More Voices from We Crossed A Bridge

 In the first post in this series on the Syrian revolution and civil war, I interwove quotes from Syrian refugees with history and analysis. Here are some more of these poignant and informative quotes from We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled by Wendy Pearlman (2017):

Terrorism

Abu Firas, a fighter from rural Idlib, told Bridge interviewers, “For every action there is a reaction. When the regime is killing in this way, people become what we call jihadists and you call terrorists. I swear to God that I have nothing but respect for you regardless of your ethnicity, religion, or nationality. But when my sister is arrested and they rape her, I have no problem entering any place in the world with a car strapped with explosives. Because no country in the world is paying attention to me. Not a single one is doing anything to protect any fraction of the rights I should have as a human being.”

Jalal, a photographer from Aleppo, had similar thoughts. “The regime has turned us into monsters so it can justify killing us. Syrian society has been shattered – bring any family together today, and you’ll find four or five empty chairs. I once photographed a barrel bomb that killed three kids as their father sobbed, ‘I left them for an hour to look for a safer place to live. I came back and they were gone.’ I have four kids, and the whole purpose of my life is to guarantee their future. So I imagine this man who loses his kids and completely understand if he turns into a monster.”

Yousef, a former student from rural Hasakh told interviewers, “I was arrested in my second year of medical school and spent five months in prison. I was home recovering when ISIS showed up. Syria’s oil is located in our eastern part of the country, and ISIS recognized how valuable it is. They took over our village and then moved to take Deir al-Zor, which has the largest oil reserves. Regime planes backed them up. They bombed the rebels and people, not ISIS. There were many men and women ready to fight ISIS, and we could have beaten them, but we didn’t have enough weapons – no one supported us. Instead, the U.S.-led coalition started bombing us. Two months ago, 27 people in my village were killed that way, waiting in line for bread. It’s airstrikes that have destroyed the country. Planes do the most damage, and ISIS doesn’t have planes.”

Adam, age 29, a media organizer from Latakia: “We opened a Pandora’s box – we had this innocent, childlike desire to see what was inside it. We thought we’d get a present, and what we got was all the evil in the world. I completely understand why someone would join ISIS or al-Qaeda or the Assad regime or the Kurdish groups – you’re in dire need of a narrative that can justify this futility, this suffering. Otherwise, it’s too painful. I think I’m too old to dream now.”

Islamic fundamentalism

Khalil, a defected officer from Deir ez-Zor, told interviewers he was “working with the FSA [Free Syrian Army] when the Nusra Front emerged. In June 2012, I went to talk to them. I said, ‘This is a popular revolution, why don’t you use the revolution’s flag?’ They said, ‘That’s the flag of the infidels. We’re raising the flag of the Prophet.’ I said, ‘Bashar let you go so he could say he’s fighting terrorism.’ They replied, ‘God willed that this should be done.’

We each went forward with our work separately. We in the FSA would attack a regime position, force the regime to withdraw, and move on to the next regime position. Nusra would come along behind us and take control of the point we’d just liberated. We were focused on fighting the regime while Nusra was looking to occupy territory. Most of Nusra’s fighters were foreigners – Saudis, Qataris, and Tunisians. The FSA had more men, but received little aid. We could afford to give fighters only a one-time payment. Nusra gave its fighters monthly salaries and top-quality weapons. It also distributed bread to people to try to win their support. People took it because they were hungry, but the first opportunity they had to go out and protest against Nusra, they did. Then ISIS emerged. It also paid people to join its ranks, and had plenty of weapons, and ammunition. Raqqa became the ISIS headquarters. There was no battle; the regime just handed it to them and left.

We’re against Assad because he’s a dictator, and we won’t accept another dictator in his place. What gives them the right to say something is blasphemy? ISIS killed a German doctor working in a field hospital, saying he was an infidel. This man had come from abroad to treat injured people. If that’s infidel, let’s all be infidels.”

Husayn, playwright (Aleppo): “We created the first movement against Islamization after Islamic groups killed a 14-year-old who used to sell coffee on the streets. Three Islamists – an Egyptian, a Tunisian, and a Syrian – wanted to take coffee and pay the boy later. He told them, ‘Even if the Prophet Mohammed came, I wouldn’t give it to him on credit.’ The Islamists considered that blasphemy and killed the boy. It was around that time that ISIS arrived in Aleppo. They started kidnapping journalists and activists. There were few of us left by then, but we organized a sit-in in front of ISIS headquarters. After an ISIS car followed us home and blocked our taxi, we began working in secret. When I could only oppose ISIS by living in a neighborhood protected by a violent warlord, I decided to leave Syria. I no longer had a purpose for staying.”

Life as a refugee

Safa, a mother from Homs, is in Lebanon, where “life is terrible – a neighborhood of shacks, lack of hygiene, germs making the kids sick. The roof leaks, and the tap water is so polluted you can’t even use it to wash vegetables.

Lebanese won’t work for less than $20 a day, so bosses fire them and hire Syrians for $10, which leads to tension between poor Syrians and poor Lebanese. The UN used to provide $30 per person. Then they announced that they ran out of funding. One woman had little children and they kept telling her to wait in line to apply for help. It was such a humiliation – they’d leave her to wait for hours in the sun, saying ‘tomorrow,’ or ‘the day after tomorrow.’ Finally, she poured fuel on herself and set herself on fire – right there, outside the UN building.

There’s nothing to protect us – no state, no government, no law, no human rights. Animals have more rights than we do.”

Bushra, a mother from al-Tel says that “kids today don’t think about going to school in order to get a job someday – they think about getting a job in the hope that someday they’ll be able to go to school. Or they think about living in a real house. One day I took my young daughter with me to a women’s center, and after living in a tent, she was amazed by the real walls and floors. She said, ‘Take a photo of me next to the wall!’”

Abdel-Aziz, a teacher from rural Daraa: “The Zaatari camp in Jordan is a dead area. They found a place in the desert where not even a tree or an animal can live, and they put the Syrian people there. The other day we saw a butterfly in the camp. Everyone got so excited, we were shouting at each other to come and look at it. It must have really lost its way if it wound up here.”

Disappointment and hopelessness

Sham, who was part of a Red Crescent emergency response team in Douma, says regime soldiers sometimes took injured people out of their ambulance. They also shot three friends from another team. She and her husband Munir fled the country after he was released from prison on condition of leaving immediately. “Everything we’ve experienced has killed us. We check the news every second to see who’s been killed and who’s still alive. Believe me, if the world had helped us from the beginning, we never would have reached this point. If I died this second, I wouldn’t care, because I’ve reached a point in my life where I hate everything. I’m disgusted by humanity. We’re basically the living dead. Sometimes I joke to Munir that someone should gather all of us Syrians in one place and kill us so we can be done with this thing already. Then we’ll all go to heaven and leave Bashar al-Assad to rule over an empty country.”

Kareem, the doctor from Homs, wonders “why the world has so little sympathy for people dying in Syria. It’s as if the blood that circulates in our veins is of lesser value. Syria is just a chessboard for great powers to settle their accounts. Our family is scattered. My parents and one of my brothers are in Qatar, another brother is in Egypt, and another is trying to get to get to Germany. My son spent the first years of his life in Homs stuck inside because of the curfew and the bombing. He had no contact with anyone but his parents and grandparents. He was two years old when he saw another child for the first time. He went up to him and touched his eyes, because he thought he was a doll.”

Imad, a former student from Salamiyah, says the media have “tied the revolution to terrorism. If a Syrian asking for asylum says he was with the revolution, European authorities ask if he interacted with terrorists. You feel like you’re being accused of something. It’s easier just to say that you’re running from war, and in this way the truth of the revolution gets buried. And that alone is a crime against everything that’s happened.”

Concluding Thoughts

Ghayth, a former student from Aleppo, says, “We worked so hard for the revolution, and it was so innocent. Then it turned into a war, and everyone got involved in stealing it. Good leaders were assassinated, and the FSA [Free Syrian Army] was reduced to a matter of funding. We would prefer to stay in our country. If you don’t want refugees, help us make peace in Syria.”

Husayn, a playwright from Aleppo, asks, “If everyone who participated in the dream of a free Syria leaves or gets killed, who’s going to build Syria later? I have hope that there are still people inside the country who’ll want to build it. Half of those living under regime control don’t support the regime. But the conflict doesn’t belong to us anymore. Syria has become an arena to settle scores, and there’s a lack of agreement about what we need for the future. I know some people fighting the regime want to control my life. But we can argue about that later – first we need to bring down the regime…We’ve accepted the fact that we need to make our dreams smaller if that’s what it takes to keep dreaming.”

You’ll see the final post in this series, an update on the situation in Syria, tomorrow, though I’m sure I’ll write more on this subject in the future…Remember to check out the series resources under “Realities/Syria” in the top menu bar or along the right hand side under “Pages/Realities/Syria;” there’s a timeline, a glossary, maps, and more, including more complete notes on We Crossed a Bridge.