He danced through the war, through statelessness and through the death and destruction of his dreams.<\/p>\n
Today, Ahmad Joudeh<\/a> is still dancing.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Syria-born dancer was denied citizenship in his country of birth because only his mother was Syrian, and in that country women don\u2019t give their nationalities to their children. His father was a refugee from Palestine, which meant that even before Joudeh was born, he was marked for statelessness. <\/p>\n Today, he lives between San Diego and Amsterdam. But it took him a long time to get here. <\/p>\n Joudeh \u2014 a child of two educators \u2014\u00a0grew up in Syria\u2019s Yarmouk camp<\/a>, which was created in 1957 and housed a large Palestinian refugee population. He went to schools there that were maintained by the United Nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn these schools, we were very spoiled,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had music, we had arts, we had English as a second language.\u201d Yarmouk was more of a city than a camp. His family was cultured and well educated, with musical instruments serving as their toys.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joudeh discovered an early talent for singing and at age 8, ended up performing at an event in Damascus celebrating the end of the school year. While he was at the celebration, he saw something that changed his life forever: some of the girls had put on a student performance of Swan Lake.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I saw it, I was mesmerized,\u201d he said. It was his first inkling that music could be performed visually, with movement and dance, rather than with instruments or with a voice. He began to move the way he had seen the girls dancing, but alone in his room, fearful of being discovered.<\/p>\n A few years later, his voice changed and he pushed his singing voice so far that he injured his vocal cords.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I could just not sing any more,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that made me just so depressed\u2026 I didn\u2019t want to talk to anyone, my voice was taken from me, and I used to just, like, dance at my house with my door locked by myself.\u201d The only Western music they had at home was by Enigma, so he would dance to that.<\/p>\n But then he found his lifeline in his great love, ballet. He auditioned for the Enana Dance Theater<\/a> in Damascus, was accepted, and set off to train.\u00a0\u201cI found life, literally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n At first, he danced in secret, fearful of what his father would think. Then a performance he had done in Palmyra was televised.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe was watching the news and then there was a special after the news, and there was my face in full makeup,\u201d said Joudeh.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their relationship immediately changed for the worse, punctuated by physical and emotional abuse. Then, Joudeh said, his father would offer him a binary choice \u2014 he could study, or he could dance. For Joudeh, the choice was easy. <\/p>\n \u201cI would tell him I would dance or die,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n The choice itself may have been easy, but living it was difficult. His mother left his father and took Joudeh along with her. His depression worsened. He attempted suicide.<\/p>\n Then the war began. It was 2011.<\/p>\n War and the stateless<\/p>\n Refugee camps were among the first hit in the Syrian civil war, which was sparked by its government\u2019s crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Yarmouk Camp was the scene of intense fighting. <\/p>\n \u201cThe government sent a car full of bombs,\u201d Joudeh said. \u201cWe lived in the first main square of the street, so they took it as a checkpoint.\u201d <\/p>\n Years of relentless attacks by forces loyal to former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on his own country ended up killing five members of Joudeh\u2019s family.<\/p>\n \u201cWe left the camp because everything was bombed,\u201d Joudeh said. \u201cWe only had what we were wearing.\u201d <\/p>\n It was clear by now that Damascus was too dangerous, so his mother suggested that they move to Palmyra, where he had done his first televised performance not many years before. But Joudeh refused, because he had exams and he wanted to finish high school. <\/p>\n However, he was unable to qualify for housing aid from the state because, as someone born into statelessness, he was not considered a citizen. So for two and a half months, he lived in a tent on the roof of his best friend\u2019s family home. <\/p>\n \u201cI still have that tent,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a symbol of resilience. Once you\u2019re a refugee\u2026 you carry a tent with you.\u201d<\/p>\n Living in that tent altered everything for Joudeh, yet again. This time, though, he decided it was time for him to change his circumstances. <\/p>\n \u201cI have the same name as my grandfather. He also lived in a tent when he left Palestine,\u201d he said he remembers thinking. \u201cI\u2019m still in the city I was born in and I\u2019m still in a a tent in the cold.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSo I thought, I need opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n Joudeh had already been targeted for death threats for his dancing by extremist operatives more than once from groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, who swept through Syria attacking and intimidating artists and writers. He was threatened and worse; on multiple occasions guns were held to his head. His queerness made him all the more vulnerable. <\/p>\n But still, he danced. There was no choice left to be made. He had already made it. He would dance, or he would die.<\/p>\n He felt that so deeply that he got the phrase \u201cDance or Die\u201d tattooed across the back of his neck \u2014 right where the blade would fall should one of the extremists follow through on their threats to behead him. <\/p>\n In 2016, Dutch journalist Roozbeh Kabaly<\/a>, drawn by videos of Joudeh\u2019s rooftop dancing, captured documentary footage of Joudeh dancing<\/a> in a half-destroyed ancient amphitheater in Palmyra, the place he first fell in love with ballet. The ruins had been most recently used as a site for mass executions. Joudeh\u2019s dance, effectively reclaiming the space as a place for performing, went viral in 2016.<\/p>\n It also caught the attention of the Dutch National Ballet<\/a>, which offered him a life-changing scholarship and led to something that was for him both infinitely precious and previously unimaginable: A nationality. <\/p>\n The ability to anchor himself to one country offered him unprecedented freedom of movement. Today, Joudeh divides his time between the Netherlands and San Diego, where he has a home in the Mission Valley area and dances with Golden State Ballet<\/a>. <\/p>\n Statelessness, queerness, and the intersection of nationality and human rights<\/p>\n Ahmad Joudeh will never forget where he came from. He also has never forgotten where he wants to go. <\/p>\n His sexuality, just like his dancing, is an inseparable part of his sense of freedom, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dance is very queer,\u201d Joudeh said. \u201cBeing queer is, for me, being free\u2026\u00a0The freedom to love, the freedom to be ourself, the freedom worth fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, his work encompasses not just dancing, but serving as an LGBTQ+ ambassador for the United Nations, advocating for the rights of refugees and the stateless \u2014 two related, yet distinct ways that people can be separated from their ability to access rights that are generally protected by national governments. <\/p>\n For those without a country to call home, queerness<\/a> adds another complicated layer<\/a> over an already-fraught existence that often has to be eked out on the margins of society. <\/p>\n His life story is also an opportunity to educate people about statelessness, said Suzanne Ehlers<\/a>, the executive director of USA for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so basic and yet it\u2019s hard to wrap your brain around, because a stateless person is someone who is not considered a national of any state,\u201d Ehlers said. She added that it causes a cascading effect that is very difficult to escape.<\/p>\n And citizenship is not guaranteed for life, either. In fact, statelessness can come for anyone at any time, whether through the dissolution of state borders, international disputes, or internal moves by national governments. <\/p>\n The monikers and methodologies may differ, but the results are the same: no country has duty of care, which means no driver\u2019s license, no passport, no birth certificate, no state identification, and no recourse. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is beyond a persons control and it impacts every facet of their life and identity,\u201d Ehlers said. \u201cEvery facet.\u201d<\/p>\n Ehlers says an estimated ten million people are stateless globally \u2014 although the exact number is difficult to pinpoint, as without paperwork, there is no way to track their movements. <\/p>\n That is why Joudeh\u2019s story is so important, she added. \u201cHe\u2019s telling the story of generations born into a circumstance\u2026 how do we break that cycle? The piece of the story that is most exciting to me is if you can get people to care. It just breaks open possibilities for so many after him.\u201d<\/p>\n The more awareness the public has of stateless people living within their borders, the more pressure they can put on their governments to offer pathways into a nationality. <\/p>\n \u201cPutting pressure on governments to enact policies or regulatory frameworks for stateless people does happen in some contexts,\u201d Ehlers said. \u201cThe issue of refugees is relatively well known \u2014 we understand that war or persecution displaces someone, and we don\u2019t think it\u2019s the refugees fault. The same dynamic is at play with statelessness.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe state borders have dissolved, literally while families are traveling, and then they come home and are not recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n Without a national identity, all stateless people have to offer is their own humanity. But without visibility, there is little to be leveraged.<\/p>\n This issue has become even more fraught in the United States, where the Fourteenth Amendment<\/a> has been on the radar of the Trump administration and its allies. Birthright citizenship is a right that many Americans take for granted. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Constitution and the birthright process is so great,\u201d said Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough<\/a>, the executive director of United Stateless<\/a>, a group that \u2014 as its name implies \u2014\u00a0advocates for the rights of stateless people within the United States. \u201cAmericans don\u2019t realize that the right to nationality is not inherent.\u201d <\/p>\n Ambartsoumian-Clough formed the organization in order to help connect people like her. Like Joudeh, she was stateless. Unlike him, she wasn\u2019t born into statelessness. She lost her citizenship as a child when the Soviet Union dissolved. <\/p>\n The family fled to the United States, where the vagaries and changes around American immigration laws caught them in a vicious double bind.<\/p>\n \u201cI was 13 years old when our final claim to asylum was denied,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we were told to leave \u2014 to self deport.\u201d <\/p>\n But because they were now stateless, there was nowhere to deport them to, and no way for the family to obtain travel documents in any case, and so they stayed. Her father died two years ago, still stateless. <\/p>\n But there are political solutions, at least domestically, to the invisible, nearly intractable problem \u2014 if legislators have the will to make it happen. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s openings there, it\u2019s just now there\u2019s no appetite for any of this,\u201d she said. \u201cThe majority of stateless people, I think like 80 percent of our clients, need Congress to pass the pass the Stateless Protection Act<\/a> to get us protection,\u201d she said. \u201cStateless people fall out of any migrant protection because they are stateless.\u201d<\/p>\n It is even possible to be born in the United States and still be stateless. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are people in America whose parents chose not to register their births, and they grew up as unregistered Americans,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The road ahead<\/p>\n In addition to his ballet and choreography work, Ahmad Joudeh, now 36 and a resident of both San Diego and Amsterdam, travels the world advocating for asylum-seekers, refugees, and stateless people. <\/p>\n I would just make sure to write it correctly by the end ( an ambassador for pride Amsterdam \u2013 and a high profile supporter for the UNHCR United Nations, also a young global leader and a cultural leader at the world economic forum)<\/p>\n He also works to increase visibility for queer people, serving as an ambassador<\/a> for Pride Amsterdam<\/a>, as well as a High Profile Supporter<\/a> with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees<\/a>, an International Friend of SOS Children\u2019s Villages International<\/a>, and a Young Global Leader<\/a> and a Cultural Leader<\/a> with the World Economic Forum<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n Joudeh said the arts \u2014 including music, literature, and dance \u2014 have offered him a way to survive abuse, terror, displacement, and war. He still suffers the effects of a life filled with trauma. \u201cI have my nightmares I have my challenges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n His life is not an easy one, but he says he doesn\u2019t believe anybody\u2019s life is ever truly easy. What he believes in, what sustains him, is joy.<\/p>\n \u201cConnecting to the divine and feeling divine is no passport,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s no country. It\u2019s within you\u2026. Allow yourself to live your freedom, because when you become a free person you will allow others to be free too.\u201d<\/p>\n \t