Refugees’ Stories of Resistance as Told by Their Desert Gardens: a Photo Project by Henk Wildschut
Defiant gardens are gardens created in extreme or difficult environmental, social, political, economic, or cultural conditions. These gardens represent adaptation to challenging circumstances, but they can also be viewed from other dimensions as sites of assertion and affirmation.
‘At one point, I discovered a place that was a veritable oasis of colour. There were so many flowering plants that I thought I had stumbled on a florist’s shop. On enquiry, I learned that these sea of flowers were the property of Walid Mehre. He assured me that the plants were not for sale, but he occasionally gave them as presents to his neighbours. Walid told me that he loves his plants as though they were his children. Flowering plants are the most beautiful thing in the world, he explained. Every morning, he drinks tea in the garden with his wife. Then spends the morning caring for his plants, watering them and pruning them wherever necessary. Walid speaks to his plants. They seem to answer him too. The cultivation of plants is, he feels, vital to his mental survival. He needs a distraction to help him forget all the misery for a while. The sheer quantity of plants he has around him betrays the horrors of the past from which he has escaped.
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After my visit to the Beqaa Valley, I told Walid’s story to a Lebanese friend from Beirut. He was familiar with that love of flowers. During the civil war that raged in Lebanon from 1975 to 1990, a flower was a symbol of hope to many people. Once the dust settled in Beirut after a heavy bombardment, the baker would be the first to open his doors again; the second was the florist.’
