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We, members of the Refugee Outreach & Research Network (ROR-n) in Vienna, Austria, have learned that the Hungarian Government is trying to close down the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. This is of particular concern for us as a network because of the significant role CEU has played to date in the inclusion of refugees in the European academic landscape.
Not only has CEU provided scholarships and opened their classes to registered refugees, and launched the Refugee Education Initiative and other open learning initiatives, it also offers more than a dozen graduate courses addressing the topic of migration and forced displacement. As ROR-n we welcome these CEU initiatives in accordance with our own vision for more open and diverse scholarship across Europe and beyond. We believe that the Hungarian Government’s decision is an attack not only on CEU, a thought leader in the region, but on academic freedom more broadly. We stand in full solidarity with CEU in its fight against the illiberal measures of the Orban Government. We are re-posting here the CEU response to the proposed amendments in Hungarian Higher Education Law, from the official CEU website. At the same time, we feel it is important to express our solidarity with all other scholars fighting for their academic freedom against illiberal governments and other political interest groups around the world, for example, our Turkish colleagues constantly facing limitations of their academic freedom. In this spirit, many of us chose to support the March for Science on April 22, 2017, “the first step of a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies, and governments”, and will continue to stand up for open and diverse scholarship in Europe and around the world.
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Monika Halkort Studies about refugees and host societies often presume a relationship between strangers, who have little in common but their spatial proximity. The primary concern here is how time-honoured ideals of liberal government are mobilized for exclusivist projects to secure (white) privileges, using the social contract between citizens and their governments to restrict the rights and entitlements of refugees. Far less has been said about situations in which refugees themselves are cast in the role of hosts, taking in people with similar life trajectories and origins or even a shared common cause. Such is the case for about 450,000 Palestinians who have been living in Lebanon ever since their forced displacement (1948). With the outbreak of war in Syria, Palestinian camps have become a primary destination for refugees trying to escape the intense fighting in Damascus, Aleppo and other highly contested areas. Their presence has opened deep seated divisions within the exile population, and upset long-standing commitments to the ethics of struggle – commitments that once defined Palestinians. Palestinians make up only a tiny fraction of the 4.8 million people who have fled Syria since 2011. Of the 120,000 who made it across the border, about 30,000 ended up in neighbouring Lebanon (UNRWA, 2017). Not all of them live in camps, where rent is much cheaper. About 50% ended up in cities and villages across Lebanon. Palestinians from Syria are not the first generation of refugees to arrive in camps such as Nahr el Bared in the north, or Shatila, on the outskirts of Lebanon’s capital Beirut. Both camps have taken in several generations of refugees over the decades, starting with the 15 year Lebanese civil war. The camps actively participated in the war, which erased two settlements completely. Nahr el Bared, close to the Syrian border, came under attack once again in 2007 after small groups of Islamist militants started a fierce battle with the Lebanese army in which the homes of about 30,000 people were destroyed.  With each new crisis, Palestinians depended by and large upon themselves to accommodate the sudden influx of hundreds in need of food, shelter and clothing. International aid was made available, yet it was barely enough to cover the most basic needs. Together with natural population growth, that has turned the Palestinian camps into some of the most densely populated spaces in the world with less than 3.5 square metres per person. This is less than the minimum living space required for healthy living according to the Humanitarian Charter of International Relief (the Sphere Project, 2011). The need to rebuild Nahr el Bared provided a long overdue opportunity to ease the pressures on the overstretched housing conditions and to develop a sustainable living environment in line with contemporary standards of urban development. Yet the hope of improvement was short lived once, half way into the reconstruction, the main agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, ran out of funding leaving 12,000 people displaced until today. [1] Amid the ongoing crisis another 750 Palestinian families arrived from Syria, further increasing the competition for habitable space. The situation is equally bleak in Shatila, whose population grew from 10,000 to an estimated 30,000 people, including Lebanese and Syrian Palestinians, regular Syria citizens but also migrant workers from elsewhere. The deeply impoverished living conditions in the camps made it inevitable tension and conflict would emerge between the original residents and the new arrivals. The past years have seen severe cut backs in social and medical support from UNRWA, due to the agency’s chronic budget deficit of 100 Million US $ per year. Short-term emergency relief was available in the wake of the Syrian crisis, yet this aid was mostly spent on Syrian Palestinians, leaving their Lebanese counterparts watching with envy how some received basic goods and financial donations, while they were struggling to cope without support. The uneven distribution of funds has sharpened social and cultural differences and narrowed lines of solidarity down to local entitlement, belonging and need. “We cannot live with them. They are not like us,” is a common sentiment heard among Lebanese Palestinians. Their resentments are met with similar frustrations among the Syrian camp population, locking both sides in a vicious circle in which lines of mistrust harden, occasionally sliding into open aggression towards the “brothers” in need. As one Syrian mother of four explains: “They are simply jealous because we are smarter and better able to find jobs, in spite of our desperate circumstances.” Members of the educated middle class, who no longer live in the camps, watch in horror how the relationship between camp residents and the new refugees is taking on racial outlines that bring the worst stereotypes into play. “We of all people should know what it means to be in the role of the outsider,” one cultural activist complains. He has spent decades maintaining a sense of individual pride and collective identity, especially among young Palestinians, using methods of oral history and “Theatre of the Oppressed”. “How can we treat our own as undesirable, backward or un-cultured. Refusing them the right to make themselves feel at home?”  The current tensions have called into question long standing assumptions about what it means to be Palestinian. It has destabilized time honored ethics of struggle that once provided a core tenet of identity and belonging for Palestinians. Palestinian identity, as Karma Nabulsi (the representative of the PLO at the UN 1977-90) writes, is not based on nationalist individuality or sentimental attachment to the lost homeland. It is grounded in the general will of the people for independence that provides them with a sense of coherence and unity (Nabulsi, n.d.). What creates the idea of homeland, in this view, is neither land nor territory but the links between the Palestinian people as the core foundation of their sovereignty. Nabulsi’s remarks build upon Rousseau’s (1913) reading of sovereignty as the living embodiment of the social contract. It rejects the Hobbesian idea that mutual commitments and obligations between people can be vested in some governmental body, viewing them as an expression of their general will instead. As George Douglas Howard Cole in his translation of Rousseau explains: “The general will is realized not whenever that is done which is best for the community, but when … the community as a whole has willed the doing of it.” (Cole, 1913). Rousseau’s idea of the social contract, however, implies the ability to collectively invest in the material and affective infrastructures needed for translating a sense of togetherness and common good into a lived and felt social reality. The war in Syria has clearly taken its toll on the social contract that once defined Palestinians as members in communities of struggle. Yet it is only the most recent episode in a long chain of events that have alienated the refugees from the wider national project, isolating them not only geographically but also emotionally and strategically from the centre of decision making about their future, and from a Palestinian state. The frustration is particularly pronounced among those who have lived through the siege of Yarmouk, on the outskirts of Damascus. They have endured months of continuous bombardment with little or no access to food and medicines and not a single gesture of political support. No one came to their rescue, they complain: not the Palestinian Authority, not the PLO nor the rest of the refugee community, or made any attempt to help their escape. The fall of Yarmouk, in their view, marked the end of a chapter of Palestinian history in exile. “It’s the end of the idea of Return as a common political project, as one Youth Activist from Yarmouk summarised. “They abandoned us.” Up until recently such contempt would rarely be expressed in the open, in front of “strangers” with no historical links to the camp. Yet this young generation of Palestinians, born in exile, no longer feels bound to the unspoken contract of keeping disagreement concealed. “We were living a lie. We are not one group of people. We no longer share a common cause.” Their sense of betrayal calls for a critical review of the ethics of struggle under enduring forced exile. Not only for those who have lived and endured its horrors but also for those who have witnessed and documented its suffering and plight. What binds us together is the painful question: what kind of obligations exist for political projects that have so far failed to yield any effective rewards ? References Bitari, N. (2013/2014). Yarmuk Refugee Camp and the Syrian Uprising: A View from Within. Journal for Palestine Studies, 43(1), 61-78. Cole, G. D. (1913). Introduction. In J.-J. Rousseau, The Social Contract and the Discourses (p. xxxvi). London: Everyman Dent. Nabulsi, K. (n.d.). Being Palestinian. Retrieved from Ted Honderich Website: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/Being_Palestinian.html Rousseau, J.-J. (1913). The Social Contract and the Discourses. London: Everyman Dent. Steele, J. (2015, March 5). How Yarmouk refugee camp became the worst place in Syria. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/05/how-yarmouk-refugee-camp-became-worst-place-syria The Sphere Project. (2011). Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response. Retrieved from The Sphere Project: http://www.spherehandbook.org/en/shelter-and-settlement-standard-3-covered-living-space/ UNRWA. (2017). PRS in Lebanon. Retrieved from United Nations Relief and Works Agency: https://www.unrwa.org/prs-lebanon [1] Additional funds have recently been made available yet it will take another two years until all housing facilities will have been rebuilt.
Anne Irfan The European response to the Syrian refugee crisis has dominated much of the continent’s recent political discourse. Yet this has included almost no discussion of the estimated 100,000 Palestinians who have fled Syria since the conflict began. Prior to 2011, 560,000 Palestinians were registered as residing in Syria without citizenship.[1] They were largely the descendants of the generation that had fled Palestine in 1948, and over the decades they had become well-integrated into Syrian society. Despite not holding citizenship, they enjoyed many of the same rights as their Syrian neighbours, and were significantly better-off than their counterparts next door in Lebanon.[2] Since 2011 this situation has been turned on its head – and the Palestinians’ lack of Syrian citizenship has become pivotal to their fate. The plight of Palestinian refugees from Syria has become especially pertinent in Europe over the last two years. While the majority of refugees from Syria have sought shelter in neighbouring countries,[3] Jordan and Lebanon closed their doors to Palestinians in January 2013 and May 2014 respectively.[4] As a result, increasing numbers of Syrian-born Palestinians have looked to Europe as an alternative place of refuge.[5] UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees, estimates that at least 60,000 Palestinians from Syria have now fled the Levant, and that a significant number of these have gone to Europe.[6] The difficulties Palestinians face in acquiring European visas mean that many have done so clandestinely by sea, risking arrest, detention, exploitation and even death. On occasion, Palestinian refugees from Syria have been found on stranded boats and subsequently detained.[7] Despite this, very few Europeans are aware of the existence of Palestinian refugees from Syria, or of the distinctive nature of their plight. Accordingly, European policies towards them are characterised by confusion and inconsistency. The standard European framework, known as the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), is rarely applied consistently for anyone, and certainly not when it comes to the Palestinians.[8] Palestinian refugees from Syria might be recorded as ‘stateless’, ‘unknown nationality’, ‘Palestinian’ or ‘Syrian’, depending on exactly when and where they register.[9] As a result, there is only limited data available about the situation of Palestinian refugees from Syria in Europe today, and it is unknown how many have been granted asylum. This in turn impedes a full assessment of the problems facing them, and has created more uncertainty for those desperately seeking refuge. What is known is that Palestinian refugees are even more disadvantaged than their Syrian counterparts. The little data that is available shows that Palestinians are less likely to be granted asylum in Europe than other refugees from Syria, with a higher proportion of their applications remaining pending over a long period.[10] European government policy on Palestinian refugees is often opaque; the UK Home Office, for example, has refused to clarify whether they are included in its Syrian resettlement plan.[11] Even when governments are transparent about their policy positions, this does not always guarantee clarity in practice. Both the German and Swedish governments have stated that they treat Syrian-born Palestinians on the same basis as refugees with Syrian citizenship.[12] Yet in practice there can be exceptions to this. While Sweden is aligned with most other EU states in not forcibly returning refugees to Syria,[13] its policy has a loophole whereby Palestinians from Syria who had formerly lived in Iraq can be returned to the latter.[14] Similarly, the Greek government’s 2013 Order suspending the expulsion of Syrians does not apply to non-Syrian-nationals previously resident there. There have also been reports of Palestinian refugees from Syria being turned back at the Bulgarian border with Turkey, and their asylum applications being ignored.[15] Even in Germany, there are sometimes discrepancies at the local level. If officials are unaware of the status of Syrian-born Palestinians, there may be disparities in how they are classified even within the same country, with some registered as Syrian and others are given an indeterminate status.[16] The question remains of why Palestinians are treated so differentially. Some of this is down to their statelessness. As Palestinians do not hold Syrian passports, it can be harder for host states to verify that they are refugees fleeing the Syrian war, and are therefore eligible for resettlement schemes. In some cases, there are concerns that their statelessness makes them more likely to become ‘long-term’ refugees, with no obvious home to return to. Collected testimonies recall Palestinians being detained for unusually long periods in Greece because there is no country to deport them to.[17] However, the Palestinians’ statelessness is by no means the only reason for their differential treatment. Palestinian refugees are also rendered particularly disadvantaged by their unique international classification. Since 1950, they have received services from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA). They have consequently been excluded from the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), on the grounds that they are covered by another UN body.[18] As a result, they are ineligible for potentially crucial services from UNHCR, including travel documents and formal verification of their status. While UNHCR has intervened to assist Palestinian refugees in certain situations, such interventions have taken place on an ad hoc basis. Officially speaking, the Palestinians lack the formal eligibility for UNHCR services that all other refugees can claim. The repercussions of this distinction are significant. UNRWA has a much more limited scope than UNHCR. It registers Palestinian refugees in the Middle East and provides them with emergency relief and long-term health and education services. Yet unlike UNHCR, UNRWA is not mandated to provide protection or to pursue political solutions to the refugees’ plight. As a result, Palestinian refugees suffer from a ‘protection gap’, whereby they are the only group of people in the world who are not provided with protection by the UN – and are therefore uniquely vulnerable.[19] This state of affairs has had a host of negative consequences for Palestinians fleeing Syria today. It means that they lack formal protection in a situation where they desperately need it. Their combination of statelessness and ineligibility for UNHCR services means that Palestinian refugees are too often falling through the gaps – especially in Europe, where UNRWA does not operate. Moreover, any European resettlement plan that is coordinated with UNHCR automatically excludes Palestinian refugees. In September 2015, for instance, the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the UK would accept 20,000 Syrian refugees over a five-year period. As these 20,000 refugees will be identified through UNHCR, Palestinians will be automatically excluded.[20] The problems facing Palestinian refugees from Syria are significant and in several ways exceptional. Even otherwise laudable European responses to the Syrian crisis have often failed to take account of the complex Palestinian plight. Yet its complexity makes it imperative that the Palestinians are included in refugee response plans from the beginning, so as to avoid the confusion and inconsistencies that have come to dominate the situation as it currently stands. Notes: [1] UNRWA, Syria Regional Crisis: Emergency Appeal 2016. Retrieved from http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/2016_syria_emergency_appeal.pdf [2] Qandil, M. (2012). The Syrian Revolution and the Palestinian Refugees in Syria: Realities and Risks. Al Jazeera Centre for Studies. Retrieved from http://studies.aljazeera.net/mritems/Documents/2012/5/2/201252132022536734The%20Syrian%20Rev olution%20and%20Palestinian%20Refugees%20in%20Syria.pdf [3] Orchard, C. & Miller, A. (September 2014). Forced Migration Policy Briefing 10: Protection in Europe for Refugees from Syria. Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. Retrieved from https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/policy-briefing-series/pb10-protection-europe-refugees-syria-2014.pdf [4] Human Rights Watch. (2014). Jordan: Palestinians Escaping Syria Turned Away. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/07/jordan-palestinians-escaping-syria-turned-away Amnesty International. (2014). Families ripped apart as Palestinian refugees from Syria denied entry to Lebanon. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/07/families-ripped-apart-palestinian-refugees- syria-denied-entry-lebanon/ [5] Abu Moghli, M., Bitarie, N. & Gabiam, N. (October 2015). Palestinian Refugees from Syria: Stranded on the Margins of Law. Retrieved from https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/palestinian-refugees-from-syria-stranded-on-the-margins-of-law/ [6] Bolongar, K. (March 2016). Palestinian Syrians: Twice refugees. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/03/palestinian-syrians-refugees-160321055107834.html [7] Morrison, L. (2015). Egypt: A Desperate Refuge for Palestinians Fleeing the Syrian Conflict. Al Majdal, 57, 19-23. [8] On CEAS see: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/20160713/factsheet_the_common_european_asylum_system_en.pdf [9] UNHCR (June 2014). Syrian Refugees in Europe: What Europe Can Do to Ensure Protection and Solidarity. Retrieved from: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b69f574.html [10] Orchard, C. & Miller, A. (September 2014). Forced Migration Policy Briefing 10: Protection in Europe for Refugees from Syria. Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. Retrieved from https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/policy-briefing-series/pb10-protection-europe-refugees-syria-2014.pdf [11] Bolongar, K. (March 2016). Palestinian Syrians: Twice refugees. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/03/palestinian-syrians-refugees-160321055107834.html [12] Ibid. [13] UNHCR (June 2014). Syrian Refugees in Europe: What Europe Can Do to Ensure Protection and Solidarity. Retrieved from: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b69f574.html [14] Orchard, C. & Miller, A. (September 2014). Forced Migration Policy Briefing 10: Protection in Europe for Refugees from Syria. Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. Retrieved from https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/policy-briefing-series/pb10-protection-europe-refugees-syria-2014.pdf [15] Ibid. [16] Bolongar, K. (March 2016). Palestinian Syrians: Twice refugees. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/03/palestinian-syrians-refugees-160321055107834.html [17] Ziadah, R. (May 2016). Journeys of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugees from Syria Confronting Fortress Europe. Retrieved from http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2016/05/16/journeys-of-dispossession-palestinian-refugees-from-syria-confronting-fortress-europe/ [18] Article ID of the 1951 Refugee Convention excludes ‘persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the UN other than the UNHCR protection or assistance’. The Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA are the only group to whom this applies. [19] Akram, S. (2001). Reinterpreting Palestinian Refugee Rights under International Law. In: N. Aruri (Ed.). Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return. London: Pluto Press. 165-194. [20] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/uk-will-accept-up-to-20000-syrian-refugees-david-cameron-confirms
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