Apartheid active in Middle East

This summer was the first time I’d been to the Mediterranean Sea in 10 years. The last time was when I was in Greece at the turn of the millennium. My sisters, cousin and I were taking a walk around town, and a gypsy girl kept following us around; she was aimless and bored with nothing better to do.

When we got to the sea, the gypsy girl ran in with all her clothes on, screaming into the froth. I had never seen anything like it. The image has stayed with me ever since.

This summer on my trip to the Middle East, I ran screaming into the sea with all of my clothes on and felt a sort of freedom I had never expected to find. I found a sort of liberation I never knew I was looking for. I swam out far in my skirts, body-boarding back to shore, grateful for the salt in my sinuses; I was jubilant beyond measure.

And then I remembered Suheir.

Suheir was born in, and currently lives at, the Deheishe refugee camp in Bethlehem. The poverty in this place was like a combination of old European cities and West Philadelphia: Every street was a narrow alleyway full of wrecked homes and rubble.

It was set up by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and is currently at three times capacity. Not yet 100 years old, the camp was full of ruins. Bullet holes pepper walls allowing passers-by to peek into people’s homes. She reminded me of my Thea Voula after a funeral, vivacious and spicy, tinged with an interminable sadness right behind her eyes.

Suheir has lived here her entire life, about an hour from this beach, and is forbidden to go. She is literally a refugee in her own country.

Apartheid is very real. Apartheid exists when some people have separate roads based on their ethnic and/or religious identity. Apartheid is real when some people are waved through checkpoints and others have to wait hours in the sun, caged in and with guns in their faces. Apartheid is real when nationalized healthcare doesn’t apply to some people. Apartheid is real, and its long and bony fingers interlock here with colonialism and repression of democracy.

It is illegal to approach someone about not joining the military in the “only democracy in the Middle East.”

With that, I’d like to share a poem by Laurie Siegal, a delegate with the Interfaith Peace Builders.

“I Am A Refugee in My Own Country”
as told by Suheir - Deheisheh Refugee Camp
Why have us suffer?
All the time we are under oppression
The Soldiers come
They explode the house
When we stop suffering
When?
When can I take the children to the beach?
We are human
I don’t know what we do
We want real peace
We need your help
We are not alone
We need your heart
We will be free one time

Nancy Paraskevopolous is a member of the
Campus Anti-War Network and the Racial Awareness Program.