Leila Lak
“Every time someone goes outside to play while I work I feel like crying,” says Mohammed, a 10-year old boy from Aleppo, who with his family fled the Syrian war to seek refuge in Lebanon. Once in Lebanon, their lives changed. They moved into illegal settlements and as his father could not find a job that paid enough to keep the family he sent Mohammad to work. His is one of several stories recounted in the Al Jazeera English’s IDFA award nominated web documentary Life on Hold http://lifeonhold.aljazeera.com.
Revista Diaspora interviewed the director Reem Haddad. As a daughter of Palestinian refugees Haddad decided in early 2014 to make a documentary focusing on the million or so refugees fleeing Syria for Lebanon. At this stage refugees were not making the perilous journey to the West and they were not the focus of international news. Haddad and her co-producer Dima Gharbawi Shaibani (herself from a family of Iraqi refugees) decided their story would be best told through a web documentary (webdoc), where the viewer can choose the stories they would watch and interact with them. A year and half since conceptualising the project and working for a year in the camps, “Life on Hold” has been nominated for several important awards.
“The reasn we did this was to figure out a way to really get to know the people behind the numbers,” said Reem. “Numbers are hard to process and you forget that this war is targeting real people, with full lives who had to leave everything behind and move to an uncertain life.”
“Life on Hold” focuses on ten people from different socio-economic backgrounds and age groups. The series set out to avoid politics instead it focuses on individual stories, including children, a businesswoman, a former doctor, and a renowned Bedouin poet.
“The aim of the project is to see beyond the labels,” said Haddad. “Part of the narrative of the refugee is loss, and although this is important, we tried to not focus on that narrative but focus on their future.” The journey to a sanctuary is for Haddad just the beginning of the life of the refugee, the test really comes after, when they arrive in their new country and they have to piece together a new life.
Officially there are currently just over a million Syrian refugees registered in Lebanon, but many remain unregistered. Estimates stated that at the height of 2014 there were more likely 2 million refugees, representing a quarter of the Lebanese population. A small and fragile state like Lebanon is finding it hard to cope under the sheer numbers. In 2014 during the filming, Lebanon was home to the largest number of Syrian refugees, but as of May 2015 the Lebanese government has stopped accepting new refugees.
Syrian refugees are spread throughout Lebanon. Lebanon has not ratified the United Nations Convention on Refugees therefore the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has set up makeshift camps without proper tents as they were not allowed to setup official refugee camps, therefore there are no schools or other institutions one sees in camps in Jordan or Turkey. The unregistered refugees are living throughout Lebanon in various locations including abandoned factories and hospitals in Sabra and Shatila the infamous refugee camp that use to house Palestinian refugees and in 1982 during the Lebanese Civil War was the scene of the infamous massacre. In the informal camps the refugees are able to access some aid from the UN but the elements are set against them. They are exposed to extreme heat in the summer and extreme cold in the winter.
“The experience of going to the informal camps was eye opening,” said Haddad. “At the end of the day we got to go back to the hotel, but they stay and it’s sobering when you return refreshed and showered and they have no possibility of that. All they have is an outhouse of sorts.”
Life on Hold enraptures its audience by showing them an insight into a variety of lives. Haifa, a successful businesswoman of some wealth, owned a hotel in Syria but had little time to spend with her family. With the conflict her hotel was forced to shut, through the stress of war and losing their lives’ work, her husband died. Picking up the pieces she came to Lebanon with her children. Having the means to rent a nice apartment. Haifa, like many other wealthy Syrians could have spent time in the affluent Beirut neighbourhoods frequenting the cafes and restaurants, but she could not cope with her loss. She found it impossible to adapt to her new setting or to integrate, she says she has had to take refuge but does not view herself as a refugee. She longs for her homeland but through her loss of her past life she has come to the realisation that she has discovered something new. She has rediscovered her family.
“Haifa inspired me. She spoke so eloquently and describes Damascus with so much love that she conjures up a beautiful image in your head,” said Haddad. “She and her family led such busy lives in Damascus with their new lives they have had to spend more time with each other, they have for the first time really engaged with each other and Haifa has rediscovered her love for her country and her family.”
As the seemingly endless conflict in Syria creates more and more refugees and as they spread around the world, Life on Hold gives the viewer a focus on the people behind the headlines, and aims to create empathy for those in these situations. Like the renowned Bedouin poet, Furati, who sits in a camp watching his children live without school. For an intellectual this is an incredible torture.
Mohammed, the 10 year old boy who watched his best friend die from picking up a bomb he thought was a marble, misses not only his friends and family in Syria but also his childhood.
“There is so much loss,” said Haddad and quoting one of her interviewees she said. “People dream of a future. We only dream of going back.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Leila Lak is a journalist, documentary filmmaker and chief journalist of Revista Diaspora.