Forgotten People
The boy was about my son's age. He also loved soccer. He played it in the alley with his friends, oblivious to the water pipes entangling the whole length of the alley, oblivious to the narrowness of the field, the lack of grass, the lack of light, and the constant interruptions of people walking by, oblivious to the fact that he wasn't wearing fancy cleats, but just old plastic slippers. He was holding his Coke in one hand, he was kicking the ball, and he was having fun.
An older couple is sitting in another alley, in another camp, the man wearing nice shiny shoes and a neatly ironed shirt, the woman more casual with worry beads in her hand. She is sitting on the stone step to her house, facing him across a narrow alley. A young girl walks between them light and transparent as a ghost. She still has hopes of flying and fleeing, while the old couple is anchored down by years in the camp. In a few years, she will probably be anchored too.
Having grown up during the Lebanese civil war, many areas were off-limits to me as a child. Years later, I discovered places I had previously only heard of on the news, such as Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp, less than a ten-minute drive from the house I grew up in. I was shocked by the conditions people were made to live in so close to Beirut proper, and for the next few years I photographed the numerous refugee camps around the country, gradually gaining better and more intimate access. These photographs intend to portray the humanity of this refugee population, to document moments in their lives, show their everyday situations – playing, working, talking – and to put a human face on a long-forgotten people in search of a home.
There are an estimated 360,000 Palestinian refugees who live in deplorable conditions in twelve refugee camps scattered around Lebanon. Their temporary status as refugees has become permanent after more than sixty years, as third and fourth generations are born and raised in the camps. The camps are not integrated into Lebanese social or economic life. Lebanon, healing itself from a brutal civil war and fearful of upsetting its delicate sectarian balance, is afraid of granting Palestinian refugees rights that might seem to bring them closer to naturalization. As a result, they are excluded from most professions, and have to depend on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the local NGOs for education, health, and basic human services. With an increasing population due to high birth rates and dropping external funding, conditions have worsened in recent years.
Despite such a gloomy picture, I found inspiration in the warmth and hospitality of people struggling to keep their roots and culture alive, and in their incredible capacity to adapt to their circumstances, and to make the best of the little the camps offer them, generation after generation.
– R. M.