Ghettos of Syrian refugees in Istanbul

[Zainab_M]

More than one million Syrians are now living as refugees in Turkey.  The intention was to house them in camps along the Turkish-Syrian border.  But the war has already been dragging on for three years with no end in sight.  Apart from the usual hardships of living in refugee camps, abuse by Turkish guards are rampant and the threat of traffickers a growing menace.  The refugees are now fleeing the camps and going into Turkish cities.  So far, Istanbul has been their favorite destination with the hope that it might also be easier for the more ambitious ones to slip into Europe.  According to statistical estimates, more than 200,000 Syrian refugees are now living in Istanbul. 

Some refugees who are sympathizers of the rebels are using Istanbul as a propaganda base and a center of resistance against the Syrian government.  While Mr. Erdogan's government is ruthlessly cracking down on the Turkish media to muffle all news of corruption within his government, he has allowed a group of Syrian supporters of the opposition to operate an independent media, Radio Al-Kul, from atop a building in one of the commercial hubs of Istanbul.  Obi Sukkar, who is the founder of Radio Al-Kul, states that the channel is strictly uncensored and independent and reaches an audience of at least 100,000 in Syria.  The purpose is to win the support of the Syrian people, turning them against their government. While Obi Sukkar runs an independent channel on Turkey's proxy war and on Turkish soil, the poor Turks have no such privileges.

However, ones like Obi Sukkar who are happily rebuilding their lives in Istanbul are few.  His radio station is welcomed and supported by wealthy Syrians.  But most other refugees have a very different story. They are of modest means or poor who are yearning to return to their simple and normal lives which were destroyed by the invading marauders.  Cost of living being exorbitant in Istanbul, they are struggling to survive.  Even odd jobs are difficult to find.  Many of them live on charity meals distributed by mosques in Istanbul.  Syrian women and children begging in shopping centers and parks are no longer uncommon sights in that city.  A middle-class Syrian woman who fled the refugee camp near the Turkish border with her two children mentioned that she left Syria after her brother was kidnapped by a group of terrorists.  The entire village became unsafe.  She couldn't bear to stay in the refugee camp indefinitely which was like a prison.  She assumed it would be easy enough to find a job in Istanbul which might also serve as a gateway to Europe.  But the reality was very different from what she imagined.  Some of the Islamic charities in Turkey have taken upon themselves the task of moving all such refugees who are living on the streets back to the camps but to no avail.  They keep coming back .. for the simple reason that the conditions in the camps are even worse than living on city streets.

As expected, living as refugees is having a devastating affect on the upbringing of Syrian children.  A harrowing story that appeared on Turkey Pulse of Syrian refugee boys as young as five or six smoking cigarettes, playing on the streets and around trees near the parks all
day with no access to schools. The adults of their families caring for them are women – mothers, sisters, grandmothers and aunts – who are seen sitting together huddled in groups with their backs resting against the stoned walls of parks.  Many of them don’t even have the protection of tents.  They use cardboard pieces torn from cardboard boxes as shelter along side big plastic bags filled with their essential belongings of clothes, blankets, pots and pans.  At other times these women are cited begging silently at busy marketplaces.  Their children sell kleenex or paper handkerchiefs, usually at car windows when the traffic stops at intersections.  The male adults of their families are seldom seen.  It’s also hard to guess what might have become of them.  Many have been killed by the destruction of the war.  Others are trying to make a living as refugees wherever they can find some prospects of earning whatever they can.  They try to seek odd jobs that don’t require speaking Turkish.  Those who find work at sweatshops consider themselves fortunate.  The more common odd jobs are washing cars, carrying bricks, pulling out weeds or just waiting and hoping to find a few hours’ of work at some construction site close by.  Thus, they’re seldom able to spend time with their families.

Majority of the refugees in Istanbul appear to be Alawites.  Some reports have stated that they feel uneasy staying in the camps with the Sunni refugees.  Though it isn’t possible to verify their authenticity, quite many Alawite refugees in Istanbul have narrated uncanny stories of people getting bribed in refugee camps at the Turkish border with a tent, some food and blankets .. and at night they are given guns and told to fight.  Others complain that the camps are in constant danger of being attacked by rebels fighting in Syria.  They also frown that their children stay hungry in camps with not enough food.

All of their stories are distressful in unimaginable proportions!  They have been fleeing to Turkey in truckloads only to find themselves in a different type of hell.

An attitude that isn’t helping the refugees is the resentment of local Turks who have begun to express their dissatisfaction and anger at the presence of so many Syrian refugees in Istanbul and other parts of Turkey.   Comments like "they are everywhere .. I’m tired of Syrians coming here .. they beg and their kids are always on the streets .. tourists will stop coming to Turkey .. the government should keep them in camps" are commonly heard from almost all segments of the Turkish community.

Though a huge political embarrassment for Turkey's ruling AK Party, there is little it can do to handle the growing number of Syrian refugees on the streets of Istanbul and other cities of the country.  Obviously the Turkish government never envisaged such a situation as it initially thought that President Assad's government would collapse within a year.   Many Turkish analysts and columnists living outside Turkey have bluntly described it as AK Party's "failed policy" and look upon it as a very threatening economic and security concern for Turkey’s future, particularly considering the possibility that the war in Syria could go on for years.   Turkey has been training and sending the foreign fighters to Syria for the last three years, almost.  With already over one million Syrian refugees on Turkish soil, most of them in Istanbul and the number rapidly growing, the Turkish government has yet made no plans on how to tackle this huge human tsunami steadily flowing from the Syrian-Turkish borders.   What dreadful oversight and incompetence by a government that often boasts of being full of "visionaries!" 

[Heba E. Husseyn]

Excellent piece of work Sis.  I must share it and send it to family and friends.  This mad Ak Party of Turkey in collaboration with its sleazeball friends, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, will have to answer some very tough questions to God Almighty on the Day when the Account is cast. One only needs to be in the shoes of those who have lost their homes and have had to flee for their lives with only the clothes on their backs to know how exactly it feels.  Not to mention of the enormous emotional trauma they've left behind of watching their loved ones getting killed.   The suffering of the Syrian people has been immeasurable.  The number of refugees who have fled to Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq are even more. 

[Ruhi_Rose]

I truly enjoyed this read.  You're right sister Heba, the grief of being homeless can only be felt when one gets uprooted overnight for no fault of theirs.  Until 2 or 3 years ago, the Syrians were safe.  Then suddenly everything changed.  The Palestinians, in WB as well as Gaza, have been suffering this fate for years through Israeli bulldozers and bombs.  Iraqis, Afghanis and North-West Pakistanis in Waziristan are no strangers to such misery either.  These are the tests, trials, tribulations of earthly world.  The tests might not necessarily be for the ones who are suffering.  It could be just as much for those who are inflicting it.

This prompts me to bring up a little topic for discussion.  I was reading the latest on the liberation of Yarmouk Camp in Syria.  Food has finally been allowed to trickle in.  Some say the takfiri AQ terrorists who had taken over the camp were not allowing humanitarian aid while some say the Syrian government wasn't allowing it.  Anyhow, the article I read was written by Franklin Lamb.   He was present at the camp when food and humanitarian assistance began arriving and many of its residents who were held by the terrorists were also being allowed to leave for treatments to hospitals.

The author wrote about 2 ladies he met and spoke to.  One was an elderly lady in her late 60s who came to receive her son stuck in the camp, with trust in Allah that he was still alive.  The other was a young mother with two little kids and elderly parents.  They were all stuck in the camp with no food and this unfortunate young lady said she had to sell her body to the terrorists almost daily in return for some food to keep her parents and kids alive.  On this day when the author met her, she obviously lost her faith in Allah by complaining that Allah didn't help her.  I quote the conversation the author had with both ladies separately.

(1)  "One elderly lady, maybe in her late sixties, explained to this observer that every day for the past seven months, i.e. since the tight siege of Yarmouk began last June, she has stood in the same location waiting for her son Mahmoud to come to her from inside besieged Yarmouk. She has no idea if he is alive but she explained to me that she believes that God will deliver him safely to her."

(2)  " .. a lovely young mother who had just exited Yarmouk with her two toddlers who looked, as she did, to be in fairly bad shape and in need of immediate hospitalization. A former English literature student, the lady, whose family is from Haifa, Occupied Palestine, explained to this observer that she no longer has any belief in God and as she elaborated why, she lowered her voice so as not to offend the nearby elderly believer waiting for her son Mahmoud.
She told of her experience trapped inside Yarmouk: “For the past more than five months I have sold my body  for one hour to whoever would give me a kilo of rice which sometimes costs as much as 14,000 s.p. (close to $ 100). I was proud to be a whore for these terrorists in order to keep my parents alive and who are still trapped and I also prevented complete starvation of my children.”  She continued, “God did not help me and my family but I promise if I live and ever see one of those dogs I will kill him and he can learn if his God exists or not. None existed for me!” and she sobbed as two young lady volunteers from the PRCS  held her as she and her little ones  made their way to a waiting ambulance."

As for quote no.1, the elderly lady clearly stood firm on the face of this trial without bitterness, even though she must be aware that her son might not be alive any longer.

What are your views about quote no.2 ?  Apparently the young lady could not withstand the test.   As for my opinion, I know the young lady's suffering was huge and selling one's body out of such severe compulsion can be one of the most traumatic things in the world.  But by losing her faith in God, she is channeling her anger in the wrong direction which is definitely a sign of her haste and weakness.   I look forward to everyone's opinion too.

Article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/07/lifting-the-siege-of-yarmouk/

[Zainab_M]

I too read this article a couple of days ago and observed quote 2.  Thanks for bringing it up, sister Ruhi.  I didn't pay much attention when I read it at first because I know lots of such people exist. 

Needless to say, her agitation is very understandable but as you so rightly said, she is venting it in a completely wrong direction.  A lot of folks might tell me that I'm saying it because I'm not in her shoes myself.  But that's not it.  When I read it here a second time and before responding, I imagined .. what if such a thing happened with me?  What impact would it have on me?  I'm sure my reaction would have been the opposite of this young lady.  My emotional trauma and profound feeling of loneliness which I would suffer from being so grossly violated by a bunch of very sinful, lowly disbelieving thugs could only be comforted with the thought of God Almighty as the only One Who saw everything, knows the complete truth, He has recorded it and He will grant me full justice on the Final Day with the severest of punishment to those who wronged me. 

It would only strengthen my trust more and make me feel even closer to Him because I wouldn't have any hope of justice from any other source.   The lady said if she ever saw those men again, she would kill them.  I hope she does.  But she might never be fortunate enough to get that opportunity.  And since she has lost her faith in God, I can imagine how lonely she must be feeling.  It is in times like these when a person's life tends to slide deeper and deeper into sorrow and sadness.  This temporary world usually never bestows justice on its victims. And if the victims get swept away into the misguidance of losing faith, it's like all hopes of an ultimate redress getting dashed. 

Yet, it's possible that Allah might forgive her and guide her after she gets over the emotional trauma and is able to think rationally.  InshAllah, for the ultimate benefit of her own soul, I hope she regains her insight which has now been blurred and shaken because of her acute emotional distress. Satan misguided those cruel & criminal terrorists in a certain way, and he also succeeded in misguiding their victim in another way.  Very sad story indeed. 

[N. Truth Seeker]

I doubt if the young lady of quote 2 was a Muslim at heart.  Someone who is genuinely into faith, would never swerve like this no matter what.  Whatever happened to her was horrible.  But as sister Heba said, I've also read and heard of much worse things happening to women.  The atrocities & rape women have suffered in Burma and still are, is far worse than this.  There are so many of them who have been made sex slaves of the buddhist kuffar military guards.  So many have been sexually assaulted in front of their parents, children and siblings and then brutally butchered.  So many have seen their parents and children attacked before their eyes and murdered in the cruelest manner imaginable.  But as yet I've not known of any Muslim female or male surviving victims of the Burmese genocide losing faith because of the horrors unleashed on them by their killers. 

Let's not forget how brutally many new Muslims and followers of the Prophet (pbuh) were made to suffer in Mecca who were unable to migrate to Medinah for some compelling reasons.  Though I doubt if rape was committed in those days, yet the persecution was severe.  Also, before the Hijrah, dozens of people who gave their allegiance to the Prophet were badly tortured, maimed and killed.  It only strengthened their faith in God.

[Heba E. Husseyn]

Sister Zeynab, Br.TS, both of you expressed precisely my thoughts.   If after each earthly injustice everyone started hating God and losing faith in Him, there would be no such thing as 'iman' left in this world by now.  It goes without saying that she suffered grave injustice, but in MANY incidents of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Burma etc.  both men and women have suffered far worse plight and are still holding on firmly to their faith.  Then again, many are shaky and a test could be their final push that makes them let go on their faith altogether.  Maybe this lady didn't have a firm faith to start with and was a non-practicing Muslim or a Muslim simply by title.  Or, she might even be a secular Christian?  That's not clear either.  Many Palestinian refugees are non-practicing Christians and refugee camps don't separate Muslims and Christians.  May Allah (The Highest) punish the kuffar terrorists and guide some of their victims.

[Ruhi_Rose]

Thank you sisters and brother.  This is precisely how I feel about the quote 2.  Most likely this lady had a weak iman from the start, or maybe, she was in the process of understanding faith but it hadn't yet entered her heart.  Thus, she wasn't able to hold on to it and swayed.  I also agree that still worse things have happened to women who have remained totally steadfast. 

Allah (Subhan wa'Taala) is the Ultimate Refuge from all tragedies, disasters and injustices with His Final Judgment being the only flawless one.  Only a very confused or irrationally agitated person will overlook that and take the reverse path by blaming Allah for the harm perpetrated by humanity.  It's like rejecting the Ultimate Refuge when you need it most. 

Thanks again everyone.

[Ozcan]

You can't expect more from sunnis. Since Erdogan is a typical indoctrinated adherent of the Sunni religion, his actions are actually consistant with his beliefs. The sunni and shia religions have absolutely nothing to do with the Islam in the Qur'an. These religions can only bring death and destruction as they do and have always done. I have totally given up on those who claim to be Muslims while in reality they are worse than those atheists and non-Muslims whom they claim to hate so much. There are millions of atheists who are infinitely more humane, peaceful and more rational than the majority of sunni and shia followers who are a lost cause. I have come to the conclusion that the biggest enemies of Allah on this entire earth are Sunnis and Shias, since they have corrupted and betrayed Allah's perfect and true religion. I no longer consider sunnis and shias Muslim but rather as munafiqs who are more dangerous and a bigger enemy of Islam than the Kuffar. Because the Kuffar didn't corrupt Islam, "Muslims" did !!

[Zainab_M]

Yes, the distortions and corruption introduced by them are too much for sectarianists to be called Muslims.  That amounts to misinterpreting the Final Message and the Religion of Allah.  I only pray to Allah to grant me courage to face the isolation for rejecting sectarianism with its load of unwarranted annexations.  By the Grace of Allah, I have no fear being excommunicated by those idiots.  I'd rather walk on the path alone than with a crowd I clearly see as going in the wrong direction.  My Judge is Allah only and I have to answer to Him, NOT to imposters & phoneys like the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia or Ali Khamanei.  It's for this reason I often think secular governments are better than the clerical ones.  Though the mistakes and violations of secularist governance are no less, at least they make their mistakes in their own name, not in the name of my beautiful Faith by using it as leverage.

What hurts me is that many Muslims who are sincerely trying to find guidance get so disillusioned by the practices of sunnis and shiias and the manner in which their imams and politicians use Faith to justify their double standards that they swerve and turn against the purity of true Islam altogether, becoming completely God-less or atheists.  That's just as lamentable.  The Quran is not just a religion, it's a code of life with all its essential values.  Abandoning it would mean even a person's good deeds would not contain the thought or concept of God Almighty.  That's what the atheistic virtues are based on; the credit of their goodness is given to their conscience only.  However, they forget that the conscience of every person is molded by Allah Almighty, whether it grows or remains stunted or in between.  Also consequently, an atheist or an agnostic who adheres to good deeds only to please their conscience for the sake of humanity without any thought of Allah will get their recognition and fruits of their good deeds in this world, but not in the next.  Very, very fair in my opinion.  They work for this world, so they get their reward here if the world agrees.  They never recognized  the next world, so Allah gives them no recognition there.  This aspect has been categorically highlighted in several verses of the Glorious Quran.  Divine Justice is flawless.  Alhumdulilah.