said. “We are trying to powerfully show the country that this generation can really change the course of the future.” 

As temperatures reached an already uncomfortably 30 degrees Celsius outside, inside the cube Eid experienced the world in 70 years time, with the glass serving to heat the surrounding air up, replicating the long-term effect of green house gas emissions. 

 

Under the constant glare of the curious Lebanese public, Eid was forced to go to the toilet in a bottle when no one was looking in the middle of the night, and survived on what little food he brought in with him. 

 Eid has been live blogging the experience from the cube, sharing the story of the last man with the world. “I can’t explain to you how hard it is to live with a flood,” he said, “and I am sure you don’t wish this upon people let alone your children’s children. But by 2080 this can be a reality,” he warned. 

“Being in this situation really makes me relate to a certain extent with poor countries that get hit with natural disasters all the time. The poor are the main victims of natural disasters,” Eid said. “There are plenty of them, especially in Lebanon.” 

Eid is hoping that his stunt was taken as seriously as the message itself. “I hope we all learned something from this, I know I did. There has been enough talking – it’s time to walk, and our youth in Lebanon are one of our biggest hopes to sustain climate change here and elsewhere in the world.” 

 Early last month IndyActgroup staged a protest in Beirut as part of global “Wake-Up Call” events held in 2,000 locations around the world. The event was attended by throngs of Lebanese fighting to increase awareness of the cause. 

A “Climate Change Countdown Clock” was erected to symbolize the three months the international community has left to forge an agreement to combat climate change at the UN summit.

IndyAct has joined forces with several international organizations to demand Arab leaders attend the December meet and sign a binding treaty to halt climate change.

 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned last month that it would be “morally inexcusable” if the international community failed to agree on a new treaty in Copenhagen.

British actor David Morrissey brings Palestinian refugees to the stage

“If Palestine was free I would play outside with my friends. If Palestine was free I could ask my grandparents about their stories. If Palestine was free I would plant a thousand olive trees.”

The voices of Palestinian refugee children in Lebanon are mostly drowned out, by the government, by politicians, and sometimes unintentionally by their own parents and teachers. When you listen hard enough, however, you can hear their faint cries for peace and stability.

A 5-day drama workshop, organized by United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees from schools across the country, made sure some of their messages were heard this week.

With the help of British actor and director David Morrissey, star of films Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Sense and Sensibility, 65 children aged between 11 and 16 were brought together from different UNRWA schools to find out that learning is not always about what you read in books.

The children chose themes for each of their pieces, resulting in a performance Friday at Haifa school in south Beirut, and while some sung pop ditties of Arabic stars gone by, others chose morality plays with much deeper social messages.

When a child acts out watching her father die because she cannot afford the basic medication that would keep him alive, it is an unmistakable indictment of the system that allows it to happen. The message seems to be clear from a young age – that injustice makes up the very fabric of a Palestinian refugee’s life.

One piece entitled ‘If Palestine was free,” was particularly difficult for the proud parents in the audience to watch, many of whom all too aware what price their children pay for Israeli occupation.

“These performances help you to share in a history you might otherwise forget,” says one 13-year-old girl from the southern city of Tyre, glad to have workshops such as UNRWA’s. “It’s a chance to be listened to and tell your own views.”

Palestinians in Lebanon have long been relegated to an irreverent sub-story in the larger Lebanese narrative and have subsequently suffered from a lack of collective history, marred by massacres, uprisings and uprooting.

There are roughly 400,000 officially registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, making up 10 percent of the population. Thirty percent of those are children, most of whom have never met family living in Palestine or experienced much of life outside the south.

A recent Amnesty International report shows that the educational levels of Palestinian refugee children are nowhere near those of Lebanese children or even to those living in neighboring Arab host countries.

One out of three Palestinian children in Lebanon aged 10 or above leaves school before finishing their studies, believing that years spent in education is a waste when so many professions are barred to them in the country.

“This is not Gaza, this is not the West Bank,” the workshop’s director Morrissey says, “Lebanon is not Israel and the eyes of the world are not on these Palestinians.” Morrissey believes the plight of Palestinian refugees is overlooked, with the children in Lebanon left to suffer.

British actor David Morrissey at Haifa School, south Beirut

He says when he arrived at the school on the first day, the children were resistant to the workshop, but by the end they had let their guard down and began to enjoy the chance to express themselves. “The change that occurred in them in the last five days is astonishing,” he says, “they just need attention.”

Morrissey says the main problem is that children don’t always respond to education purely by rote, which is how most are being taught. “It doesn’t provide the opportunity to be listened to like drama does. It is important this sort of learning is built into the education system.”

This is not to say UNRWA is not trying to change the syllabus and respond better to the children’s needs throughout their 82 schools across Lebanon.

Recreational coordinator with UNRWA Lina al Ghoul believes more initiatives like the drama workshop need to be thought of to reach out to refugee children: “Educate a child through play and they will not be quick to forget,” she says.

“We have given them information in the old, tired way and they rejected it,” Ghoul says. “Though drama is often seen as an extra-curricular hobby it is so key to helping them learn real skills. The future for these children is letting them express themselves and the rest will be that much more bearable.”

Photo courtesy of fellow Daily Star staffer Sam Tarling