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27.9%ANMag Issue 27 Editorial
The Forgotten Lebanese
By Shadi Tabbara, Editor-in-Chief
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Around 100,000 citizens from Lebanese origin live in Germany. Some 5,000 of them live in Essen, making the latter the third largest Lebanese community in Germany, right after Berlin and Hamburg. Contrary to the mostly successful Lebanese emigrants scattered all over the world (Latin America, Africa and the Arab Gulf), the Lebanese society living in Essen is the community most at a disadvantage and continues to be the least integrated group. These forgotten Lebanese came to Germany between 1982 and 1990 and continue, till date, to be the outcasts of the German society even with all the help that the German associations and government organizations provided. Although the composition of this group is not the same as the one in Lebanon, however, there are Christian Maronites (representing 1%), Muslim Shiites (representing 10-15%), and Muslim Sunnis (representing 80-85%) of which the vast majority comes from Kurdish-Lebanese origin (about 60-65%). Why Germany? And why do they continue to maintain such a low level of life even after more than 20 years of their immigration? These are only few questions that arise when talking about the forgotten Lebanese.
Historical Background
Kurds are large families (having five to ten children) from Arab origin and practicing the Muslim faith; they allegedly originated from the region between Syria and Turkey. Kurds were considered as outsiders to the Ottoman Empire and the regime, back then, was violating human rights by giving them particular names (ending with the letter “o” such as Samo, Fakhro, Berro…) in order for the latter to recognize them and penalize them. Moreover, after the dissolution of the Ottoman, Turkey did not allow them to be in possession of land and continued to enforce on them inhuman decrees. In the 1930s, these families migrated to Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries. Those who have migrated to Lebanon settled mainly in Beirut, in areas such as Karantina, Zukak Al Balat and Basta, where they found work in trading vegetables and then at a later stage became soldiers in Sunni parties during the 1975 Lebanese Civil War. However, these families were considered emigrants before the Civil War.
Lebanese-Kurds were offered citizenship (immigrant work permit) provided that they had the financial capabilities to buy it. Nonetheless, they would have a “travel document” and not a Lebanese passport, and they would have “pending” under nationality. This resulted in having a low quota of registration even though many of these families had a Turkish civil register for the sole purpose of being able to practice such basic rights as marriage and inheritance.
Why Germany?
Running away from the 1975 Lebanese Civil War, and more particularly from the front point that was the Karantina area, many of these Lebanese-Kurds fled the country to Germany (before its unification) where only one-third obtained the German citizenship.
Germany was appealing for these immigrants because of many apparent motives: to begin, the [relatively humanitarian] German law allows refugees coming from civil wars to stay in the hosting country [for a limited period] even after refusing the right to refuge; moreover, the ease of entering Germany through Eastern Berlin [back then], the speed of transferring the news by word of mouth between the refugees and their families at home regarding the social insurance that immigrants benefit from, and finally, the support that the refugees NGOs in Essen offer, made and still makes Germany the perfect candidate for relentlessly hosting new refugees. The main disadvantage for these families was the absence of a policy of integration, which left these families isolated from their surroundings and kept problems untouched.
Twenty Years Later
Even after 20 years of emigration, most of these Lebanese emigrants are still not leveraged socially or economically.
These Lebanese have passed their “pending” nationality to their children and grandchildren. They are not eligible to work in Essen because of many aspects; on one hand, their lack of proper education and thus high percentage of illiteracy, their lack of perfecting or coming close to perfecting the German language, and on the other, their young marriages and finally, the mother staying at home doing the household tasks, are the main reasons why they are not eligible to work.
They have preserved the traditions and culture of origin: the dignity of the family is still of utmost importance; individual conflicts are exacerbating new conflicts between families; most-if-not-all families, and especially house-wives, are isolated from their surrounding German neighbors; and till date, most of the conflicts are settled by the Sheikh of the Mosque. Furthermore, frequent conflicts are arising between the traditions of their children and their daily contact with the neighbor’s traditions.
These families have passed the very little education they had to their children, and continue to pay no attention to the importance of education and the schooling system: problems in schools are emerging because of the violence of these children and as a result these young adults end up with bleak records in schools. Also the “student” visa makes them ineligible to work and get their pocket money. Sadly, the main issue remains with one-third of these young adults who are deemed to be unlawful.
Facing the Challenge
Today, more than 80% of these families get financial help from the German government; the percentage of children and young adults under the age of 29 is 80%; the trend became to rely on government’s aid and getting more and more attracted to the underground economy. Likewise, these families are renting [unsuitable] small apartments and not caring about their neighbors, resulting in further conflicts with their German partners.
Most of these families continue to remain non-integrated, rather isolated, from their surroundings; the work value that their children can add is not being taken advantage of; figures show a dramatic increase in both the crime rate and the German government’s spending on these Lebanese families; however, figures also show a slip in education.
Many solutions were put forward to face the challenge: first of all, a committee was created in 1995 to find alternative solutions to the isolation dilemma of these families. Second, German and Arab medians were recruited to build bridges between the two parties. Third, a proposal to reallocate these families to different parts of the city in order for them to integrate with the society was offered. Finally, the Lebanese associations supporting this cause and the private foundations since 1996 including the Cedar Association (2000), the Arab Women Association (2005) and many educational initiatives, were encouraged.
On the other hand, much support was given to the two-to-four year old children, to the coordinators and associates who had perfected Arabic and German languages (more particularly mothers in the neighborhoods). Moreover, and similarly, support was given to the activities done by the Arab families and the project “mother helps another mother.”
How You Can Help
“Children are not responsible for the mistakes of their parents.” Today, the main resolution to the forgotten Lebanese remains with the hope of having these people integrated in the German society by the help of Lebanese capital from the Lebanese emigrants in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
The material used in this article titled “The Forgotten Lebanese” was taken from the report “Status of the families in Essen from Lebanese origin,” prepared by Dr. Helmuth Schweitzer.
ANMag would like to thank Dr. Schweitzer for his cooperation and assistance in writing this editorial.