Syrian Youth Marking Time in Lebanon
Tripoli, Lebanon — Nour deftly dribbled the soccer ball down the field. Behind his back, a defender approached Nour’s blind side and looked like he was about to steal the ball. But as the defender went in for the kill, Nour used a deft touch with the outside of his right foot. The ball drifted between the defender’s legs and Nour rounded him. A nutmeg.
For Syrian refugees like Nour, there is little escape aside from soccer. He is part of a group of Syrians who came to Lebanon as students but when the war in Syria broke out they had to stop their schooling as they could no longer pay their tuition.
“I used to study history,” Nour said, sipping sweet Nescafe in a café in Tripoli’s Qobbe neighborhood. Nour is in his early 20s and asked his last name be withheld to prevent retribution by the Syrian regime against his family.
Nour arrived in Lebanon in 2010 to study at the Lebanese University. His plan was to get his degree and then return to Syria. But a year into his studies the Syrian civil war broke out and Nour was told he would be required to join the army upon his return to Syria.
Nour is from Homs, a city that largely supports the opposition. While Nour said he is apolitical, it’s certain that many of his friends or neighbors are fighting with the opposition. He says he does not want to join the army in a fight he doesn’t support. So he has chosen to remain in Lebanon. He’s lost loved ones but can’t return to Syria for fear of being imprisoned for “abandoning” the army. He hasn’t seen his family, who are still in Syria, in four years now, but they text and chat online.
He’s also had to leave his studies, as he couldn’t afford to continue. At first he dropped out and got a job to support himself but that didn’t last long. When the Syrian war broke out, the people of Tripoli were overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Syrian opposition. Tripolitans suffered under the oppression of the Assad regime themselves from the mid-70s until 2005. But almost four years into the war, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are now in the city. More than 1 million refugees are in Lebanon all together – straining the social services of a country of only four million people total. Lebanese soon grew tired of the Syrian presence, also because Syrians were willing to work for less money, and put some Lebanese out of work.
Nour quit his job. He says he was tired of getting verbally abused and he saw how poorly many Syrians were treated, verbally and physically by many Lebanese.
Many Syrians face abuse from locals. While Tripolitans initially welcomed the refugees with open arms, frustration at a lack of work has left many Syrians in peril. Stories of being accosted verbally or even physically on the streets are not uncommon and many Syrians prefer to keep a low profile.
Nour now lives with a few friends from his soccer team in a local doctor’s apartment. They are lucky in that they don’t have to pay rent. They share their money and live communally. As Nour finishes his drink, Firas, his teammate and roommate, goes up to the bar and settles the bill. Firas works for now, though for a pittance. Firas also came to Lebanon a few years ago to study and has also since stopped.
Neither has a real plan over their future. “I want to travel,” said Nour.
Mohammad, 33, is a bit more optimistic. Mohammad says he never planned on coming to Lebanon. Like the others though he didn’t want to join the army. Mohammad has been through his share of danger too. He told a story about lying on the floor of a car while he was caught in a fire-fight between the Syrian regime and Free Syrian Army. He escaped to Tripoli but also doesn’t have his degree. He’s now looking at his future.
“I love soccer and I think I would like to be a coach and work with the youth,” he said. Mohammad has a good mind for soccer and understands tactics and formations. And if coaching doesn’t work out he has another idea.
“I write well and I thought maybe I could be a soccer journalist.”
Mohammad’s optimism is limited though as he also cannot return home.
The group is entirely made up of Sunni Muslims. Syria is around 80 percent Sunni including many of the Assad regime’s supporters. The soccer players, however, say they want nothing to do with politics. They don’t want to speak about them and say they have no outward opinion on internal Syrian politics.
Out on the soccer field they come to life. Mohammad marshals the defense, directing players into proper positions by pointing. Firas works the wing, playing simple but he never stops running. Nour is the creative one. He tries outrageous flicks and tricks that don’t always work out, but when they do a smile flashes across the faces of all the players.
Here, on this rundown football pitch in a foreign country, these Syrians are for a short time at ease. The match lasts for a little over an hour and a half. Here, while playing soccer, there is no war, no terror, no poverty, and no hard days or nights. Soccer insulates them from reality and acts as a drive – a reason to not go back and fight in what they perceived to be a senseless war. But once it ends, the guys are snapped back to reality.
They head home to their shared apartment and wait for another day to come. They’ve long hoped to leave Lebanon and head to Europe – possibly Germany. But after nearly four years, Nour and his teammates don’t expect tomorrow to be any different from today.
“Honestly,” said Nour, the seemingly permanent smile for once fading from his face. “I have lost all hope.”