Birth and Death: Two Sides to Syria’s Stories
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
-Khalil Gibran, “The Prophet”
There are two stories happening in Syria right now, and although they are intimately tied to each other, they are also worlds apart. On one side is the humanitarian crisis, the 9,000 dead, the refugees, and the cities leveled to the ground. On the other, is the revolution, the political and social rebirth of a the Syrian consciousness.
Both of these stories have one ending: the fall of the regime of the dictator Bashar al Assad.
The revolution cannot continue until the humanitarian crisis ends. And there is no point to the humanitarian crisis unless the revolution is successful. Even though they’re so intimately connected, discussion about Syria varies dramatically depending on the focus. When the “powers that be”, non-Syrian powers from East to West interested in manipulating the revolution for their own interests, use the humanitarian crisis to advance those interests, then they try to play these two stories against each other. They try to turn Baba Amr’s sacrifice into their gain, not realizing that Syrians will never accept the suffering of the last year to be used to advance anyone’s cause other than that of freedom and dignity.
But Syrians have suffered, and acutely. The longer that Assad clings onto his decaying throne, the longer the scars of this revolution will stay. For every victim of Assad’s crackdown that reaches the mainstream media, ten stories stay untold. The daily lives of Homsis, even for homes that (miraculously) haven’t lost a loved one, is still an enormous feat to endure. Imagine, for a moment. Having spent the last month with no phone calls. No electricity. No reliable way to heat your home. Unsure about where food will come from. And shelling, incessant, endless, around-the-clock shelling.
I have family in Homs, in Baba Amr in fact. All of my mother’s family is there. Hearing the sound of the shelling over the phone became a normal part of our conversations with them. That is, when the phone lines were working. Since February 4th, the first day of the major shelling operation on Homs, my mother hasn’t heard a word from her family. She heard news about her cousin, an older woman with a disability, killed when the wall of her house fell on her after being shelled, through a Facebook page. Facebook couldn’t comfort her, or give her more details, or let her know if everyone else was all right.
Her cousin lived three doors down from my grandmother. When my mother saw videos of her street, the street she was raised on, the street I visited almost every summer, in a state of utter destruction, she had no way of calling her family to be reassured that the damage is only material. When her family fled Baba Amr, with the help of the Free Syrian Army, to a less restive area of Homs, she had no way of checking in with them, of knowing how her mother was, what possessions they had, of even sending them money. They are, and have been, completely cut off, their horror stories left untold.
When my mother’s mother died last week, succumbing to stress, illness, and the perilous life of a refugee, my mother hadn’t heard her voice in almost a month. She has yet to call her sisters, to be comforted by them, to comfort them, or even hear any details about my grandmother’s death. She is alone in her mourning, just like they are alone in their suffering.
So without phone lines, without internet, without electricity, how are the Homsis getting their story out? I’m not speaking technically, in terms of satellite phones and the like. Something more basic than information is getting out of Homs, and this is the revolution. Amidst the fighting and the brutal crackdown, Homs is transmitting hope and freedom and inspiration. This is the birth in death, the sea that the river of blood will flow to. I refuse to be Assad’s victim despite the hell that he has put me, my family, and my country through. When my father and I debate about the role of religion, when Youtube videos flourish with fiery political comments and debates, when the values of freedom, dignity, and unity, are re-emphasized in even the most basic grassroots organizing, I am reminded of what Homs is birthing, of what Syria is creating. This is the story that will outlive Assad and his brutality. This is the story of life, despite Assad trying to keep the focus on death.
I don’t know the way forward for my country. I scoff at the “efforts” of the international community, of pointless, inefficient organizations like the United Nations trying to make deals with countries led by dictators as corrupt as Assad. I believe the way forward will be in the hands of the Syrian people, even though I know that the death toll will only rise.
Both of these stories, two sides of the same coin, are extremely powerful. Neither of them should be used to discredit the other. Instead, they should empower each other. The life of every Syrian has changed dramatically. Syrians in Homs are tolerating the most extreme circumstances just to live their daily lives. But every Syrian still has their eye on the prize. Every meeting, every protest, and every strike is a raised shoe in Assad’s direction (and in the direction of any power, Western or Eastern, that would underestimate Syrians.) And because the cost of freedom has become so high, we are all determined to make the value of our dignity all the higher.
