One of the key elements of wars, Arthur Marwick argues, is that they are âdestructive and disruptiveâ.1 While the pace of civil wars has globally slowed down in the past three decades, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) has increased dramatically. Today, those direct victims of conflicts are nearly 60 million, that is, twice as many as they used to be ten years ago. These massive displacements of populations not only threaten the regional and global economy, but also the social demography of entire states. Finally, they indirectly increase the likelihood of conflict, especially in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region where state and identity often clash. This is all the more true in the post-Arab uprisings period that witnessed the fall of historical leaders and the erosion of state power.
Wars, as Centeno puts it, âhave the capacity to turn us all into lunatics and to convince us that only the state can protect us from the horrifying foeâ.2 They are emergencies âduring which legal rights are perceived as possibly unnecessary and even dangerous luxuriesâ.3 Ultimately, they produce popular politics and authoritarian tendencies. The civil war in Syria is considered one of the worst humanitarian crises in contemporary Middle East. Eight years after the beginning of the conflict, the United Nationsâ reports reveal that nearly 13 million Syriansâincluding 5.6 million childrenâremain in need for humanitarian assistance. This includes 6.2 million IDPs. In addition, the Syrian civil war resulted in one of the largest and most devastating human exoduses since World War II. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of November 2019, more than 5.6 million Syrians are still distributed across Turkey (65.5%), Lebanon (16.1%), Jordan (11.4%), Iraq (4.1%), Egypt (2.3%) and elsewhere.4 This sudden increase in population in host countries resulted in severe pressure on infrastructures and services, as well as in growing social tensions between Syrian refugees and host communities.
He spoke loudly but in a mourning voice: âWe are not going anywhere; we will stay hereâ (Manna rayheen in Arabic). The young Syrian boyânot older than 13 yearsâwas sitting on the sidewalk, packing shoe polish kit. His words were directed to an adult Lebanese man in a laboratory coat near the American University Hospital. A few seconds before, the Lebanese man had looked at the kid with rage and had told him in a cold tone, âGo back to your countryâ (Roh ala baladak in Arabic). What led a grown-up manâwho seemingly had a stable middle-class status in Beirutâto address a child who fled war in those words? That moment captured what we came to investigate in Lebanon: the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on the host communities. There came the idea of compiling a volume that would give a voice to those who are not only observers of the crisis, but directly affected by it on daily basis.
This edited volume adopts a transdisciplinary approach across social science disciplines to investigate the political and socioeconomic impact of the Syrian refugees on Lebanon and Jordan, and these countriesâ mechanisms to cope with the rapid influx of fleeing Syrians. The rationales behind this research are several. First, a majority of studies on conflict and human migration have focused on refugees themselves. Without undermining the trauma of violence and displacement, it is believed that refugees are not the only victims of conflicts. It appears that the Syrian refugees had and still have a strong impact on their host countries. Moreover, re-centring the focus on the host communities sheds light on the âpoliticsâ of the refugee crisis, namely the local and the international humanitarian interventions, and their harmful consequences on developing countries such as Jordan and LebanonâSyriaâs direct âArabâ neighbours. Second, and consequently, only the understanding of the challenges inherent to humanitarian crisis and displacement can prevent the much feared spillover effect of a conflict to neighbouring countries. Third, it is crucial to understand the grievance of host communities against Syrian refugees to mitigate tensions between the two groups, and between the Syrian refugees and other refugee populationsâmainly Palestinian and Iraqiâin the case of Jordan and Lebanon. Fourth, this volume aims to review and assess the roles of the host government, the international community and the actors of humanitarian aid in shaping the perceptions towards and responses to the Syrian refugee crisis. Ultimately, this book is a contribution to the understanding of the conditions and policies of refugee hosting in developing countries, where 85% of refugees are located.5 Doing so, this volume intends to offer an alternative view of this phenomenon, going beyond the European framing of the refugee crisis, which is playing out in neighbouring countries where the vast majority of refugees continue to be hosted.
The choice of Jordan and Lebanon as case studies is significant. This research underscores the fate of two Arab countries caught in the regional Arab disorder aggravated by the advent of the Arab Spring in late-2010. While both have a long tradition of hostingâmainly Arabârefugees, one could wonder whether host communities and the governments in Jordan and Lebanon showed Arab solidarity in the mid of the worst humanitarian tragedy since World War II. In other words, this volume intends to provide an Arab perspective on this Arab humanitarian crisis. Furthermore, while the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on Turkey has been registered6ânot least because of the significant numbers of academics with Turkish ties now working in Europe and North AmericaâJordan and Lebanon remain understudied contexts. The bias towards Jordan and Lebanon does not undermine the importance to deepen the understanding of refugee hosting in non-Arab entities, especially in Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) which has not been subjected to rigorous studies.
This volume consists of 11 chapters that analyse the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on Jordan and Lebanon at three different levels: The state (government), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the civil society, and local populations. The selection of these levels is not incidental. During field research, it became evident to the editors of this volume that the Syrian refugee crisis had a sharp, but diverse effect on these three sets of actors in both Jordan and Lebanon. Each level, as the reader of this book will notice, provides a distinct and a different, yet complementary, analysis of the crisis. Hence, by studying each level in the two countries, the volume offers an innovative, holistic and comparative study on the Syrian refugeesâ impact in Jordan and Lebanon.
Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive examination of the premises of the Syrian refugee crisis, situating it within the Middle Eastern regional (dis-)order, and Syrian domestic politics. Doing so, it offers an overview of the socioeconomic and political factors that led to the Syrian civil war and the influx of populations beyond the Syrian borders.
In Chaps. 3 and 4, Waâed Alshoubaki and Juline Beaujouan and Amjed Rasheed examine the Syrian refugee crisis and its socioeconomic impact on Jordan and Lebanon, respectively. In Chap. 5, Juline Beaujouan and Amjed Rasheed highlight the changing course of the Jordanian governmentâs policy framework towards the Syrian refugees across time. They also investigate Jordanâs post-conflict policies and the future challenges posed by the crisis on the kingdom and the international community. In the same vein, in Chap. 6, Khalil El Hariri analyses the factors driving the changes in Lebanonâs approach towards Syrian refugees, emphasising the role of foreign policy.
In Chap. 7, Prof. Musa Shteiwi reflects on the results of a survey on the Jordanian populationâs perception of the Syrian refugees in the kingdom. The chapter mainly analyses the perceived impact of the crisis on the Jordanian labour market, and the future prospects of the refugee situation in the country. In a similar approach, in Chap. 8, Chadi Nachabe uses interview-based research to investigate the different perceptions of the Lebanese local communities on the refugee issue. The latter, he suggests, reveals the fragmentation of the Lebanese society along confessional lines.
Chapters 9 and 10 analyse the role played by NGOs and the civil society in Jordan and Lebanon in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis. Eyas Ghreizâs chapter offers an overview of the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on the Jordanian NGOs and how the latter adapted their activities to the crisis. In a similar endeavour, Isabelle Saade critically assesses the role that the national and international responses have played in alleviating or exacerbating the crisis.
Finally, a short conclusion suggests some ways forward by outlining avenues for further reflection on the consequences, lessons learned and future prospects of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Footnotes
1
Marwick Arthur, War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Study of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States (New York: St. Martinâs Press, 1974).
2
Miguel Angel C...