Action Group \u2013 Fayez Abu Eid<\/p>\n
In a scene reminiscent of the Palestinian tragedy but with a distinctly Syrian comedic twist, motorcycle theft in Daraa province has become a source of bitter irony.<\/p>\n
The thieves, that destructive element that doesn’t want this country to recover, continue their activities, exploiting two key factors:
\nlack of effective police presence and failure to utilize technology (surveillance cameras) as a weapon against them.<\/p>\n
The result: Citizens who have grown weary of waiting have decided to laugh at their own suffering.<\/p>\n
This time, the laughter has a special Palestinian flavor. The victims of theft among the Palestinian refugees in Daraa began to ask sarcastically: \u201cWe who have clung for 70 years to the keys of our demolished homes in Jaffa and Haifa\u2026etc., is it normal for us to cling today to the key of a bicycle stolen from under our building?
\nOr have these keys become merely a \u2018national obsession\u2019 that opens up nothing but an appetite for laughing at tears\u201d<\/p>\n
If the state is still slow in pursuing the thieves and activating the cameras, then the citizens are quicker to turn their stolen keys into a \u201csarcastic icon\u201d befitting the faltering recovery phase.<\/p>\n
*Hatem and the key to his stolen motor:*<\/p>\n
In Daraa suburb, Palestinian refugee Hatem Swarka, 37, stands in front of his room’s wall.<\/p>\n
Hanging side by side on the wall are two keys: an old, rusty key to his grandfather’s house in Palestine, and a new key to his motorcycle, which was stolen twice in one month.<\/p>\n
Pointing to the keys with barely concealed irony, Hatem says,<\/p>\n
“This is the key to my grandfather’s house in Palestine. We left with it in ’48, and for 37 years I’ve clung to it as if it would one day bring us back.”<\/p>\n
This is the key to my bicycle, which was stolen last week. Perhaps the only difference is that my grandfather’s house was completely demolished, while my bicycle is likely being sold in a market right now. But the common denominator Neither key opens anything, and neither will bring back what was stolen.<\/p>\n
Three keys in my pocket:
\none for a lost bicycle,
\none for a current bicycle, and one for a 70-year-old house.
\nQais al-Ghazawi, a 24-year-old Palestinian refugee and computer engineering student, pays his neighbor 100,000 Syrian pounds a month as rent for a small garage in his ground-floor house, so that he can guard his bicycle. He went from being a victim of a simple theft to a “professional key collector” after his first bicycle was stolen. He bought a new one and suddenly found himself with three keys, none of which he had any real connection to.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at this blessed collection,\u201d Qais says sarcastically, emptying his pockets onto the table. \u201cThis is the key to my first stolen bicycle. I still keep it as a sad memento, as if I\u2019m waiting for its return like my ancestors waited for the return of Palestine. And this is the key to my new bicycle, the only bicycle I own today, which I ride every morning and fear for from thieves more than I fear for my own life.<\/p>\n
And this is the key to my grandfather\u2019s house in Palestine, which we left in 1948 and haven\u2019t returned to since that day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qais adds, mocking the absurdity of the situation: \u201cI have three keys. One for a bicycle I don\u2019t own (because it was stolen), one for a house I don\u2019t own (because it\u2019s in Palestine), and only one for a bicycle I actually own. The success rate is one in three! If this was the success rate in school, I would have failed, but this is my life today: two out of the three keys I have don\u2019t open anything that belongs to me. The key to Palestine doesn\u2019t open a house, and the key to the stolen bicycle doesn\u2019t open a bicycle. The funny thing is that I still cling to them as if they were a treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for (Kh. M., 27 years old), a Palestinian refugee and graduate in psychological counseling, he appears to be the first patient in need of urgent therapy.<\/p>\n
Emptying his pockets, he says, \u201cThis is the key to my first bicycle, which was stolen before the liberation. I had saved up for it with great difficulty.<\/p>\n
This is the key to my brother\u2019s bicycle, which was stolen before mine. This is the key to my grandfather\u2019s house in Palestine. And this is the key to my current bicycle, which I use for painting. I travel long distances on it and return late because there is no public transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four keys, sir! Our whole family has taken up collecting keys instead of bicycles.<\/p>\n
My grandparents started with the key to Palestine, and we continued the tradition. As for my current bicycle, I have to keep it in a “shack” on the sidewalk because I’m afraid of thieves. Now the municipality is threatening to remove the shacks, so I’m afraid of thieves, the municipality, the police, and the neighbors who break my bicycle when they take out theirs.<\/p>\n
I’m a psychology graduate, and I’m telling you: the only solution for this situation is surveillance cameras, or we should throw the four keys into the sea and buy a donkey.<\/p>\n
*Syria is slowly recovering… and the keys are turning into a “dry laugh”:*<\/p>\n
In Daraa today, Palestinian and Syrian refugees alike are asking: Are we a people who are inherently \u201ckey-obsessed\u201d? We kept the keys to our demolished homes in Palestine for seventy years, and now we keep the keys to our stolen motorcycles in Daraa.<\/p>\n
Is this \u201cgenius in resilience\u201d or \u201cnaive clinging to illusions\u201d?<\/p>\n
Thieves are a pdestructive force, that much is certain, but the responsibility doesn’t lie solely with them. As long as the cameras are inactive, the police are slow to respond, and technology is neglected, motorcycle theft will remain a \u201chomegrown industry\u201d in Daraa.<\/p>\n
And the keys will remain hanging on the walls, alongside the key to Palestine, as a testament to a slow recovery, a forced smile masking endless pain.<\/p>\n
The conclusion raised by the victims of theft today is not \u201cGive us back our motorcycles,\u201d but simply: \u201cGive us cameras, or at least give us a reason to throw away these cursed keys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Action Group \u2013 Fayez Abu Eid In a scene reminiscent of the Palestinian tragedy but with a distinctly Syrian comedic twist, motorcycle theft in Daraa province has become a source of bitter irony. The thieves, that destructive element that doesn’t want this country to recover, continue their activities, exploiting two key factors: lack of effective […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":119079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-119078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-special-reports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119078"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119081,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119078\/revisions\/119081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.org.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}