{"id":1299,"date":"2019-03-27T04:07:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T04:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=1299"},"modified":"2024-12-14T14:44:38","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T14:44:38","slug":"dreams-of-return-find-new-meaning-on-zaataris-third-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=1299","title":{"rendered":"Dreams of return find new meaning on Zaatari's third anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click:SWISS Beauty Device<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Nazli Tarzi. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n

Zaatari refugee camp,
\nMafraq, Jordan – clusters of new entrants wade through the tropical heat
\nhanging heavily over the desolate plane, where the encampment was founded three
\nyears ago. \u00a0<\/p>\n

On 30 July 2012 the Zaatari camp officially opened its doors to Syrian refugees.
\nIts exponential growth makes it the largest refugee camp in the wider region, and Jordan's fourth
\nlargest city.<\/p>\n

Long before
\nit was home to an estimated
\n81,000 displaced persons, the arid desert was a functional Jordanian military airbase. Transformations
\nin Mafraq now speak to a new local history, inseparable from the interminable
\ncivil war raging on in Syria.<\/p>\n

Since its formation, the site has not only witnessed an unprecedented growth in its inhabitants, it has also blossomed into a city that exudes a disquieting sense of
\npermanency for Syrians longing to return home. What stands in Mafraq
\ntoday, despite having arisen from fairly modest origins, now boasts an
\ninfrastructure no different to that visible across other Jordanian cities.<\/p>\n

The pop-up town is not quite a concrete city yet, however, permanent housing, water and electricity structures remain a hotly debated
\ntopic. Though it has been rumoured that there is a push towards this, the backlash from local populations make it an undesirable
\noption for King Abdullah of Jordan. <\/p>\n

In spite of external funding flooding into the Hashemite Kingdom, the
\nburden weighs heavily on the country's political elite, who can no longer
\nignore the civilian led movement towards
\nurbanisation.<\/p>\n

Image: Nazli Tarzi. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n

Beyond the camp\u2019s dusty gates, newcomers are greeted by a long sandy road,
\nwhere they pass by an imposing stone wall that offers a narrow strip of shade
\nfrom the blinding desert sun; adorned by time-worn images of seemingly joyous refugees,
\nand topped-off with coiled barbed wire.<\/p>\n

At the end of the tract, refugees enter into a barren desert island, brimming
\nwith prefab caravan homes that have long replaced the camp\u2019s original canvas
\ntents. Upon this unfamiliar site, uprooted families have little choice other
\nthan to live out their days indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Uncertainty may still colour the daily lives and thoughts of residents, but
\nthis has not prevented dwellers from carving out new spaces and uses for their
\ncamp. Their desperately needed sense of normalcy is the very force that has
\ntransformed the campsite into a semi-autonomous oasis\u2014with its own shadow economy,
\nmarket spaces, and communal leisure areas.<\/p>\n

As former camp manager Kleinschmidt\u00a0remarked,
\n"we design refugee camps; refugees build cities".<\/p>\n

Their ability to remake the camp animates a posture of defiance, driven
\nby distaste towards the governance of humanitarian organisations and
\nsolidified by a "do-it-yourself"
\nethos, in rebellion against the old and new power hierarchies characterising political
\nand social order inside the camp. <\/p>\n

Frustration is directed not only at humanitarian relief agencies and
\ntheir self-appointed managers, but 'community' leaders too, who control a
\ncorrupt underworld gutted with criminality, corruption and exploitation. <\/p>\n

I
\nlearnt this during a recent visit to the camp, where I encountered an elderly
\nman venting abuse at what he described as unprincipled Syrians.\u00a0Pacing up and down the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es,
\nZaatari's main commercial strip, he screamed, "these dogs have it all,
\ncapitalising on the quiet suffering of refugees".<\/p>\n

In contrast to power thirsty community leaders, the majority of residents
\nlead a simple life reflected in their principle demand\u2014to live a dignified life
\nthat offers stability to their children.<\/p>\n

Image: Nazli Tarzi. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n

Twenty-six year old Ahmed, a former Arabic language student at
\nthe University of Damascus, described his departure from Syria as necessary to
\navoid seeing his children becoming additional numbers of Syria's war dead:<\/p>\n

"My
\njourney into exile was unplanned; my village became the target of random
\nregime shelling. Even after arriving to the camp, I was sure that it'd be a
\nmatter of days before I would be reunited with my family in Deraa. Days soon
\nturned into months, and months turned into years, but we just have to wait a
\nlittle longer before we can return back home." <\/i><\/p>\n

Ahmed clearly refused to accept the truth of his protracted <\/em>stay<\/em>\u00a0in
\nZaatari, giving voice to a social perception quite different to his lived
\nreality. <\/p>\n

Return to Syria for thirty year-old
\nMuhannad, an agricultural\u00a0systems\u00a0management graduate, held a different meaning. "If it were
\nto happen, we'd be living in hell on earth. We remove Bashar, then what? Would we be
\nable to distinguish the good from the bad? How will we know who's fighting who,
\nwho's exploiting who, and who's butchering who?" he asked dejectedly. <\/p>\n

During my tour of the camp it became glaringly apparent that
\nthe site\u2019s evolution from 'camp' to 'home' stirs varied feelings among residents.\n<\/p>\n

The city oasis in some sense serves as a memory bank where refugees
\nsolidify their identities\u2014formulating a political consciousness that keeps them
\nembedded in their past. The camp\u2019s proximity to Deraa, where the majority of
\nZaatari's refugees are from, acts as a constant reminder of this lost past. <\/p>\n

A former Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighter, Mohammad, spoke keenly about
\nhis short-lived life as a soldier. He joined the FSA at the tender age of
\nseventeen, but as the youngest male in his family his mother forbade him from
\ncontinuing fighting, urging him to seek refuge in Zaatari.<\/p>\n

Image: Nazli Tarzi. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n

Having reluctantly fulfilled his mother\u2019s wishes, Mohammad immerses himself in the past\u2014watching videos of himself in battle and montages dedicated to those he witnessed die at the hands of the Syrian army. This has become a daily ritual for Muhammad, confined to his trailer camp, where he bides his time by teleporting himself back to an unreachable past.<\/p>\n

Zaatari's permanency, while not accepted by all, is a truth
\nthat is transforming lives and attitudes inside the informal city. As time
\npasses, families feel more settled, while others flee for urban sites in
\nneighbouring Jordanian towns.<\/p>\n

In the words of twenty-seven
\nyear old Farid, "there is no single case in the entire history of the Arab
\nworld where a refugee camp has opened and eventually closed down".<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Video: Nazli Tarzi. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click:SWISS Beauty Device Image: Nazli Tarzi. All rights reserved. Zaatari refugee camp, Mafraq, Jordan – clusters of new entrants wade through the tropical heat hanging heavily over the desolate plane, where the encampment was founded three years ago. \u00a0 On 30 July 2012 the Zaatari camp officially opened its doors to Syrian refugees. Its exponential…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11701,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions\/11701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}