A Woman in the Crossfire (20 page)

When he came to, dust covered the entrance to the building, but he could still make out the wall of the house that had been their target, which had totally collapsed, demolished by other soldiers. He didn't know where the shots had come from. Was it a missile? Something else? Everything around him was unclear. He examined his two friends. One had died instantly from the self-inflicted gunshot. He could hear the other one moaning and he touched the blood that was trickling out of his head, the head that had been pounding itself against the wall less than fifteen minutes ago. The third one had vanished.

This was just one of many incidents experienced by the soldiers who invaded Jisr al-Shughur. Those that did not kill themselves and who refused to open fire on demonstrators, every last one of them was killed. Afterwards, news such as the following would be reported on internet sites and satellite television networks: “An eyewitness who is a field doctor in the military emergency force reported that he was with the medical division that discovered the corpses of more than 80 soldiers who had been killed by terrorists in the vicinity of Jisr al-Shughur.” But in the medical examinations that followed, several factors would come to light that absolutely contradicted that official narrative. One of the most salient things said by the field doctor, who preferred that his name not be mentioned for fear of reprisal by the Syrian regime, was that most of the injuries were to the head. They had been shot from a distance of no more than two metres, which means this was a liquidation, an execution of these soldiers. Secondly, there were clear signs on some of the bodies of torture before they died. Thirdly, there was rotting and cracked skin and cleaved heads, which means the victims must have died more than a month and a half ago. Fourthly, the bodies were found somewhere where no fighting had taken place, there were no traces of gunfire in the area and there were no empty shells.

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Not far from the territory where the monsters live, underneath the cracked urban sidewalks that are pounded by stumbling, angry feet that have never skipped for joy, there was a faint thin thread, a red winding string swallowed up by the asphalt.

The woman watching the novelist promised she would never again dare to bring her man a suitcase containing a red rose, not even in secret.

The woman who has become another, sitting somewhere inaccessible inside my fingers, also vowed not to sleep more than three hours per day. That was no figure of speech. I decided to sleep three hours without sleeping pills, a monumental achievement which would require a major effort. What helped me were my constant movement and the enormous quantity of food I resorted to eating before going to sleep. But it all seemed like a waste – I gained weight but couldn't gain any more sleep.

Recently I have been meeting with women in order to set up a ‘Syrian Women in Support of the Uprising' initiative, which requires meetings and action. The aim of this group was to provide the demonstrators with all the support they need, particularly emergency care for the wounded and cover for the young men of the coordination committees who have been forced into hiding as a result of being pursued by the security forces. Additionally, some of the young people have formed a secular group. There are many different actions, especially among the young people who are not satisfied with some of the well-known names in the opposition. They believe the time had come to revitalize the spirit of the opposition. Everyone is active and resisting in his or her own way. Some young people work with the coordination committees in the suburbs of Damascus, others organize the demonstrations; women also organize demonstrations. The issue is no longer which actions we carry out, because the popular uprising is following the same course all over the country. This is an uprising of the countryside, an uprising of poverty and a protest against all forms of injustice. The murder the authorities always relied upon has been transformed into a daily massacre. The time for dialogue has passed, yet the regime comically calls for more dialogue. Some big names in the opposition responded at first, so that the country might avoid further bloodshed, but now more than ever, the domestic opposition refuses to convene any dialogue. Every day the regime commits another massacre, and the number of those killed at the hands of the security forces, the
shabbiha
and the army increases. The cities are being taken over, besieged, bombarded by aircraft – Jisr al-Shughur and before it Dar‘a and Homs. How can we possibly have a dialogue with them? This is the most important question running through the meetings I have been diligently attending with figures from the opposition. There is no solution other than the fall of the regime. The regime does not want reform or any other solution. The regime is an assortment of gangs intertwined with the ruling family, who benefit from corruption and kickbacks. The regime wants to ignite a sectarian war and will soon turn the Alawite community into its very own human shield.

None of these trips and actions over the past few days has amounted to anything at all. As we expected, the outcome is weak. Just forming the women's initiative in support of the uprising makes me feel hollow, powerless, as I watch Syrians being transformed into refugees, as the people of Jisr al-Shughur fearfully flee the military siege and the massacres carried out in their city. Turkey takes them in, setting up tents along the border. Syrians are refugees in Turkey. During the invasion and bombardment of Talkalakh, Syrians are also transformed into refugees in Lebanon, but the Syrian regime is more present in Lebanon than anywhere else. The Lebanese government hands over two refugees and the Syrians become increasingly alarmed, because fleeing to Lebanon means fleeing right back to Syria. It makes no difference what we do now.

Turkey announces its disapproval of the regime and its barbaric tactics: repressing demonstrators, killing and mutilating people, making them homeless and refugees. How can the regime kill its own people? How can planes fly through the Syrian skies to bomb their own people? It's something incomprehensible to Syrians, that these massacres can be repeated day in, day out. The cities are annihilated one after another and the whole world is watching, criticizing and calling for reform while the Syrians die, quite simply. What matters now is that defections in the army ranks have begun. A lieutenant colonel in the Syrian Arab Army appears on the satellite networks and announces his defection from the army, claiming responsibility for killing security agents who killed civilians, refusing to follow army orders, calling out through bullhorns for them not to kill the innocent. This is something very serious in and of itself. I have not seen very much that is worth taking seriously.

I am frustrated, I won't deny it, a subtle sorrow has started to seep into my diaries, not regular everyday sorrow, but overlapping strands of everyday inability, total intellectual paralysis. Daily news of killing in the cities gives me barely any time to reflect. I am still lost. Last night I decided to go out shopping for a few things, not far from my new temporary home. I only intended to go out for a few hours. I just wanted to clear my head and think about what needed to be done regarding several things I was working on. As I strolled through al-Shaalan neighbourhood, in the spice market, I saw young women running away. People were running in all directions. At once I knew there was a demonstration. The panic in people's eyes told me what was happening. I ran forward and saw scores of young men and women gathered together and chanting for freedom. The security forces ran at them and pounced. They were singing the national anthem and shouting:
No to Killing! No to Violence!
My vision blurred and I could no longer distinguish the
shabbiha
all over the place, even though the shabbiha are generally the ones behaving the most savagely.

They jumped on the demonstrators and called on pedestrians in the street to join in beating them as well. I saw them crowd around a young man. More than ten of them were pummelling and kicking him. Just then I saw a young lady on the ground as one of the security agents beat her and called her the most vulgar names; when a man who wasn't taking part in the demonstration tried to help her, the security beat him mercilessly. Many more agents crowded around him and started beating him as well. Then they arrested him. I was standing right there, listening and watching, my heart pounding. I stood there with those people, trying to be inconspicuous, thinking that if they captured me, not even God Himself would be able to convince them I hadn't been part of the demonstration. But I couldn't bring myself to leave. My feet were frozen as people surged forward, running away from the security forces. Some shopkeepers came out, yelling at the demonstrators, cooperating with the security forces and the
shabbiha
, and when one of them tried to give shelter to a young woman, the security forces and some other shopkeepers beat him up and smashed his store.

There was beating everywhere you looked, and everyone they beat would later be taken away and would disappear. I saw them throw a young man into a bus, then rush back out looking for more. The people watched all of this in terror since this was the first time such a demonstration had taken place in the al-Shaalan neighbourhood. Some young women who had been watching how the
shabbiha
mercilessly stamped on the young men's bodies started sobbing and ran away. All of a sudden I saw scores of young men and women approaching from the direction of Abu Rummaneh, holding up pictures of the president, clapping and chanting,
Abu Hafiz, Abu Hafiz
. They were all wearing white cotton T-shirts with a picture of the president and the slogan
We Love You
emblazoned on them. Once the security forces had broken up the demonstration, they calmed down and stood on either side of the street in order to protect the pro-regime demonstrators. The march continued all the way to the end of al-Hamra Street. They were calm, nobody tried to stop them and they kept chanting in unison,
Abu Hafiz, Abu Hafiz
. I watched for half an hour, pretending to shop. The security forces were still trying to read people's faces even though the demonstration had been broken up. The
shabbiha
of al-Shaalan strolled through the shops, watching. I noticed how different the
shabbiha
of al-Shaalan were from the
shabbiha
of Harasta and Douma and al-Merjeh Square; they were more elegant, cleaner, they wore gold chains on their wrists, they seemed to have been sculpted, with slender waists and puffed-up chests, like cartoon characters. But they kept their beards closely cropped. What they had in common with all the
shabbiha
I had ever seen in any other city was their eyes; the same dry, cold stare. No eyelids, no eyelashes. They were the same people who beat up one guy until he was covered in blood, even though it turned out later he was part of the security forces. They were the same people who attacked young men who refused to join them in beating up demonstrators. And so I had to go back home again yesterday without even thinking about buying my daily vegetables, without thinking about anything at all. I was running away from the internet and television news, from the killing, but all I found in the street was beatings and arrests and fear. What city is this that I now live in? With every step we take there is humiliation in store for everyone.

The paper woman in my fingertips told me, “Bloodshed or humiliation, it's either one or the other.” I told her to shut up and just leave me alone for a little while, like a corpse calmly fighting against its own decomposition.

How can Syrian intellectuals remain silent in the face of all this? When the protest movement first started I felt sympathetic to the silent ones. I understood human weakness and because in a democracy mercy is one of those religious virtues that must be made up as we go along, I was silent towards them. But today, after the invasion and siege of the cities, now that the Syrian people are homeless and refugees, now that they have been killed and tortured and terrorized, I can no longer be merciful towards them. Today, those who remain silent are accomplices to the crime.

Demonstrations continue in Latakia and Damascus today, in Homs and Aleppo. What is new in Aleppo is that the security forces surrounded the University City after a demonstration there, and the
shabbiha
stormed on campus, shooting teargas canisters and live rounds into the air. Over the past 24 hours the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has climbed to 2,400 people, and Jisr al-Shughur remains shrouded in obscurity.

Today a powerful video clip appeared: Demonstrators in the al-Qaboun neighbourhood of Damascus are burning a picture of Bashar al-Assad, the video isn't clear, darkness and gloom. The fire starts in the middle of the president's face; the demonstrators hold it right in front of the camera as they shout until their voices get hoarse
The People Want to Topple the Regime!
then throw what remains of the scorched picture down on the ground. That's a portrait of anger and revolution against humiliation and poverty. I feel added anxiety. Burning that picture means there will be house invasions by the
shabbiha
and the security forces in al-Qaboun, which will also mean more killing and arrests.

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Friday of the Tribes

 

Today is different.

The defecting lieutenant colonel explains how the army uses people as human shields. The lieutenant colonel says there are criminal groups chosen by the security forces to carry out the killing. He appears on television and shouts it at the top of his voice. Clearly the ones doing the killing are with the regime. The lieutenant colonel who defected from the army and joined the ranks of the uprising says the Syrian army had assaulted his village in Jabal al-Zawiya and was going to detain his family and siblings in order to put pressure on him. The other shocking thing he says is that they relied on manpower from Hizballah and Iran. Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Harmoush goes on to say, “The security forces control the media.” He calls upon the Syrian people and the free officers to stand up in the face of the regime in order to hold aloft the banner of freedom.