Features

The Cat Who Taught Me How to Fly

By Hashem Gharaibeh

Translated by Nesreen Akhtarkhavari

US: Michigan State University Press, 2017

Pp. 150

Nothing about this novel is exactly what one expects. Such is the originality of Jordanian writer Hashem Gharaibeh’s thinking and the prose in which he expresses himself in this fictionalised account of his own experience. “The Cat Who Taught Me How to Fly” is billed as a prison novel but has little of the heaviness usually associated with the genre. 

As another noted Jordanian writer, Samiha Khreis, writes in a blurb on the back cover: “The author ignores his personal wounds to embrace the beauty of humanity inside the prison walls, forgiving society its transgression against him, and soaring free, celebrating his humanity and the humanity of others. He takes the prison novel to a new height.”

The protagonist, Imad, is still a student at Yarmouk University, when he is arrested and imprisoned for being a communist in the late 70s. The novel covers a year and a half in Irbid Prison, not far from his native village, Hawara. At first, his daydreams centre on his university friends: their “optimistic thoughts of freeing Palestine, Arab unity, social justice, his strong belief in the right to free expression, and the freedom to change.” (p. 18)

Soon, however, he turns his attention to his fellow prisoners, recording fascinating vignettes of thieves, murderers, drug dealers, gangsters and former government officials accused of corruption. Each has a tell-tale nickname, personality and story all their own — how they landed in prison, their dreams and idiosyncrasies, how they treat others. Most interesting is Gharaibeh’s sketch of the hierarchy that exists among them, and how Imad felt most at home with the low-ranking prisoners. “Imad thought that this sinful group of people knew how to practise solidarity and advocacy and were able to stand their ground better than educated elites, frustrated politicians, and politicised party members.” (p. 58)

Chief among them is “The Cat”, a particularly agile thief whose “lightheartedness was contagious and transformed the ward” as he “entertained them with folksongs and tales.” (p. 32)

He is also frequently punished for sneaking into the forbidden area by the gate for a glimpse of freedom: “How beautiful was Irbid, surrounded by its villages like a necklace. Hanging gardens, crimson roofs, walls of figs and olive trees, and a sea of wheat.” (p. 46)

From “The Cat”, Imad learns to free his mind and soul, to be as free as one can be in prison, to plot an escape. Together, they initiate a protest whereby the prisoners refuse to return inside after the Maghrib prayer. “Comrade Imad felt the cloud of fear inside him vanish, and felt the jasmine bloom in his soul.” (p. 50)

The inner freedom he attains is the main factor in his stubborn refusal to renounce his communist affiliation, although this would secure his release. Despite initial confusion, Imad develops a rock-solid integrity, a combination of naiveté and wisdom that governs all his dealings.

If flying and the striving for freedom that it represents is the overarching theme of this novel, the major metaphor is jasmine. When arrested from his home on an early spring morning, Imad clutches a branch of jasmine plucked from the plant by his front door. “The scent of jasmine, embroidered with frozen dewdrop crystals, spread and filled his soul with a determination to resist.” (p. 24)

Images of jasmine reoccur in the novel alluding to all that he misses, all that is soft, warm and welcoming — his mother, village life, the beauty of the bits of nature he can glimpse from the prison windows, a girl he falls in love with. “The fragrance of jasmine spreads with its astonishing simplicity. His mother’s presence with her thick braids, dangling like a lifeline, appears.” (p. 29)

The close connection between Imad’s nostalgia for everyday things and his determination to resist attests to how firmly grounded his convictions are (and, by extension, those of the author). He is not so much committed to an abstract ideology as to life itself.

In this novel, Gharaibeh merges the universal with the local, paying tribute to humanity’s striving for freedom and to all that he loves in Jordan, particularly the way of life in the North. The value of the book is greatly enhanced by translator Nesreen Akhtarkhavari’s introduction about Gharaibeh’s life, and by the author’s essay on how he wrote “The Cat Who Taught Me How to Fly”, which was first published in Arabic (Dar Fada’at, 2010). Gharaibeh concludes by saying: “I still dream of flying.” (p. xxviii)

PARIS — A huge range of organisations and companies around the world have been affected by the WannaCry ransomware cyber attack, described by the EU’s law enforcement agency as “unprecedented”.

From “cyberwar” to “hacktivism”, here are some of the major cyber attacks over the past 10 years:

Cyberwar

One of the first massive cyber attacks to hit a state occurred in spring 2007 in the Baltic nation of Estonia, when a spate of intrusions forced the closure of government websites and disrupted leading businesses.

The assault paralysed key corporate and government web services for days and knocked out the national emergency hotline for more than an hour. Estonia, which was in the midst of a diplomatic dispute with Russia, blamed Moscow for the attacks, which it denied.

A year later, Georgia suffered similar attacks which crippled its official presidential website and the main broadcast networks during the South Ossetia war. The attack was attributed to Russian nationalists.

In July 2009, a dozen US government websites, including those of the White House, Pentagon and State Department, were targeted in a coordinated cyberattack which also struck sites in South Korea.

South Korea was again the victim of a cyber attack in March 2013 amid tensions with North Korea. The attack paralysed the websites and tens of thousands of computers at several TV stations and banks for hours.

In November 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment became the target of the biggest cyber attack in US corporate history, linked to its North Korea satire “The Interview”.

The hackers — a group calling itself Guardians of Peace — released a trove of embarrassing e-mails, film scripts and other internal communications, including information about salaries and employee health records.

Washington blamed Pyongyang for the hacking, a claim it denied — though it had strongly condemned the film, which features a fictional CIA plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong-un.

And in 2010, a computer virus called Stuxnet attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, setting back the country’s atomic programme. 

Although hackers of Russian, North Korean or Chinese origin are often cited, many believe the attack was orchestrated by the United States and Israel, but they have never acknowledged responsibility.

Hacktivism

The loose-knit piracy collective Anonymous, arguably the most well-known hacking group, has targeted a number of organisations under its mantle of fighting injustices, including the Pentagon, the Church of Scientology, the Daesh  group and Mastercard.

Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, founded 10 years ago by Australian Julian Assange, specialises in the release of classified materials.

In 2010, it published 251,000 classified cables from US embassies around the world and thousands of military documents on Afghanistan.

Last year it published files and communications from the Democratic Party, damaging presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. US intelligence officials said the release was part of a Russian plot to aid the eventual election victor Donald Trump.

In March, the group released a large number of files and computer code from the CIA’s top-secret hacking operations, showing how the agency exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence.

A similar election attack targeted the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron barely 24 hours before the final round of voting in April, when thousands of documents from his En Marche! (On the Move!) movement were dumped online.

The campaign denounced the “massive and coordinated hacking attack”, calling it an attempt at “democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States”.

Cyberterrorism

In January 2015, a group declaring support for Daesh terrorists hacked into the social media accounts of US Central Command (CENTCOM), an embarrassing setback for Washington in its war against IS in Syria and Iraq.

A black-and-white banner with the words “CyberCaliphate” and “I love you ISIS” replaced CENTCOM’s usual logo on Twitter and YouTube before the pages were suspended.

Two months later, a group calling itself the “Islamic State Hacking Division” published what they said were the names and addresses of 100 military personnel and urged supporters to kill them.

It posted information about members of the air force, army and navy, including photos and ranks.

There have also been countless criminal attacks around the world, with hackings of online payment systems costing more than $300 million (275 million euros) of losses for about a dozen top US and European companies between 2005 and 2012.

Major companies and media houses have also been targeted, including Yahoo!, which was targeted by hackers seeking personal data on millions of users in both 2013 and 2014.

In April 2015, France’s TV5 Monde television suffered a major hacking by self-proclaimed Daesh militants, but an investigation later revealed that the hackers were Russian.

Hackers managed to shut down transmissions for several hours and hijacked the channel’s website and social networks.

They say that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. But this is definitely not true of the vagus nerve, which wanders from the stomach to the brain, passing through the heart, oesophagus and lungs along the way.

A new study offers fresh support for an intriguing theory about the vagus nerve’s role in Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder that causes tremors, gait difficulties and sometimes dementia in roughly 1 million Americans and as many as 10 million people worldwide.

This theory suggests the vagus nerve may be more than a highway for signals to travel to the brain from the many organs it touches. It may also be the conduit for transporting the protein alpha-synuclein from the stomach to the brain, where it forms telltale clumps in Parkinson’s sufferers.

If true, this theory would pinpoint a possible origin of the degenerative brain disorder — in the gut. It would also confirm the centrality of this mysterious protein, whose precise role in Parkinson’s is not well understood.

And finally, it would suggest a possible way to block the progression of Parkinson’s: a surgical procedure currently used to treat people with gastric ulcers that involves cutting the vagus nerve to sever the pathway from gut to brain.

This last point is where the new research begins.

The study authors, from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, the University of Southern California and elsewhere, combed through a comprehensive registry of Swedish medical records to compare rates of Parkinson’s disease among people who got that surgical procedure, called a vagotomy, and those who had not.

They wondered if, incidental to a vagotomy’s role as a treatment for peptic ulcers, it might also drive down the risk of Parkinson’s by blocking alpha-synuclein’s route to the brain.

What they found did not appear, at first blush, to be telling: Sweden’s 9,430 vagotomy patients were statistically no less likely to develop Parkinson’s over time than were the 377,200 non-vagotomised Swedes that made up the comparison group.

But not all vagotomies are equal, and when the researchers looked at the subset of patients who got the most drastic version of the procedure, they saw a difference.

Among patients who got a truncal vagotomy — which removes the vagus nerve from contact with the stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, small intestine and proximal colon — many years of follow-up showed that Parkinson’s disease was 22 per cent less common than it was among people in the comparison group.

While the theory that Parkinson’s starts in the gut is controversial, there is some evidence for it in mice, in laboratory cells and in humans. Alpha-synuclein protein clumps have been detected in the guts of humans with very early Parkinson’s. And in mice that had alpha-synuclein from the brains of human Parkinson’s patients implanted in their intestinal wall, researchers later found movement of those proteins in the vagus nerve.

This latest study, published in the journal Neurology, offers epidemiological evidence to support that theory.

“If this is true,” the study authors wrote, “resection of the vagus nerve may stop or delay the spreading” of the proteins that gum up the works in the brains of Parkinson’s patients.

LAGOS — Phizbarz is only 23 but hopes to become the next Nigerian Afro-pop star to be famous across Africa — and to get himself known and earn a living, he is using his mobile phone.

The young performer from the country’s commercial and entertainment capital, Lagos, floods social networking sites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with clips of his music.

Sometimes he appears as a baseball-capped rapper surrounded by gyrating, scantily clad dancers, sometimes as a sheikh in a pristine white dishdash, dripping with gold.

“If you want to be someone, you have to show off,” he told AFP, from behind the wheel of a sparkling red Mercedes that he borrowed from his manager.

In all, Phizbarz has composed about 100 songs but has never produced an album.

Instead, his creations are converted into ringtones by telephone companies, who sell them individually and pay him and his label 60 per cent of the profits.

Phizbarz himself earns about 50,000 naira ($164, 150 euros) a month, which he considers a “decent” wage.

In Nigeria, performing artists have long been left to their own devices because of the lack of a structured market, making them powerless against piracy that accounts for most sales.

In the packed streets of Lagos — a capital of creativity and temple of resourcefulness — bootlegged copies are sold at car windows or between packets of sweets, cigarettes and recent Nollywood releases — many of which are also pirated.

For the last three years, there’s been a revolution in Nigeria’s music industry because of digital sales and especially mobile telephones, which are bringing in increasingly more revenue.

Analysts PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimated in a report published late last year that Nigeria’s music industry was worth $47 million in 2015 and should rise to $86 million by 2020.

“Nigeria’s total music revenue is dependent on ringtones and ringback tones, with the legitimate music sector being small otherwise,” it added.

Instead of hearing a beep while waiting for a caller to pick up, companies play the latest releases and offer them for download.

Telephone operators, led by South African mobile giant MTN, sensed the potential of Nigeria, which is home to nearly 190 million people and where music is almost a religion.

MTN, which has 60 million subscribers in Nigeria, said it is the largest distributor of music.

Ringtones are sold at 50 naira each and it also operates a download platform MTN Music Plus, which competes with world-leading online music sites such as iTunes.

“There are lots of talented musicians on this market who had issues with piracy, it was difficult for them to sell their music,” said MTN Nigeria’s marketing director, Richard Iweanoge.

“We enable them to monetise the work. Every year we pay out more money to the artists, it’s really a working formula.

“Nigerians actually wanted to buy music, they just didn’t have the means to acquire it legally.”

Wannabe megastars like Phizbarz are looking to emulate musicians such as D’banj and Davido, whose songs play in clubs from Johannesburg to Cotonou and Kinshasa.

With roots on the streets of Lagos, they are now courted by major labels and record in Europe and the United States.

“Superstars like Wizkid inspire millions of Nigerians,” said Sam Onyemelukwe, the head of Entertainment Management Company, a partner of the Trace TV music network.

“There are not many jobs for them, not much to do with their lives. Everybody wants to become a singer, have a lot of girlfriends and buy a jet: it’s glamorous.”

The law of averages suggests few will attain the dizzy heights of fame but mobile phones are one potentially lucrative way of getting noticed.

According to PwC, ringtone downloads alone can earn artistes like D’banj and Davido up to $350,000 a year.

“Anybody can record a song for a few thousands of naira and sell it online,” said Onyemelukwe. “There’s about one million ‘artistes’ in Nigeria. But very few of them are successful.”

“The music industry is very hard,” Phizbarz said.

Posting photos and videos online, and touring the local music scene and radio stations is a way of trying to catch the attention of one of the top industry figures, he said.

“You sell your brand first and then you get recognition,” he said.

“You have to know a lot of managers, radio presenters. Even if your beats are good, it is more about who do you know in the industry?  It’s more a brand that you are developing, it’s business.” 

LOS ANGELES — And just like that, Star-Lord and his band of super buddies are back on top of the box office.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” blasted into domestic theatres this weekend to kick off the summer box office to the tune of $145 million at 4,347 locations. The latest from Disney and Marvel was expected to make $140 million, but possibly more by some analysts considering the studio’s track record and enthusiasm that the first go-around generated.

“We feel great. It is a spectacular number, period,” said Disney’s Distribution Chief Dave Hollis. “This is such a fresh and exciting film... it’s the kind of event that gets people excited about going to theatres.”

Returning to deliver more bright colours, wise-cracks and another groovy soundtrack, James Gunn directed and scripted the movie starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper as the titular guardians. The film also features expanded roles for Karen Gillan and Michael Rooker, as well as prominent new characters played by Kurt Russell and Pom Klementieff. The movie functions as an escape thriller, and an origin story for Pratt’s Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord). Gunn is already attached to write and direct the third “Guardians” movie.

“Guardians 2” came into its opening domestic weekend with well over $100 million in the bank from international ticket sales. It made more than $106 million in its first weekend at 58 per cent of overseas territories. This weekend the movie earned an estimated $124 million abroad after opening in several more major foreign markets including Korea, Russia and China. That raises the global weekend total to about $269 million and the movie’s total global take so far to $428 million.

The latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe entered theatres with high expectations. When the original was released in 2014, it was a relatively unknown property that managed to smash records for the month of August when it opened to more than $94 million domestically (still modest by Disney/Marvel standards). But word-of-mouth kept building, and by the end of its theatrical run, it had raked in $333 million domestically and $440 million overseas.

“The strength of the brand is a license to take risks,” Hollis said, noting that the “Guardians” films are the perfect counter to any notion of superhero movie fatigue. “These films have never just been superhero films, they are genre films. Each of these movies feels wholly and uniquely different.”

Now the rag-tag group of heroes has entered the public consciousness. “Guardians 2” was struck with the double-edged sword of familiarity — the original spawned a fondness and a fandom for the characters and their world (that led to a much larger opening for the second instalment), but a sequel is hard-pressed to recreate or recapture the same type of surprise and enthusiasm that struck audiences in 2014.

“It’s all about strategy when it comes to Marvel and with ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2’, the notion of moving what was an August release for the first film to the key summer kick off spot in May clearly paid huge dividends for Disney,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “For this ‘Guardians’ to post the sixth best bow for the month is incredibly impressive given the Cinderella story of the title’s ascension from being a little known question mark of a movie, to a global phenomenon.”

“Guardians 2” enjoyed the widest Imax opening ever — 1,088 screen in 69 markets. The film made $25 million on Imax screens including $13 million in North America. $174 million of the movie’s global earnings this weekend came from 3D ticket sales, according to RealD, which was responsible for about $72 million of the take.

There isn’t much of note at the box office this weekend apart from “Guardians”. Universal’s “Fate of the Furious” cruised into second with $8.5 million at 3,595 theatres. The film now has over $207 million at the domestic box office. “The Boss Baby”, from Fox, took third with $6.2 million from 3,284 locations. Pantelion’s “How to be a Latin Lover”, which seduced its way past “The Circle” last weekend to post strong numbers and a second place finish, slides into fourth with $5.3 million from only 1,203 spots. And Disney’s other box office animal “Beauty and the Beast”, rounds out the top five with $5 million at 2,680 locations — the movie is now in its eighth weekend of release.

Top dog in Mercedes-Benz’ revised and renamed compact roadster model line, the AMG SLC43 picks up where the outgoing AMG SLK55 left off – minus two cylinders, plus two turbos – with near identical performance and improved fuel efficiency.

Introduced last year and 20-years after the SLK-Class first debuted, the SLC-Class’ new name reflects Mercedes’ range-wide revision of nomenclature, but is in essence a face-lifted and renamed continuation of its R172 platform SLK-Class predecessor. Featuring mild design and interior updates, the SLC-Class also introduces new technology systems, but the biggest change being reserved for the range-topping AMG variant.

New look and nomenclature

Updated aesthetically over the third generation SLK-Class introduced in 2011, the SLC-Class features new front and rear bumper, and headlight designs. Its front headlights are now more fluently integrated with its sleek and arrow-like design and features new LED elements, including daytime running lights.

Adopting Mercedes’ diamond style grille mesh and more prominent tri-star and single slats, the SLC-Class has a sportier and assertive presence, while rear lights are slimmer. With long bonnet, curt rear and ascending waistline to, the SLC has a muscular and sporty appearance, and in AMG SLC43 guise features staggered front 235/40ZR18 and rear 255/35ZR18 tyres.

The practical and versatile small sports car, the SLK’s unique selling point since its introduction in 1996 has been its automatically retractable hard-top, which remains a central feature of the SLC-Class.

Providing the cabin refinement and security of a hard-top coupe when deployed, the SLC’s metal and panoramic glass roof folds back under its high boot line, and is electrically operated from a centre console or key fob buttons, at up to 40km/h. If there is enough boot space available for the roof to fold back, the SLC-Class’ boot separator also automatically lowers, but if space is not available, a message alerts the driver.

Improved efficiency

Effectively replacing the AMG SLK55, the AMG SLC43 ditches its predecessor’s mighty and charismatic naturally aspirated 5.5-litre V8 engine and 7-speed automatic gearbox with a lighter and more efficient twin-turbocharged 3-litre V6, mated to Mercedes’ new 9-speed automatic. Developing 362BHP at 5500-6000rpm and 383lb/ft torque throughout 2000-4200rpm, the SLC43 is down 36BHP and 15lb/ft, while net weight loss taking the engine and gearbox swap is just 15kg. However, despite the reduced output, the SLC43 is only 0.1-seconds slower than its predecessor, scorching through the 0-100km/h sprint in just 4.7-seconds, owing to its new gearbox’ more closer ratios, shift times and more aggressive lower gears.

The SLC43’s 9-speed also allows for longer cruising ratios and the ability to utilise the engine’’s most efficient speeds, and contributes to a fuel efficiency improvement from 8.4l/100km to 7.8l/100km on the combined cycle.

With thoroughly accomplished engine with only the faintest turbo lag from idle, the SLC43’s performance almost matches the SLK55’s, but the real difference is in its character and delivery.

Whereas the SLK55’s engine was throatier with more bass, rumble and growl with progressive, eager and peaky delivery, the SLC43’s drone when cruising becomes a livelier and rasping howl at top-end, with crackling pops on downshift, with a broad and muscular mid-range underwriting its climb to a slightly lower-rev peak power plateau.

Compact yet composed

Riding on MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension, with the option of adaptive dampers and a compact front-engine, rear-drive configuration, the 4.1-metre long SLC43 is agile and eager through corners, yet stable, settled and resolutely planted at high speeds.

Weighing in at 1595kg and with revised front suspension rates owing to its altered engine and gearbox weighting, the SLC43 well controls its 1595kg weight through corners, yet remains forgiving over road imperfections encountered on mostly smooth Dubai roads during test drive.

Meanwhile, its electric-assisted steering is quick, accurate, light and progressive, and with a 10.52-metre turning circle and good visibility, is easy to place and manoeuvre on road.

A firmer and more focused car than non-AMG variants the SLC43 is tidy into corners and well controls body lean. It also feels more rigid than garden-variety R172 platform variants driven on more demanding roads, is able to process sudden mid-corner textural imperfections with better composure than before. 

Offering better visibility and exposure to its raspy acoustics with the top down, the SLC43 is more refined and cosseting with the roof up, which in this latest incarnation feels like a more integrated component. Meanwhile, gearbox modes feature progressively more aggressive shift settings and a manual shift mode for more involving steering paddle-shift sequential manual shifting.

Convenient convertible

As a small and low 2-seat roadster, the SLC43 is surprisingly accessible and accommodating for larger occupants and is as practical as a sports car of this size gets. Designed for the benefit of a hard-top and soft-top, the SLC43’s all-weather versatility also allows for convertible driving regardless of cold weather.

Driven roof down, windows up and benefitting from Mercedes’ transparent Airguide draught deflectors, there was very little wind buffeting while driving on motorways. Meanwhile, the SLC43’s heated seats and a powerful heater are complemented by an Airscarf system that directs hot air out of vents in the upper seatback to allow for topless cold weather driving.

Accommodating up to 335-litre of luggage with the roof up and 180-litre with the roof lowered, the SLC43’s cabin is also packed with convenience and comfort features, from electric seats and Magic Sky Roof tinting to an updated infotainment system high resolution 18-centimetre screen, DVD player, voice control, Bluetooth and media integration and powerful sound system. 

Classy yet sporty inside, the SLC43 features a stitched leather flat-bottom steering wheel, sporty aluminium-rimmed cross-hair eyeball air vents, carbon-fibre trim, leather upholstery and a high and rakishly reverse-angled dashboard for a sporty hunkered down ambiance. Well-kitted with advanced driver assistance safety systems, the driven car featured reversing camera and parking, active brake, blind spot and lane assistance systems.

Protection amid Chaos: The creation of property rights in Palestinian refugees camps

Nadya Hajj

New York: Columbia University Press, 2017

Pp. 214

Private property in refugee camps may seem to be an oxymoron, but this book proves otherwise, affirming the obvious truth that the security of one’s home and assets is an organising principle of daily life, including for refugees. The question of ownership is especially poignant for Palestinian refugees who have been forcibly alienated from their original property for seventy years due to Israel’s usurpation and the international community’s failure to rectify this injustice.

While interviewing Palestinian refugees, Nadya Hajj, assistant professor of political science at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, was surprised to learn of the existence of legal property deeds in camps. “Like Indiana Jones tearing through cobwebs and finding the Holy Grail, I squeaked open a metal file cabinet drawer and discovered hard-copy evidence of property titles in refugee camps all over Lebanon and Jordan.” (p. 3

 This discovery channeled her research into previously uncharted territory, focusing on “the potential for institutional innovation and evolution in transitional political landscapes”. (p. 1)

It also led her to call for new theories about how people function in such undefined and often unregulated spaces. 

Hajj interviewed 200 Palestinians in seven refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon, in order to trace “the evolution of property rights from informal understandings of ownership to formal legal claims of assets to shed light on how communities thrive in challenging political economic spaces”. (p. 9)

She learned that this evolution was driven by Palestinian refugees’ attempt to protect themselves and to create order out of the chaos into which they were plunged when expelled from their homeland. 

The book strikes a good balance between the theoretical and the human sides of the issue. By including many quotes from her interviews, Hajj lets refugees recount their first-hand experience in using their pre-1948 traditions and methods for dealing with property rights and violations of the same. Their accounts also reopen the file of property rights in

Palestine, which were mainly inherited from Ottoman times. Hajj critiques assumptions about land ownership in Palestine made by Western scholars who fail to understand the complexity and various types of land ownership prevailing in the Ottoman Empire. 

Later on, Palestinian refugees adapted their strategies to match shifting economic and political conditions — in Jordan, negotiating with the host government to adjust their practices to the country’s laws, and in Lebanon, working with Fatah after the PLO assumed charge of the camps. Moreover, with the remittances sent back by young men working in the Gulf or Libya, small businesses grew and expanded in the camps, especially after the oil boom, increasing the need for more codified property regulations.

Hajj measures how Palestinian refugees dealt with property issues against various theories about how people create institutions, and compares their experience to that of other population groups living in transitional spaces, concluding that the Palestinian case is not exceptional. On the contrary, she contends that it “provides an excellent template for other communities hoping to find protection in transitional spaces”. (p. 13)

It is at this point that the book assumes great current relevance, as Hajj updates her historical findings with coverage of the destruction inflicted on Palestinian lives and camps in this millennium. Tragically, the 2007 conflict between the Lebanese army and Fatah Al Islam destroyed Nahr Al Bared camp in North Lebanon, inflicting huge losses on the inhabitants and negating their existing system of property rights. But it also gave Hajj the chance to “track the evolution and renegotiation of property rights in real time”. (p. 112)

Her account of the camp’s rebuilding, and to what extent refugees were able to restore their former property, is very valuable, since it has not been easy to access reliable information about this process. In the face of onerous new restrictions set by the Lebanese authorities, refugees employed new strategies, urging aid organisations and engineering firms in charge of the reconstruction “to use informal refugee claims and pre-2007 titles to define the footprint and location of homes and businesses in the new camp”. (p. 147)

This meant implicitly acknowledging de facto Palestinian ‘‘ownership’’.

Though the resulting reconstruction was not perfect, Hajj contends that Palestinians in Syria — the most recent “doubly dispossessed” refugee community — can learn from the Nahr Al Bared refugees’ efforts.

While breaking new ground on a previously cloudy issue, Hajj imparts both basic and new knowledge about Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, yesterday and today. Most importantly, she shows that far from only being sites of hopelessness and helplessness, refugee camps are sources of dynamic innovation and persistent entrepreneurial spirit.

While upholding stringent academic standards, Hajj’s concern and admiration for the refugees is palpable. One senses that this is not only because she is Palestinian, but because she has tied her academic career to pursuing issues related to justice and human welfare.