Syria's Secret Library

by Mike Thomson

  After decades of military rule, Myanmar’s jails were full of political prisoners–men and women who had often done little more than criticise the military government, or read books by others who had done so. It was for this reason that when a thirty-one-year-old Yangon bookshop owner, Ye Htet Oo, began collecting non-approved English language titles, he did not dare stock them openly.15 Instead, he put in an official application to open a library. Permission was denied but rather than given up his project, Ye Htet put the volumes, which he lent out to local students, in a locked room at the back of his premises. Customers entering his shop had no idea that behind the padlocked door at the back was a secret library, full of foreign books such as Oliver Twist, Animal Farm, Hamlet and Sherlock Holmes. Few among them were seditious or threatened the military government, but Ye Htet faced a lengthy jail term if the room was discovered. So, when he was summoned by phone in June 2010 to discuss the issue of his library, he thought the game was up. The official penalty for possession of an unauthorised library is three months in jail for every book. He had 6000 of them. But instead of being thrown in jail, Ye Htet Oo was told that he was, after all, going to be granted a licence for his secret library. About a year later, he met the minister responsible for licensing libraries at a conference in the capital Naypyidaw. He asked him how officials had first become aware of his hidden library. The minister is reported to have told him: ‘My kids were in your library before me. I was really interested. I thought it was unbelievable, it’s not possible. And I got in there and I loved your library.’16 Ye Htet Oo’s once-secret book room is now called ‘The Tharapar Library’ and operates openly below an English school, also run by him. It now has more than 15,000 books on its shelves and three other satellite branches elsewhere in the country.

  It is this spirit of finding a way that motivates the people of Daraya and their treasured secret library. While these are accounts of very different places, times and faiths, nonetheless the shared love of books transcends national boundaries and defies the calamitous events of history.

  In the final days of December 2013, a Syrian air force helicopter gunship released a host of small bombs over the city. This was nothing new, but as the devices continued to fall their bulbous, tell-tale shape caused a whole new level of alarm. When the first one hit the ground the explosive roar was followed by a cloud of flying metal fragments which shattered windows before embedding themselves in walls, roofs and anything else in their path. The Syrian air force had unleashed barrel bombs on Daraya for the first time.

  The barrel bomb–often a gas cylinder or oil drum filled with a combination of explosives, nails, metal and concrete–had become synonymous with the war in Syria but until now had not been inflicted on the people of Daraya. Designed to allow shrapnel to fly in all directions as it explodes, these bombs vastly increase the chances of death or injury over a wide area. Inherently indiscriminate, and nearly impossible to target accurately, these bombs expose civilians anywhere near the explosion to lethal pieces of metal flying through the air. The use of barrel bombs marked a significant escalation of the Syrian government’s brutality in Daraya.

  But not even the continued use of these horrifying weapons over the months that followed could prevent the long-awaited official opening of Daraya’s secret library in May 2014. Thousands of books lined the walls of their new basement home, covering almost every subject under the sun. This uncensored literary treasure trove was finally ready for all. Not that the average passer-by would have noticed a thing from the outside. Given the certainty that the library would be bombed if the regime knew where it was, there was no ribbon-cutting fanfare, nor signs on the door.

  Inside, however, it was a different story. Beneath the shattered streets, down a steep flight of stairs, celebrations were in full swing. Surrounded by brightly coloured posters and improvised paper streamers, a throng of excited book lovers scanned the shelves, swapping plans on what they would read first. Months of rescuing books, building shelves and finding furniture had finally come to this. To avoid attracting attention the visitors had arrived at intervals, by themselves or in pairs, and that is how they would leave. Not that anyone would even think of going for some time yet. Daraya’s biggest source of inspiration, the beating heart of its besieged community, was born. ‘It was a wonderful occasion,’ Muhammad told me. ‘Even the leader of the local council was there. I don’t know how they managed it, but somehow the organisers got hold of some special food. They baked this delight with sugar and flour and coconut and served it in small bowls. We all loved it. This turned what was already a very special occasion into something magical.’

  Others talked of their joy at witnessing an occasion they had once thought would never come about. After many months of rescuing dusty, damp and dirty books from burnt-out houses, here they were surrounded by the fruit of their labours. Restored to their former glory, books that had so recently lain forgotten in mud and rubble, now graced the polished shelves. Abdul Basit told me how he was so moved by this special occasion that he was lost for words. While those around him rejoiced, some even moved to song, he just stood there, quietly taking it all in. ‘I felt so happy, looking at what we had all achieved. I knew this was a very special moment. I just stood there, soaking up the memory of it all, hoping that I would remember it for ever.’

  From this moment on, a new optimism took hold in Daraya. This literary haven offered more than an escape from bombs and boredom. It was to become a portal to another world: one of learning, one of peace, and one of hope.

  Chapter Five

  In the early days of the siege there had been much optimism that the international community would step in and stop the carnage. Surely, the people of Daraya thought, organisations such as the United Nations would not simply stand by while they were being bombed and starved to death. They must be aware of what was happening to the town, if not from reports of those who had fled, then from those who were still inside Daraya including Muhammad Shihadeh and Malik al-Rifaii who spent countless hours posting videos and photos online. So when news reached the town, in late 2013, that new UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva had failed, there was bitter disappointment. The two sides had not been able to reach an agreement: the Syrian government had refused to discuss the possibility of a transitional government being formed to negotiate a path to peace, while the rebels repeated their insistence that they would never agree to a deal that left President Bashar al-Assad in power.

  With no break in the deadlock, concern grew for the safety of children still living in Daraya. Most had left with their mothers and elderly relatives in 2012, but hundreds remained, their parents assuming that the president would call off the horrifying siege as soon as his forces had flexed their military muscle. Now, however, it was becoming clear that his goal was absolute victory, and this realisation led some in the community to reassess the long-term welfare of their children. While keeping them as safe as possible was the first priority, now that the siege was likely to last, the goal was to find a way to resume their education. Many schools had been forced to shut due to the constant danger from shelling, bombs and snipers, and fears were growing that a generation of local children might grow up not being able to read or write.

  One teenager, however, had landed on his feet. Fourteen-year-old Amjad, a small slim boy with dark, neatly cut hair, had all the books he could ever want to read. Indeed he had virtually made his home in the secret library after coming across it by chance. I had been introduced to him when talking via a WhatsApp call to Anas and Abdul Basit in the library. Amjad told me that although he lived very close to the library, he had never heard of it until being directed there by two local men. They had spotted him in the street frantically searching for cover as a round of shelling and sniper fire erupted. They told him he would be far better reading books in the underground library than dodging shrapnel outside. But they had warned him that it was a secret place so he should never tell anyone where it was. ‘When I first walked into the library,’ he s
aid, his vibrant brown eyes aglow, ‘it was exhilarating and a complete surprise. There were so many books. Some were piled high on top shelves that I couldn’t reach. I made up my mind to try and memorise every single book. But there were so many of them that I didn’t know where to start, so I just began by leafing through the one nearest to me. I said to one of the men in charge: I want to stay here. They agreed and have looked after me ever since.’

  Amjad’s infectious enthusiasm never failed to touch me. ‘We have all different kinds of books,’ he told me. ‘We have science ones, medical ones, literary ones, just about everything really. As Chief Librarian, I have a number of duties. My main one is to look after the running of the library. I also take down the names and addresses of people who borrow books and record them in that large file over there. I also do a lot of dusting, mainly of the books themselves.’

  The other striking thing about the secret library, he continued, was the furniture in it. This was something that Amjad was particularly proud of. After telling me at length about the comfortable chairs with blue floral seats, richly patterned dark-red magnolia carpet and wooden dining table, he added with a flourish: ‘I even have my own office at the back of the library–it has a sign saying “Management” on the door. In there I have my own desk. It’s small, just like me. I also have another seat in the middle of the library. This means that people can easily see where I am when they want to borrow books.’ Young Amjad did not only have a chance to educate himself, the fourteen-year-old had also found a job he loved in a place of comparative safety. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of such good fortune.

  Sadly, many other children could not reach the library, which was in a dangerous area of town not far from the front line. Most of them had little access to books or any kind of formal education. The problem was that there were very few teachers left in Daraya, and almost nowhere safe to school the remaining children. That is, until two young local women got together and came up with a solution. Sara Matar, a tall, slim woman in her late twenties, with striking nut-brown eyes, was one of them. Sara had been a housewife since graduating from Damascus University and marrying her husband, Bashar, who worked for the council. But she was soon to play a very valuable role in life beyond her home. Over the months and years that followed I came to greatly admire Sara’s warmth, intelligence and vision. The fact that she was by nature quiet and reserved made the courageous role she played in children’s lives especially remarkable.

  I should say here that Sara is not her real name. When we first began to talk, she told me that her parents, brother and three sisters all lived in an area controlled by government forces and that although it was nearby, the siege meant she had no way of seeing them. When the rest of the family fled from Daraya in the late summer of 2012, she and her husband decided to stay on, both determined to support the uprising there. Sara couldn’t even phone her relatives as the regime monitored all phone lines and considered anyone still living in rebel-held Daraya to be either a terrorist or at least somebody with sympathies for them. Sara feared that contacting her family would lead them to become suspects too and for this reason she asked me not to reveal her identity.

  Sara’s close friend, Amena, a teacher for thirteen years, asked if she was interested in organising some education for mainly primary-school-age children in Daraya. At the time, Amena had just been released from prison. She had been jailed twice by the Assad regime, the second time for two years, on terrorism charges, after being arrested while taking part in anti-government demonstrations. After her release she had arranged to be smuggled back into Daraya by a local guide who knew a way around the military checkpoints. An ardent supporter of the revolution, she was determined to help like-minded civilians under siege, even though this would put her at risk of being arrested again, or even killed.

  Not long after her arrival, she talked to Sara about the lack of schooling for children in Daraya. Although she had no teaching experience, Sara shared her friend’s concerns and they decided to set up a classroom together. Due to her command of the language, Amena thought Sara would make an ideal English teacher. Sara later told me that she had learned to speak it by watching English-language films on TV, so her teachers had included Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  After much searching they found an apartment in a quiet backstreet. Its inconspicuous location meant that it was unlikely to be targeted by bombers and before long they had moved in, cleaned it up and were ready to go.

  Both Sara and Amena had high hopes that the schooling they offered young children would in many ways be much better than what they had had before the siege. Before the year 2000, the school system in Syria was split into three stages: elementary, preparatory and secondary. Elementary was from first to sixth grade, preparatory from seventh to ninth and secondary, where children studied for their baccalaureate, was tenth to twelfth grades. Elementary school was compulsory, but education after that was optional and many children dropped out. After 2000, the system was changed to just two stages. Primary, which was compulsory, went from first to ninth grade and secondary schooling was optional, though pupils could not leave until they were fifteen years old. Under the country’s education system, the curriculum was based strictly on the regime’s and the Ba’ath party’s views of the country and its history. Pupils were made to memorise statements by Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad from compulsory text books. And at the beginning and end of each school day they had to repeat an oath of allegiance to the regime. All schools, as well as government buildings, businesses and shops, were required to display statues and pictures of the Assads. Pupils were discouraged from ever questioning what they were taught, or from giving personal opinions on political issues, especially regarding civil rights and freedom of speech. Parents were also under pressure, not only to ensure that their children conformed to these rules, but also to display loyalty to the regime themselves. For instance, those who owned shops were encouraged to paint their window shutters in the colours of the official Syrian flag.

  Sara remembers that she became increasingly resentful about the pressure put on children and was determined to do things very differently on becoming a teacher herself: ‘I don’t want this new generation to have their intellectual development held back in the way that ours was. So I try to teach them to think for themselves and express their own emotions. Since the uprising this is much easier. We are now free to criticise the regime here in Daraya.’

  In the chilly days of early 2014, that criticism became even more vociferous, as barrel bombs and missiles fell all around the children’s new makeshift classroom, though Sara insists they never tried to indoctrinate the children about the revolutionary cause. As had previously been the case in many Syrian schools, there was no segregation along gender lines, with boys and girls sharing the same classes. In all, around seventy children, aged between five and twelve, went to Sara’s little school. They came from a wide variety of religious backgrounds–Muslim, Alawite and Christian. The same applied to those who taught them. At first, the school had only three teachers: Sara, her friend Amena and another colleague. But after posters went up around the town advertising the school, class sizes slowly grew, along with the number of staff. Before long, lessons were moved to the basement of the building to help keep the children safe.

  Whenever Sara spoke to me about her young charges, her tone would markedly soften. She clearly adored the children and the work she did with them. Her anguish over the dangers they faced each day was palpable. Peace talks in February brought some relief, as the almost constant bombardment ceased. But, as Sara told me, this respite was only temporary:

  When the peace talks were happening we were able to take the children out of the basement at last. We then set up our classes in the demolished school. They loved it there. There was natural light everywhere and they could see out of the windows. But then the shelling started again and we were forced to take the children back to the basement. They virtually have to
live there now. Sometimes, if we suspect there is going to be bombing in the afternoon, we let the kids go home early. We send them in pairs, not in groups. The hope is that if the planes arrive overhead before they get home the pilots won’t target them, because they usually only go for large groups of people.

  It was not only daylight that the children were deprived of in their basement classroom. The school had little in the way of pens, pencils and crayons, nor any kind of paper on which to write and draw. But the biggest problem of all was the lack of textbooks. Sara and her fellow teachers had tried to have some brought in from a neighbouring country, but these were seized at the border and burned. Thankfully they managed to retrieve a few books from abandoned local schools, especially science texts. But Sara told me that they decided to cut pictures out of some of these before giving them to their near-starving pupils. ‘Some of these science books had large photos of food and vegetables which were there to teach children where nutrients come from,’ she told me. ‘I didn’t want them to see images like these, it would only stir emotions. It just wasn’t fair on them.’

  It’s a haunting image. Children so hungry that they had to be protected from even seeing pictures of food. Many must have arrived at school with groaning stomachs, and left the same way, not knowing what, if anything, they would get to eat at home. It’s amazing that any of them managed to come to school at all, never mind have the will to concentrate on their studies. As in all wars, these children were innocent victims of the conflict. They suffered the consequences, but had no say in how it started, or how it might end.