Hadeel Badawi

full interview

Tell us about your situation.
I’m Hadeel Badawi. a Palestinian Syrian, and I was born in 1991 in Saudi Arabia. My parents are Palestinian. I lived in Syria and completed university there. And when the revolution started, I went to Egypt and then I came to Turkey.

Alright, where do you currently live? 
I currently live in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Could you explain your life conditions? Are they good or bad?
All is well, thank God, because the country provides me with a legal status.

Is your legal status stable? Or do you feel any instability?
Of course, you will always feel some instability as long as you don’t hold the nationality of the residing country, but I mean, as long as it provides you with a clear requirements to obtain residency, then it’s fine. Because I’ve struggled with this issue in previous countries.

Okay, with whom do you currently live?
With my family.

How do you spend your time here?
Hmmmmmmm…. 

Are you working? do you have any projects?
I work as a freelance Photographer in photography. I am enrolled in the university, and I study the Turkish language. Most of my time is spent between work and study. I also see my friends, go out to discover the country, and so on.

Is there something that makes you feel happy?
A lot of things. I mean, feeling of Allah’s mercy around me makes me feel happy. Breathing fresh air also makes me happy.

Tell us more about things that make you happy. 
Do you mean something I do? I like discovering new places and walking in the street with no specific place to go to.

How is life with you since you came here? 
It is the most beautiful phase in my life, in previous years of my life, it was very challenging, as I experienced the Syrian war and the revolution. And when I came to Egypt, the legal situation was not stable. I used to live for seven years in a state of waiting for things to become better. In Istanbul is where I consider my life to be stable and beautiful because the country is beautiful, and I am fairly stable in terms of legal status.

What are the difficulties you have here? 
Here, language could be a challenge, but at the same time, because there is Arab communities, we are somehow closer to them than Turkish communities. The difficulty is that like any other country, there are challenges in everything. I mean, no particular difficulty comes to my mind currently.

Well, how do you feel about life?
What do I feel? So when I think about that thing, the first answer I get is that in this country I was able to find my melody, I was able to play my own note, meaning that I found myself here because when you settled down, you could know who you are. Here I knew who I am.

So how do you feel about being far away from your country?The problem is that you have several countries that you are far away from Hahahahaha.
Exactly. I mean, I feel very strange, because as I said, I do not have a single country, and the country I am originally from, I haven’t lived in. I mean, I have not lived in Palestine. My father left when he was four years old. I can’t enter the country unless I obtained a foreign nationality or the occupation ends. I feel like a stranger. I have the right to live in a place that is very close to me, but I can’t take it. However, with all my strength, I keep saying that I have a right, in my attire, in my voice, in my culture, in anything I can, I say I have a right. But at the same time, I am grateful to every country I have lived in, because they were able to give me a place to grow up and find my feet. 

Have you ever imagined that you would be in this situation, and did you think you could overcome it? What are the qualities or skills that made you overcome challenges? 
The idea of asylum, I mean, the positive aspect of it is that you become flexible and adaptable. Wherever you find yourself, you can live, as you have the ability to adapt quickly. It doesn’t matter if the place is nice or not, good, or beautiful; you just have to adapt. Adaptation and flexibility are what allowed me to continue, that made me reach to that point. Life in Istanbul is difficult, but you have the skill of adaptation, you can live in a any place. 

So, flexibility is what we can say is the strength point that helped you overcome. 
Yes. flexibility and that I always see things with a positive attitude.

Why did you leave Syria? 
Why did I leave Syria? I left Syria after the revolution had started, when the bombing, strikes, and destruction have began, and the place where I was living in became not safe. As a Palestinian, I had no choice and Egypt was the only country that opened its doors for me to go to, so I left seeking safety for myself and my family, too. But it was supposed to be a temporary stay for a month, and then we would return. However, it has been 11 years now. 

How did this forced migration make you feel? 
I feel like I am still stuck at that time. I mean, I do not feel the value of time, I mean, I do not feel that we are now in 2023. I am still stuck in 2012. 

Well, could you explain your journey from Syria to Turkey until you reached here?
From which aspect should I explain it?

You don’t need to mention every single detail, but just talk about what you have gone through? 
When I were in Syria I didn’t thought about traveling. Despite there were bombings, but they were far from us. Then suddenly my sister’s house was bombed, and I decided that we should leave. I was the one who decided and my father rejected the idea of leaving Syria because he was a former refugee, and he couldn’t imagine the idea of starting from scratch in a new country. Suddenly, everything came into place. We booked tickets. Entering Egypt was prohibited in the normal situation, but at that time, during Morsi’s presidency, the country was open. I booked flight tickets for me, my mother, father, my siblings, and we left. When we arrived in Egypt, It was like the warm embrace after you were terrified, afraid and insecure. Egypt is a wonderful, beautiful country, and I love it a lot. However, life there is extremely challenging. Official papers are not very clear, you do not know how you can issue or renew them, for example. I lived for seven years in Egypt without a legal residency. But I couldn’t build anything there for the future. I was living day by day, but when I was living in Egypt, I was very happy. But if I return to see my life in Egypt, I realize that if I didn’t live in Egypt, I wouldn’t be the person who I am now. I also tried to travel to many countries but I were unable. I tried every possible way to travel, but in the end, I couldn’t. Finally, I couldn’t stay in Egypt anymore because I don’t have legal status. Afterwards, the idea of moving to Turkey came up. We tried at the embassy first, but the application was rejected because I didn’t have residency, so how could I apply? Later, in 2018, my father suddenly passed away. After that, the door to Turkey opened. 

So you believed that when a door is closed, another door would be opened.
No, what I meant that you must be at this stage in someone’s life. Where you guide him and you continued your path afterwards.

Well, let’s talk about the whole journey, what does it make you feel? When you recall it, what are your feelings ? 
What do I feel? Gratitude. I feel grateful that I stayed alive and that now I can speak in this way. 

Everything you faced, what impact did it have on you? 
It affected me in that I now feel like there is a time gap. And this is the most important thing that has affected me. I do not feel the value of time. I do not feel that I am now in 30s. I don’t feel the regular order of my life stages. I feel like I’m still in my twenties and still have time for happiness, mistakes, experiences, and so on. It has affected every single detail, in your thoughts, your deep inside, the people around you, and your serious relationships… and in everything. 

Syria, Egypt, Turkey, all .. How did you also face all these complicated situations?
Did I face them? I didn’t face them. I decided to live with them, I mean make them live with me, because I felt if I faced them, I would lose. It is very difficult for you to face.

What made you patient ? 
What kept me patient is my positive attitude. In Egypt, I have been living as a tourist for seven years, meaning that every day I wake up and become surprised by things. I always look at it as if it was the first time. For seven years, I have been living every day as if it were the first day. In these countries, I mean, Egypt, Syria and Turkey have something in common, as the three have its own spirit in some way.

Before you left Syria, or your home country in general, what was your dream?
I was very young. I came from Saudi Arabia where the situation were quite restricted. My dreams were very innocent, but I remember I wanted to be an anchor. I wanted to talk on the radio and to be famous. But I didn’t know how. 

Oh, well.  
And I also wanted to become a lawyer. I always feel like I want to defend people.

So an anchor and a lawyer. 
Yes, when I was young, I remember I wanted to be a lawyer and an anchor.

So, when you left Syria, what was your dream?
My dream was to survive, Hahahaha. I only wanted me and my family to survive. I now think what are my dreams. In my 30s, I started thinking about what the dreams of humans are, and how an individual sets a dream. However, I started photography while I was in Syria. I remember that I started to draw the image of myself as a photographer and how I can develop myself, But I couldn’t complete that journey because we left Syria. 

Can you repeat the sentence about your old dream? Please say it this way “My dream was…”. 
When I was a child, I wasn’t a very dedicated student in school, but I was smart. So, when I was little, I felt that I didn’t have that vision of lifestages that anyone could have. I didn’t though that I want to grow up, study, get married and so on. I mean, I was only living moments of life in general. There was something I was looking for, but I didn’t know what it is. But I remember that if there was something I wanted from the commonly known things for all human beings, it is probably to be a lawyer and an anchor. And when I was little, I really loved my voice.

Could you say it like this: “My dream was…”?
Okay. Well, it’s not really my dream, it was something I felt that I want. So, I felt that I wanted to be famous. And I liked the radio and I acted like I’m a radio presenter, especially because I love to talk. But when I was little, no one was convinced by my dream or my thoughts for myself, and they used to say that my voice was terrible. So, I wanted to become a lawyer because I always felt that I wanted to defend people, that’s why I studied media. 

So you have studied media?
But I wanted to study law instead of media, but luck was not by my side. 

Did you graduate or not?
No, I left Syria before the graduation, and I couldn’t complete my studies. 

Well, during your journey, what was the most difficult thing you have faced? I mean difficult to overcome. 
It was difficult to overcome loss, loss in general. Each feeling has its own meaning. And the feeling of losing anything, a person, a place, or even time. I’m a person who is strongly attached to things and people, yet at the same time, I feel like I shouldn’t be attached. So, this feeling that you’re not able to be, and you can’t be either.

Okay, let’s say, during this entire journey, was there a point where you were someone, and then you became someone else?
You mean a critical point? Well, I can say that the beginning of the change, was the sudden death of my grandmother in Egypt. It slightly changed my idea that I want to stay away from all the people I love. I mean, it was a very childish idea, but it was the first time in my life that someone I know died in front of my eyes. But I see the critical point to be the death of my father and my move to Turkey. I was dramatically changed after moving to Turkey, and I become another version of myself.

What has changed inside you?
I know who I am. Or I started getting to know who I am, deeply. 

Okay. What is your dream now? 
My dream now is to dream, Hahahaha. Seriously, my dream is to feel time and to dream, again. I feel that I have the right to dream, and thing I dream about might happen! Even they are easy to become true. I dream about settling in Istanbul; I love it so much. I love to obtain its nationality, and I love to live in it as well. I love.. love it, I love every single detail about it. 

Is there anything you want to add? 
Do you mean something I want to say?

A message to the community. 
Hmmmmm, as Mahmoud Darwish said, to love life with all that we can do. I mean, to love life, and be sure that on this earth, there’s something worth living for. I know that the thing I said and what I experienced were very difficult, but if I didn’t decide to see it positively, for sure, now I’d be mentally sick. I had compromised for things that are not likw me. Try to see something good in everything. And be sure that Allah puts you in this place for a reason. There’s a message you need to learn, take it, then move forward. I finish my talk with prayers that Allah’s peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad.

Thank you.