Syria's Secret Library

by Mike Thomson

  The people of Daraya were nothing if not resourceful. They wanted a library, and so they had set to work, retrieving thousands of titles from abandoned buildings and turning a dingy wreck of a basement into somewhere special. In just the same spirit, Abu Malik and his friend were not to be defeated by a lack of paint and paper. Majd, who was born and bred in Daraya, was on good terms with the owner of a shop that had sold art materials. While the shop itself had been badly damaged and was no longer open, the owner said they were welcome to use his surviving stocks of paint, pencils and paper. And even though Daraya had hardly any food, safe drinking water, electricity or medicine, Majd somehow managed to find nearly everything else they needed. The only element they lacked was a product to remove unwanted paint. Not to be defeated, Majd came up with a way of making this, gathering lots of plastic water bottles and other containers which, along with a few specially chosen chemicals, were thrown into a metal drum, before being melted down over a hot fire. The ugly looking liquid that resulted from it turned out to be a great paint-remover.

  And Majd did much more than just providing materials. He would scrub the selected wall before Abu Malik started and then after the drawing was complete, he would help colour it in. When they had both finished, Majd would take a photo of the picture and post it on social media. Abu Malik told me that Majd soon became an invaluable assistant-cum-soulmate. ‘We got on really well and worked together like this for quite a while. I really couldn’t have done what I did without him.’

  People told Abu Malik and Majd how deeply inspired they were by their artwork and encouraged them to do more. Some even asked if they would paint on the walls of their home. This uplifting response made the pair more ambitious than ever, and they put extra thought into the messages that accompanied the paintings. They chose a few basic themes to focus on–oppression, revolution and mistakes made during the revolution, as well as other topics suggested by locals. Sometimes they would base the pictures on special events. One mother’s day, the pair thought of how mothers were suffering throughout the nation, and how Syria was everybody’s mother country. A young mother swathed in black sits protectively embracing her newborn baby. Head on one hand, her face is grim and near despair. Behind her a helicopter circles over a town being blown apart. To the left is a large red heart with a gaping hole torn out of it. Next to that is the name Daraya.

  They also did drawings to highlight the plight of those who had been arrested by the regime. Abu Malik told me: ‘We wanted the people themselves, as well as their families, to know we were all thinking about them. We wanted to give them some hope.’

  Just as the library was about much more than just passing the time reading books, so Abu Malik’s paintings were not merely decorative. Both were forms of thoughtful resistance, aimed at raising awareness about what was happening in Daraya, while also encouraging people not to lose hope. The more paintings Abu Malik and Majd did, the more local people began to understand this. Now their art was being seen as a valid and important part of the uprising, helping to define the hopes and dreams of all those seeking to bring freedom of speech, democracy and civil rights to Syria. The two of them went on to do more than twenty different paintings around Daraya, each with its own message. Abu Malik had never felt happier. He had found his true vocation, as well as a friend for life.

  Then tragedy struck: ‘It was a bitterly cold winter’s day in Daraya,’ Abu Malik told me. ‘I was at home preparing my paints. It was then that I heard the news. Majd was dead. He had been killed. It was terrible. I will never forget that day.’ Well known as a brave and fearless photographer, Majd had been on the front line, taking photographs of the intense fighting that was raging around Daraya. Over recent months his photos of the fighting, rooftop snipers and barrel bombs had been seen around the world. He had taken huge risks to capture the scenes on his last mission. Despite the shrapnel flying all around him, he had carried on photographing the brutality of the war. He had done this often before, and had escaped with his life. This time he was not so lucky.

  Abu Malik praised his friend, telling me: ‘Majd was absolutely devoted to showing the world what was happening in Daraya. He was more successful in doing this than anyone else I know. He did so much for us all.’

  Following Majd’s death, Abu Malik considered giving up painting but the encouragement he got from local people persuaded him to carry on. They told him that this is what Majd would have wanted and it was what they wanted too. Some offered to introduce Abu Malik to other painters, photographers and illustrators who could fill Majd’s shoes and help him with his murals. And it is testimony to Abu Malik’s resilience that he took this help and carried on with his mission. After all, his most famous work of August 2014, the one mentioned earlier, was yet to come. ‘The drawing I did of the little girl painting hope on the wall was the first one I did after Majd died,’ he told me, his voice quavering. ‘I am proud that I managed to do it alone, it was one of my favourites. But I missed him so very much.’

  It is certainly one of my favourites too. So simple yet so powerful. According to the UK-based monitoring organisation, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 3500 children were killed in Syria in 2014. By the end of that year that dreadful number rose still further as the overall death toll topped 200,000–a shocking figure that was to more than double over the years to come. Yet the outside world was struggling to engage in what was becoming an ever more complicated conflict. And sadly, while Abu Malik’s picture of the little girl helped simplify what was happening, in Daraya at least, it failed to generate much concrete help for the besieged town. This was tragic, for just as Daraya’s extraordinary secret library gave people hope for the future, Abdul Malik’s work aimed to win their support in the present. He was determined to show that there was more to Syria than war, hate and destruction. That amid all the brutality, there were decent people who yearned to live in peace, free from oppression.

  Another of Abu Malik’s much-admired murals was a painting of two teenage boys, best friends, who grew up together and later fought side-by-side in Daraya. When one of them was killed the other continued fighting, before he too died in battle. Both, Abu Malik told me, lived and died pursuing the same shared goals. So, in a way, not even death had separated them. It was a story that many in Daraya identified with strongly. Convinced that he would never get out of Daraya alive, Abu Malik clearly hoped that his work might also become a living memorial to his friendship with Majd.

  Several months after Abu Malik’s mural of the little girl appeared in Daraya, a wave of despair swept through the town. The siege was causing terrible hardship. Supplies of food and medicine had reached a new low and the number of dead and injured continued to rise. Abu Malik, whose visions of hope had helped persuade many not to give up, was back on the front line himself, involved in an intense and desperate battle. When the regime’s soldiers bombarded the rebel-held town of Zabadani, just north of Damascus, the leader of Abu Malik’s brigade decided to mount a fierce counter-attack. However, the operation did not go well for Abu Malik. He was in the first wave of rebel fighters that advanced towards the regime’s positions. As he was running across open land towards the enemy, a bullet, fired from at least a hundred metres away, blew him off his feet. It was to be his last day as a fighter. ‘It went clean through my chest and straight out my back,’ he told me. ‘By the time my comrades had dragged me to our first-aid post, I had lost a lot of blood.’

  Abu Malik was badly injured and for the next four months he was unable to leave his bed. But this terrible experience did not dampen his enthusiasm for the cause. While recovering from his injuries, his mind turned again to art. He began sketching out plans for another mural, this time featuring a man with a red and white Santa Claus hat, lobbing a finely wrapped Christmas present in the direction of his enemy. He hoped to have it finished by Christmas, a time when its message might have maximum impact in the Western world. But when Abu Malik realised that, given the extent of his injuries, it was unl
ikely to be ready in time, he called on friends. With their help he managed to go outside and draw the main lines of the picture. Then, under his supervision, he left the others to colour it in, just like his friend Majd had done.

  Fortunately, it was not long before Abu Malik was up and about, and painting again. ‘Since recovering from my injuries,’ he told me, ‘I’ve done even more artwork than before. I’m not as fit as I was, so I’ve exchanged fighting for painting. All my energies are focused in that direction now.’

  One of the murals Abu Malik did around this time shows a soldier sitting opposite a little girl who is pointing to a picture frame with a large red heart in it. As in his earlier ‘hope’ mural, he was depicting the image of a little girl as the face of innocence among the carnage. As we talked about it during one of our conversations, Abu Malik told me: ‘The child is teaching a soldier the meaning of love. She warns him to avoid being manipulated by people during wars. I made sure that the soldier has no identity, he’s just a guy in green, because I wasn’t referring to any army in particular. Instead I want to get through to any soldier, anywhere, who is carrying a weapon. He needs to be clear why he is fighting and what he is fighting for. He should always be sure he is listening to his head as well as his heart.’

  Abu Malik appeared to be well in tune with both. He had resisted armed rebellion until firmly convinced that the regime wasn’t listening to peaceful protest. Yet his heart told him that violence could take the rebellion only so far. At some point talking, learning and planning would need to take over to seal the peace. It was this conviction that brought him regularly to the secret library. When not drawing on shattered walls or fighting on the front line, Abu Malik could often be found with his head buried in a book. Like so many other young Syrians, the war had brought his education to a sudden halt and he yearned for the day when he could resume his studies. ‘The secret library,’ he told me, ‘is a great place for self-development. Each of us has our own separate role outside it, but as soon as we go through its doors, our objectives are the same. I have to confess that I never used to like reading much. It was coming to the library that changed that view and inspired my love of books.’

  As we talked, I could see among the scattered pencils, paints and brushes an assortment of books that Abu Malik had borrowed from the secret library. Some were about history, others dealt with human development and the rest were novels. Abu Malik treasured them all. ‘Even after three years of living under siege in Daraya, I’m passionate about reading, I haven’t lost my appetite for it at all. As I said, this is all thanks to the secret library. That’s why we are all so determined to protect it.’

  In a time of such awful death and destruction, this was to prove a difficult task. With Daraya plagued by daily airstrikes and shelling, the secret library was under constant threat. Although sited in an underground basement, a direct hit on the building above would probably wipe it out. Even a bomb landing next door might do the same. Yet I had the feeling that, even if the secret library were totally destroyed and Abu Malik’s paintings too, it would not spell the end for the people of Daraya. It was far more likely that those who had created them would, somehow, start all over again. Buildings and paintings can be easily destroyed, but not the hope and inspiration they generated. The indomitable spirit of Daraya would be much harder to extinguish than that.

  Chapter Seven

  As the siege wore on, getting food and medical supplies into Daraya became harder as government forces discovered more of the smuggling routes. The ongoing bombing was continuing to take its toll too, with few homes left undamaged. But none of this stopped, or even slowed activities at the town’s secret library. Anas, Abdul Basit and their friends continued to rescue books, despite the attentions of ever-present pro-Assad snipers. Under cover of darkness they would discreetly ferry them into the library, where the books would sit in big piles until somebody could sift through them. The inside cover of each would be marked with the name and address of the place they had come from, and then they were given a reference number. After that they would be cleaned up, repaired if necessary and sorted according to author and subject matter.

  Making contact with people in Daraya was often not only difficult but unnerving. What if I was to call one of the team when they were out collecting books under the noses of snipers? The last thing they would need as they tiptoed through rubble in the darkness, taking care not to talk or make any sound, was for one of their phones to light up and start ringing. Calling them at the secret library was less of a worry in that regard, although the Wi-Fi signal in the basement was very weak and getting through in the first place was enough of a challenge. This was particularly true when it came to Skype, which tended not to work when the signal was poor. This meant I often had to make do with audio calls and even just texts at times. But like all other users, I was always made to feel welcome when calling the library, even though my visits were via the airwaves rather than physical.

  The library had been operating for a while now, and since its opening, it had also become everything from a meeting place, tea room, and education centre, to a lecture hall and a place of entertainment. I was told that as many as thirty people a day were now visiting it, which is quite impressive given that, because it was secret, people only knew where it was through word of mouth. In the course of trying to find out more about how this worked, I was told to speak with Saeed Sakka, a former pharmacy student in his early twenties. One of his tasks was to promote the library as much as possible without unduly risking its security. Saeed sent me more photos of it. One of the most interesting ones showed a kind of pinboard on the back wall with lots of notes stuck to it. Most were handwritten, enthusiastic-looking scrawls in Arabic. Given the poor light in the room, it was hard to make out either who had written them or what they referred to. I wondered at first if they might be the names and addresses of people who had failed to bring back their books on time. Was it, perhaps, Amjad’s wall of shame? But going by the dates that appeared amid many hastily written messages, the notes seemed to be notices about upcoming events.

  Saeed, a bright-eyed young man with the muscular build and steely air of a fighter, confirmed that many of the notes were, indeed, notices for an assortment of special classes held there. These seemed almost as numerous and varied as the books on the shelves. He told me: ‘We are trying to provide support for just about everyone in Daraya, people of all ages and abilities. This means there are requests to teach and lecture on a wide variety of subjects.’

  Saeed explained that over the course of time more and more locals had discovered the library and had come forward to offer their help and expertise. Now, rather than the ten or so young men who had set it up, there were more than eighty people involved in running the library, so it could offer more activities than ever. There was even a shift system in place to help keep it open for as long as possible each day, except for Fridays, when it was shut for prayers. He said they were always on the lookout for new ideas and new ways to promote the library locally without compromising its security. Sometimes, people would come up with great suggestions and if none of the secret library circle knew how to run the proposed event, they would seek help from outside. ‘In the early days,’ Saeed said, ‘some of the people we asked to help us here hadn’t even heard of the library because we have never advertised it. People still walk right past the library every day without ever knowing that it’s here. But we also have to try and ensure that the regime never finds out where it is.’

  Anas and his close friend Abdul Basit were the first people I had spoken to about the secret library. To me they both seemed such an integral part of it that I could not imagine it existing without them. Anas was keen to update me on what was happening and he confirmed that the library was fast becoming an education centre and lecture hall as well as a reading room. Classes were being held there, on everything from English, Maths and world history, to debates on literature and religion. These were usually followed by lively discussions. One
of the most memorable and popular talks was on how the Japanese city of Hiroshima had been rebuilt after it was devastated by an atomic bomb in the Second World War.

  Another lecture which fired people’s imagination was on the London Blitz during the same conflict and how the city had survived near endless bombardments. One of the most recent talks had looked at what lessons could be learned from the brutal civil war in neighbouring Iraq–a subject the people of America and Britain, among other nations, have been grappling with ever since the Coalition’s invasion in 2003.

  The fact that the library was also fulfilling a vital social function was also confirmed to me by Rateb abo Fayez, the young fighter with the FSA. ‘We all meet here to discuss Daraya’s problems and how best to deal with them. We look for ways to get as many local intellectuals and experts of all types together here. With their help we can plan the best policies for the weeks, months and years ahead. We also talk about new ways to get our movement’s aims across to the outside world and how we can go about attracting help.’ At the moment, Rateb told me, the discussion groups were divided by age. He was part of the second group, comprised of around thirty young people born between 1992 and 1995. They tried to meet once a week, depending, of course, on the security situation. Somebody would agree to lead the session and give a talk. ‘It was because of this project that I recently had to make my first public speech,’ Rateb told me. ‘I was very nervous.’

  Such nerves were evidently a thing of the past, because Rateb told me that having done many talks since then, he now considered himself a bit of a pro. He had even held classes on how to give lectures, including the kind of research you should do first. ‘When a person I have helped delivers a lecture well, I feel great satisfaction,’ he said, ‘It’s almost as if I had delivered it myself. So when thirty people have given lectures to us in the library I feel I have succeeded thirty times!’