Syria Now Home to a Million ‘Pillow Drivers’
DAMASCUS - More than a million Iraqis in Syria cannot find work. For their idleness, they have come to be called the “pillow drivers”.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says there are at least 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria. If they seek work, they will lose their status as refugees.
And so Iraqi refugees who were once doctors, engineers, athletes, artists and businessmen sit it out in Syria with nothing to do.
“They call us the pillow drivers here,” says Dr. Jassim Alwan who fled Baghdad after he was arrested by U.S. forces in 2003. “I was humiliated like an animal by those who call themselves soldiers of liberty, so I decided to flee to Syria.”
He has no work now, he says. “All I do is stay up late at night thinking of myself and my family’s dark future, and sleep all day like a drugged man. Most Iraqis do the same.”
Many Iraqi refugees gather at night at Damascus teahouses. They spend much of the night talking over strong Iraqi tea, some smoking the water pipe.
“Not all of us can afford the water pipe,” Salim Khattab, earlier an engineer from Mosul told IPS. “Most of us have run out of money after the long years of spending while there has been no income. I accepted a job of salesman for 100 dollars a month for a while, but I quit when I was asked to clean the shop and the doorsteps. A hundred dollars would not be enough for more than a few days anyway. Now I spend the days in bed waiting for night so I can meet my new friends.”
Many Iraqis have turned to reciting poems about their condition, or trying to joke about it. Audiences do not always laugh; more often they have tears in their eyes. Some poets and writers frequent particular teahouses, and their fans follow them there.
“Iraq has become the wasteland we’ve been reading about by (English poet T.S.) Eliot, and worse,” said an Iraqi poet, who wanted his name withheld. “Those thieves who took over the country with the help of the bigger thieves, the occupiers, are the reason for our agony.”
From the outside, such thoughts and observations are seen as idleness. Many Iraqi refugees ponder these days over their new status as “pillow drivers”.
“Better to be a pillow driver than worm feed my friend,” Mohammad Adnan, who was a trader in Baghdad told IPS. “I think Americans invaded our country to turn us into good for nothing people. They want us to stay outside Iraq so that it stays retarded until they bring more capitalist corporations to loot what is left.”
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said in a report Mar. 19 that there are 2.7 million Iraqis displaced within their own country, and another 2.4 million who have fled, mostly to Jordan and Syria. The IOM, an independent body that cooperates with the UN and its agencies, said the situation for Iraqis who are outside their country is deteriorating.
“There is very little light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq’s humanitarian crisis,” IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya told reporters. “Conditions for the displaced, and refugees, have been getting steadily worse.”
Yet, bad as it is for the refugees outside, the situation for Iraqis within Iraq continues to be far worse. “Many IDPs (internally displaced persons) live in sub-standard or overcrowded shelters as they are largely without an income to afford escalating rent prices,” the IOM report said.
More than 75 percent of them have no access to government food rations, and nearly 20 percent lack clean water supply, the report said. Some 33 percent cannot get the medicines they need. Only 20 percent have had any help from humanitarian agencies.
Maki, our correspondent in Syria, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported from the region for more than four years.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
“I was humiliated like an animal by those who call themselves soldiers of liberty, so I decided to flee to Syria.”
**god I am so tired of this human supremacist BS. I remember an israeli war resister who said something like: I didnt want to act like an evil being-you know, an animal.”
The Middle East has some seriously fucked up attitudes towards Nature. Figures, coming form a hunting herding society–no wonder they are all so screwed up.
All the horrible things in the world are done by ONE species. Be humiliated to be human, that’s the greatest shame of all.
If you believe your Bible stories-remember, pride is the greatest sin of all.
This idea that humans are special and deserve some special treatment–this is what led to Zionism and other idiotic VIP attitudes-manifest destiny etc.
To all of us who think who think that we can escape responsibility for this disaster.Karma is a bitch.Tony
Syria should join the WTO and become a destination for cheap labor. Or better yet, recruit these ‘pillow drivers’ into our military.
Hoa binh
It’s not just the adult men from Iraq being ‘Pillow drivers’.
When we were delivering food and heaters to refugee families in Damascus, we saw the same behavior in young people excluded from schooling. When we would arrive we saw the obviously depressed children still in bed, no matter the time.
Most of the Iraqi children are kept out of school because, of all things, a lack of English fluency. In Syria, English begins in 1st grade, in Iraq, the 5th grade. We helped an Iraqi woman expand her school so children could pass an English literacy test and continue their school.
The utter neglect of these refugees is criminal to say the least.
The statistics cited only begin to tell the extent of suffering and somewhat mask the upclose ‘in-your-face’ experience of seeing it first-hand.
“The utter neglect of these refugees is criminal to say the least.”
So true. It is this same insipid neglect that pervades the impoverished in America also. For shame. I am nonetheless inspired to hear of the people’s poetry in these cruel times.
IMPEACH.
I dont know what we are waiting for!
Power to the people.
kelmer wrote:
““I was humiliated like an animal by those who call themselves soldiers of liberty, so I decided to flee to Syria.”
**god I am so tired of this human supremacist BS. I remember an israeli war resister who said something like: I didnt want to act like an evil being-you know, an animal.”
The Middle East has some seriously fucked up attitudes towards Nature. Figures, coming form a hunting herding society–no wonder they are all so screwed up.
All the horrible things in the world are done by ONE species. Be humiliated to be human, that’s the greatest shame of all.
If you believe your Bible stories-remember, pride is the greatest sin of all.
This idea that humans are special and deserve some special treatment–this is what led to Zionism and other idiotic VIP attitudes-manifest destiny etc.”
…
That this would be your response to this story of American criminality is simply bizarre.
If you really think that the Middle East is the only place where humans are considered superior to other animals, then you have merely substituted Orientalism (if not outright racism) for “humanism” or whatever it is you call it.
And if “all the horrible things in the world are done by ONE species,” then I guess you don’t consider the Bubonic plague and the AIDS epidemic very “horrible.”
I’m shaking my head in disgust.
If after reading how Iraqi refugees are barely surviving in a foreign land, kelmer’s only problem with this is how a victim chose to describe his hardship (by using an animal metaphor), he’s gotta be either seriously demented or just looking for a reaction.
Well I hope he/she is happy with the reaction.
Wouldn’t the fact that these people went to north to Baathist Syria [vs west to western Jordan], suggest that they or their family had strong ties to the Iraqui Baathist party? No wonder they are depressed: they are in a deadend existentialist ‘No Exit’catch22 political hell that even Sartre could not have imagined.
“Since1492″: a question, are you an original resident of Turtle Island and been incountry? Been curious since I first saw your handle. Thanx for your input over time. I’d like to experience face to face council if ever possible. Mr. B.
Wouldn’t the fact that these people went to north to Baathist Syria [vs west to western Jordan], suggest that they or their family had strong ties to the Iraqui Baathist party? No wonder they are depressed: they are in a deadend existentialist ‘No Exit’catch22 political hell that even Sartre could not have imagined.
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From what I understand of getting out of a country that is being invaded with the distinct possibility of not ever returning, the political leanings of the destination aren’t always the foremost concern. The most direct route to an open border however is. The route most likely to ensure you are likely to live is the one generally chosen; the rest can be dealt with later. So I think it perhaps a bit of a leap to assume any sort of political leanings of these refugees based on what little information was given about their place of origin within Iraq and their political leanings before being invaded and forced into exile to rot in Syria.
What I do wonder about though is if Syria, Jordan and other Arab states currently saddled by the strain of displaced Iraqis and other vulnerable populations will implement more socialist policies like those attempted in the late 1960s and 1970s (nationalize the natural resources, social spending and intellectual freedom) that arguably so provoked the US business interests at the time that we (the US government) felt the need to meddle (over throwing the Shah, and our shenanigans with the Saudi royal family among other things) which lead to this present debacle. To me that is where the catch-22 irony of a negative feedback loop is apparent.
1: negative feedback loop Thank you, cheeky. I wish more people understood things in a framework of dynamic systems analysis.
2: “I think Americans invaded our country to turn us into good for nothing people. They want us to stay outside Iraq so that it stays retarded until they bring more capitalist corporations to loot what is left.” How right you are, Mr. Adnas.