This is not the first time we face displacement, and it won't be the last. However, fate tells us that this may be our longest period of displacement, and that we will not return to the homes we grew up in any time soon. We might even need a miracle to go back. We have no shelter this time, no roofs to protect us from the cold winter or the summer heat, and no walls to guard what remains of our flesh. Nothing but longing will reside in the homes we have bid farewell and left behind.
Here we are, adding a new chapter to our tale of exile, leaving the land we cherish for new pastures that we will become accustomed to. We are moving our hometowns to what may be a layover or perhaps a fixed residence. We will write verses about our latest exodus and our hope of receiving the same kindness we had seen in our original homelands. We will venture once more into God’s vast green earth, which welcomed us over a century ago after there was no more room for on our land- an occurrence that is customary in this East. Scores of its people have departed this part of the world, either defeated, coerced, or seeking to stay alive. Experiences show that no displaced person, refugee, or migrant who has left their home, village, or city returns. Those who are pulled back in by their longing leave again in distress.
In our new exile between two rivers, from south of the Litani to its north, from north of the Litani to north of the Awali, and from north of the Awali to Iqlim al-Kharroub and the Shouf, or Beirut, and from there to the north and east, we leave behind our demolished homes, destroyed villages, emptied cities. Only the souls that perished and the livelihoods that were annihilated remain- flames, debris, and ruin. "Houses die when their inhabitants leave;" our villages and cities, and what remains of the houses there, die of loneliness and the absence of their people.
The journeys of the Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Iraqi diaspora, the tents hastily set up for them in camps said to be temporary, on boats heading to other shores on the eastern Mediterranean, in refugee camps or the shelters of irregular migrants, share the same story, fate, and history.
Mothers tell it to their children, passing it down from their mothers. It is a history of invading armies entering by land and returning on planes. Some were colonized, some settled, some occupied. Among them are men of our own who are often more cruel than those who appointed them to rule over us.
The only thread that ties these stories together is consistency. We, as individuals, communities, cities, capitals, and countries, continue to pay the price for the actions of foreign usurpers and covetous neighbors. Every decade or more, we see our cities brought to the ground: from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Haifa, Acre, Hebron, Jenin, and Nablus, to Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, passing through Homs, Aleppo, Hama, Idlib, Daraa, and Damascus, to Beirut, Tyre, Bint Jbeil, Khiam, and Nabatieh.
Nabatieh, the heart of Jabal Amel, is being systematically exterminated, its buildings, neighborhoods, and markets have turned to dust. Its landmarks and the embodiments of its collective memory have been erased. Nabatieh, in the memory of its people, neighbors, and visitors, used to link southern Lebanon, northern Palestine, and southern Syria. It is their hospital, the school, the cafe. Its markets were home to regional trade and a meeting ground for its people. It was a microcosm, with its diversity and plurality, of the Lebanon we want.
The early chapters of our long history of displacement tell the story of "Amela," a Yemeni tribe that migrated to this area (southern Lebanon) after the great flood following the collapse of the Marib Dam. Contemporary chapters will chronicle how the entire "Amela" tribe was displaced from south Lebanon following the fire flood that swept through Gaza and the cities and villages of Jabal Amel, turning them into mere memory. The survivors of Gaza and the south will share the same memories of a devastating flood born despair that created even greater despair.
With our ongoing journey in search of a safe or even half-safe life, another identity of this diverse country is formed, an identity inherited from our "Seferberlik" ancestors, from whom we also inherited displacement and migration. My own identity card, notes, alongside my date and place of birth, that I was born on the eve of the civil war, and then displaced, like many southerners, after the Litani Operation of 1978. I emigrated after the 1982 invasion, and I was displaced back to the south during Michel Aoun's war in 1989, and then I was displaced from the south following Operation Accountability in 1993 and again, after Grapes of Wrath, in 1996. I returned to a devastated Beirut in 2006. And now here I am, along with every member of my generation and the generations before and after me, writing a new chapter in our long book of displacement. In this harsh East, we are either born displaced or as migrants, or we die as strangers or victims.
