The Escape to Montreal

On seeking refuge in Canada and leaving “The Land of Opportunity” 

By Abdul-Wahab Kayyali, Palestinian-Jordanian Researcher and Musician

I lived in the United States of America for 13 years, a third of my life and more than half of my (somewhat) adult one. My degrees are exclusively from American universities. I lived in many places there: Boston, Chicago, D.C, Ann Arbor, and finally Phoenix. I am often faced with the question: why did you leave then? Here I quote the dissident Chinese director, Ai Weiwei, who, when asked why he was leaving Berlin, said: “Those who know their destination are no longer refugees. I am a refugee.” 

I am a refugee. My parents are refugees, as are my grandparents, on both sides. We are refugees from the coast of Palestine, from where we were forced out during the Nakba – our catastrophe. We lived in Amman, Beirut, and elsewhere. As a refugee, where you live is not important. What is more important is what lives in you. I pursued my higher education in the US chasing after a specific career path. But can a refugee afford planning any path? My career plans started coming apart in the mid 2000s, and in many ways they still are, as are my region, my land, and my society. I met my partner in the US, she too was a roamer. I gained a lot from my time in the US: degrees, relationships, experiences, and friends. But two specific moments were decisive in severing me from that country: the first was the declaration of a war that never happened in September 2013, the second was the election of 2016. 

I am a refugee, and my name is Abdul-Wahab. There is no escape from that. In 2013 following the chemical massacre in Syria, the US chose not to stop the biggest bloodbath the wretched Middle East has ever seen: the most horrific chapter of Bashar Al-Assad’s continuous war on the Syrian people. In 2016 the US chose to elect a leader that hated everything I and people like me represent. I did not have the privilege of fighting the internal battle in the US, nor did I seek it. Starting 2017, my partner started working within the confines of the US sponsorship system. I followed suit in 2018. My liberal friends would joke that “If Trump wins another term, I’m moving to Canada!” I could not afford to wait and choose. My partner and I started an immigration process to Canada as soon as I finished my doctorate. The possibilities in the US were wide-open, and anything could still happen. Still, Trump had fulfilled almost all of his heinous and gasp-inducing campaign promises, which seemed impossible to enact for liberally-inclined Americans. The possibilities in my part of the world, however, were almost non-existent, having consistently diminished since that ominous year, 2013. Leaving the US amidst the COVID-19 pandemic was perhaps more difficult and dramatic than it ought to have been, but we belong to countries that witness wars, military coups, and massive waves of refuge seekers. We’ve been through worse. 

No ghurbah in Montreal

• Ghurbah is an elusive concept, difficult to translate, encapsulating the alienation, bewilderment, and estrangement that accompanies dislocation and diaspora.

We settled in Montreal in mid-2020, after landing in Toronto temporarily. I had visited Montreal many times during my college years. I remembered it being a dynamic city with an international flavour and a strong Arab presence. When we held our reunions here, my friends and I weren’t able to curse loudly in Arabic (we could in other North American cities), because half the street would understand us. 

The Arab presence in Montreal is stronger today than it was in the early 2000s, due to the waves of refuge and failure of Arab states – one after the other. Arabic is widely heard everywhere in Montreal, in both its Levantine and Maghrebi dialects. The main reason we chose Montreal was that we wanted to be closer, both physically and culturally, to the rest of the world, after our deep sense of isolation in the American southwest. My partner is proficient in French, and I understand it, so language was not a main cause of concern. 

Perhaps more importantly, and what attracted me the most, was Montreal’s rich international music scene, which I had heard about from friends and followed due to my keen interest. That was the deciding factor for me, as I have loved music endlessly, as an amateur and professional, all my life. I never imagined that I would be lucky enough to get consecutive performance opportunities that I did since I arrived, given that the city was almost entirely closed due to the pandemic. I formulated beautiful musical relationships and friendships, which day by day are pushing me towards concentrating on music and forfeiting everything else. What is the benefit of political science in a genocidal, apolitical world? Isn’t music a more effective way of delivering the message anyway? That as Mahmoud Dariwsh says, we love life if we can find a way to live it?

The slayer of ghurbah: food 

The single component that provides the best immunity against ghurbah is food. Food fundamentally reminds us of the homes, the climates, the environments in which an Arab grows, longs for, and transports wherever he or she may go. It is a, if not the, central pillar of identity and culture. That is why our mothers make us carry whatever goodies we can everytime we leave: pastries, spices, coffee, herbs, and so on. That is why our friends send jars of good makdous (stuffed pickled eggplant) when they find it, crossing countries and borders. That is also why Levantines and Maghrebis alike spend hours discussing recipes, ingredients, and the best markets to find them. 

Montreal is a treasure trove of Arabic food. It has manaqeesh bakeries for the morning, ‘oriental’ grills from the borders of Iran to Morocco, mezze restaurants with the necessary arak accompaniment — whatever you please from the Arab world, east to west. Perhaps due to the dominance of the French language, Montreal merges the Levant and the Maghreb in a unique way, more so than most cities in the world. The others are Paris and Brussels, and recently Berlin and Amsterdam. Pan-Arab food fans can fuse Lebanese kubbeh nayyeh (raw kubbeh), with Tunisian harissa (pepper paste), and Moroccan khlei’ (dried and salted aged beef stored in fat), whenever they please. 

For a Palestinian though, the single most important ingredient is za’tar. Montreal has Palestinian za’tar. Not the ‘Palestinian mix’ made in Lebanon or Turkey. Authentic Palestinian za’tar, from Anabta. It is not the easiest to find, but it is available. “We have Lebanese and Syrian za’tar” a seller once told me at a famous Arab grocery store, when I asked him if they had Palestinian or Jordanian za’tar. “They’re all the same,” he would later add. Here I found myself at an impasse: do I tell him off? Do I explain the difference? Do I sympathize with his unitarian impulse (regarding za’tar, at least)? 

I told him: “No sir, they are not the same, and I don’t want any Lebanese za’tar. I then walked off, humming to myself “for hands of stone and za’tar, I dedicate this anthem.” 

The estrangement of the homeland from its people

Ghurbah is in the countries that have been burnt atop our heads. In the destruction that encircles us. In the inability to move forward or to go backward. Ghurbah is in the question “Where are you from?” in a country your ancestors inhabit for more than seventy years, and in the inability to provide a straightforward answer to the question. It is in the lack of acceptance for an answer, should you provide one. In finding the map of Palestine dangling from your neck and others’ offensive or provocative, and in the cheap exploitation of our cause all at once. Ghurbah is the timidity and reservation in talking about the Syrian revolution and ensuing genocide, in the avoidance of insulting the statue gods, or the rest of the ‘symbols’ and ‘principles.’ It is in choosing one prison over another, one occupier over another, between sheikhs and generals. It is in the sectarian wars and their newfound warlords. It is in the loss of justice, in absolute relativism, in all the forms of tribalism, in the obfuscation of red lines. It is stuttering when speaking the truth, in the noise and clamour within a captive society, in the sound of the battle that no other sound transcends. 

There is no ghurbah in Montreal. But is it my destination? I don’t know. I am a refugee.