Syria's Secret Library

by Mike Thomson

  One of the most powerful of these extremist groups was the al-Nusra Front. After joining other Islamist militia groups, it took over large swathes of north-western Syria in early 2015. Al-Nusra was officially linked to al-Qaeda until the summer of 2016, when it claimed to have cut these ties, changing its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham or JFS. Despite this change of name and alleged break from al-Qaeda, many believed this was a largely cosmetic exercise aimed at placating locals, many of whom distrusted foreign-dominated groups such as al-Qaeda. Few of JFS’s leaders were Syrian and while the group’s aim of deposing President Assad was shared by most in Daraya, its views on what should replace him were very different. Like IS, it wanted to create a state run under sharia law, and had no truck with democracy, freedom of speech and human rights. Though unlike IS, JFS focused on creating an Islamic state within Syria, rather than seeking global jihad. Also, the group had largely rejected IS’s practice of publicly beheading opponents and sometimes held back on enforcing sharia law in areas where local people did not want it. Nonetheless, the organisation continued to be viewed as a terrorist organisation by the UN, the United States and many other countries.

  As the weeks passed by there was still no word from Abdul Basit, Sara, Anas, Amjad and all the others since their evacuation from Daraya. I began to fear that they had either been arrested by Syrian security forces or fallen foul of extremist groups in Idlib, but took comfort from the strong possibility that their silence was instead down to their inability to get online. Either that or the demands of surviving in a strange new city meant they simply lacked the time to get in touch. After all, with no home, few local contacts and no way of getting money to buy food, survival might have become their sole concern.

  On the morning of Monday, 12 September 2016, President Bashar al-Assad marked the public holiday of Eid al-Adha by joining prayers at a mosque. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, except that this particular mosque was in the heart of Daraya. Little more than two weeks after the town’s besieged population had been evacuated, the Syrian leader was making his presence felt. In a video aired on Syrian state TV, Assad drove himself to Daraya’s Saad Ibn Muaz Mosque. This highly choreographed move aimed to highlight that his forces were in total control of the town, a place that until so very recently had been an iconic symbol of rebel resistance to his rule. The defiant president did not stop there. Just hours before a forty-eight-hour national ceasefire took effect, he used the occasion to make a vow. His forces, he said, would retake every inch of Syria from the ‘terrorists’ who opposed him. This threat did not bode well for evacuees from Daraya, who were starting new lives in rebel-held Idlib.

  That same week a text arrived on my phone. It read: Mike, it is Abdul Basit. I am in Idlib now. I am safe.

  I read this several times. Then read it again. Abdul Basit had made it. The warm and sensitive young man that I had come to think of as ‘the poet’ of Daraya, because of his imaginative descriptions of life around him, had survived. Ever since the recent death of his friend Omar, I had feared the worst. Although Abdul Basit was a civilian, not a front-line fighter like Omar, I had become pessimistic. The sudden loss of this idealistic and optimistic young man had left me fearing for all his circle. I enthusiastically tapped out a response. How was he, and what news did he have about everyone else from Daraya? But when I tried to send my message, Abdul Basit was no longer online.

  Three days later I finally managed to speak to him over the phone. He sounded tired and a little depressed, but gradually brightened as our conversation went on. I asked a flurry of questions. What had his journey been like? How was Idlib? What had happened to Anas, Sara, Amjad, Muhammad, Ayham and the rest? Clearly a little overwhelmed by my verbal barrage, the line went quiet for a few seconds. Then Abdul Basit replied that he had only seen a few of them but there was no reason to worry about the others because he was sure that they were all OK. This was wonderful news. And it was about to get better. I could hear somebody talking to Abdul Basit in the background and theirs was a voice I knew well. It was Muhammad! I shouted at the phone. My greeting was met swiftly by a bright Hello, Mike! I soon learned that Abdul Basit had also seen Anas, who was safe and well, and he promised to text me his new number.

  While I digested this wonderful news, Abdul Basit began describing his momentous journey out of shattered Daraya, on 27 August 2016. ‘When I got on the bus I held my head high. I looked out of the window at all the supporters of Assad. They were standing there looking at us with smug faces, as if we were dirt. Yet I felt victorious, because it seemed to me that they were the ones who were weak, not us. We had been outnumbered, starved and bombed for four years, yet it took them all that time to make us leave. Over those years we had achieved so much together. We had carried on learning in our secret library, carried on resisting, carried on striving for a better world. Yes, freedom and democracy had lost out for now, but they would triumph eventually. I was certain of that.’

  Muhammad, now sitting right next to his friend, nodded in recognition at what he had said. He told me how, on looking out of the bus’s window, he had been amazed at the size and power of the troops he saw. All held at bay, for so long, by Daraya’s comparatively small rebel force. ‘We drove past all these really heavy fortifications. Three lines of defence, sandbags, with trenches filled with water so that nobody could get under them. Our defenders numbered just a few hundred people yet here was the whole Syrian army ranged against us. We must have terrified them.’

  Abdul Basit described how much inner strength this had given him at an otherwise sad and desperate time. He had stared intently at the scenery as the bus drove away. He wanted, he told me, to remember every sight and every sound, just in case he could never come home again. The convoy went around the outskirts of Daraya and on through the old quarter of Damascus. Familiar landmarks flashed by: favourite shops and museums, and a bakery that Muhammad had loved as a student. An ocean of memories sailing past. After a while Mezzeh military airbase, which is just outside the town, came into view. That was where most of the planes that had bombed Daraya took off from, and it was the launch site for many of the rockets and shells that had bombarded the area, killing and maiming men, women and children. Abdul Basit said he had glared at the base, eyeballing the soldiers who patrolled outside. Anger had welled up in his stomach. Outside of his home town for the first time in years, he remembered being shocked by what he saw: ‘I only discovered the true scale of the devastation when I left Daraya,’ he told me. ‘As we drove along the motorway, which has a view of the town, I was staggered by the destruction. My town was almost completely destroyed.’

  Abdul Basit revealed how the pride he felt in his community’s achievements began dissolving into bitterness when he thought of what their stand had cost. Though it had been a battle, he thought, that had been lost by humanity and not the people of Daraya alone. As the journey continued, his mood had darkened further. They had been failed, he insisted, by almost everyone. ‘Instead of helping to evacuate us from our beloved town, why didn’t the Red Cross and UN stop this ethnic cleansing? I felt so angry at that moment. I thought of everyone outside Daraya as traitors. I really felt that deeply. It seemed to me that every single person who said they sympathised with us was a liar, because they just stood by and let this happen.’

  As the coach drove on, Abdul Basit’s mood had failed to improve. He remembered feeling that without the town he loved, the town that now lay in ruins, life did not seem worth living any more.

  As the buses drew up at the military checkpoints along the way, government soldiers would stop the convoy and raise their guns at those on board. It seemed to Muhammad that they were trying to provoke the FSA fighters travelling with them and carrying their light weapons. They would be sitting ducks if a firefight started. At one of these stops, Abdul Basit told me that the level of intimidation reached a whole new level. Guns were aimed at each of the evacuees as they were asked to confirm their identity. Some were shouted at and pushed around
and although both UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent officials were there, they stayed in the background, not saying a word. It was thought that the soldiers were taking revenge for being stopped–by international officials overseeing the evacuation–from getting people’s fingerprints before the buses left Daraya. In the end, after being questioned for five hours, the convoy was finally allowed to move on. Each of the buses was separated by a gap of around a hundred metres, and the convoy was escorted by cars and helicopters bristling with weapons. This journey into the unknown was a frightening experience for all on board, especially the women and children.

  Abdul Basit told me how his spirits rose a little on seeing how weak the once mighty Assad regime appeared to have become. It certainly could not claim to run all of the country now. Before the war, he told me, the journey from Daraya to Hama would have taken no more than three hours, yet it took their coach more than twelve. The reason for this, aside from the checkpoints, was that pro-Assad forces did not control much of the road. Both the FSA and IS had taken over long stretches of it, and in these areas government forces did not dare to show their faces. Even though Abdul Basit said he despised IS, and their presence on the road made his journey much longer, he felt oddly elated. While travelling on roads controlled by the regime’s soldiers, Abdul Basit felt void and empty, but whenever they crossed into rebel areas, the atmosphere improved so much. Heart-warming celebrations greeted his bus, rice and flowers were thrown at the windows as their convoy passed by. ‘This made us feel so welcome, so happy, even though we had left behind all I knew in Daraya.’

  The first time this happened, a grinning Muhammad told me, a child at the back of the bus asked why the people were doing this, saying all that rice would have made a wonderful soup. But one of his fondest memories was when they reached a checkpoint in a rebel-held area. Lots of people greeted the evacuees in a wide variety of cars and small trucks. There were even some military vehicles, with anti-aircraft guns, amongst them. It was, he told me with a smile, a heart-warming and inspiring scene: ‘Lots of people were firing their guns into the air as a kind of salute to us. The amount of bullets they used could almost have saved Daraya, because we had virtually run out by the end. But amazingly, here in the north, they had plenty of ammunition. It was a great show of support. But I couldn’t help seeing all this as a bit of a paradox. Here were all these guns and bullets in rebel hands, yet none of them had been used to save Daraya.’

  Muhammad said that his memories of the journey faded at that point because he had fallen asleep. It was, after all, late at night, and he was very tired after such a stressful and exhausting few days. Abdul Basit, on the other hand, stayed wide awake throughout the journey, but said he felt like closing his eyes on seeing the terrible devastation outside his window. He was deeply saddened to see so many schools, mosques, factories and farms in utter ruins. Lifeless, structural corpses, lying in broken heaps. All further evidence, he said, if any was needed, of how much damage the regime had done. Much of the destruction, he believed, had been in revenge, spiteful acts against any area that had opposed the dictatorial regime. It was all, he said, a callous demonstration from Assad that this is what will happen to all who stand in his way. Abdul Basit then opened his mouth to speak, before shaking his head and turning away, having clearly decided that some thoughts or memories are best left unsaid. He told me later: ‘As the bus drove on other dark thoughts poured into my mind, but I cannot describe them now. There are some things in the heart that can’t be spoken. It is perhaps better that they are left buried where they are.’

  With those words Abdul Basit went quiet, his thoughts saved from further questions by a faltering Internet connection, which crackled and squawked before finally dropping out altogether. When I managed to reach him again a little later, he seemed revived. He told me, with great enthusiasm, about the warm reception he and others from Daraya had received on their arrival in Idlib. They had been met by swarms of well-meaning locals, clutching blankets, pots, pans and all sorts of food. Instead of the newcomers having to plead for help, those welcoming them almost fought for the privilege of looking after them. Some of those offering assistance, Abdul Basit explained, were visibly upset when others beat them to it.

  Within hours, he was given an apartment to live in. Its owner had moved out to stay with relatives, in order to make his home available. Abdul Basit said he was deeply moved by this extraordinary hospitality towards strangers, from people who had so little themselves. Yet he continued to miss the company of others from Daraya, some of whom, he heard, had gone to live in camps outside the city.

  Before long, perhaps inevitably, our conversation turned to the subject of books. Which ones, I asked him, had he managed to take with him from Daraya’s secret library? ‘Sadly,’ he told me, ‘we weren’t allowed to take any books, may God ruin Assad! He is the enemy of knowledge, the enemy of education, the enemy of humanity. His soldiers didn’t allow us to take a single book. All we could put in our backpacks were a few spare clothes. If I could, I would have taken nothing but books, and left the clothes behind. In fact, I would have taken the whole secret library with me. I promise you, I really would.’

  I asked Abdul Basit, who was still visibly angry about this, what books he would have most liked to have taken with him, had he been able to. He replied that one of the many titles he would have liked to bring was This is What Life Taught Me by Mustafa al-Siba’i, a former Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Damascus University, which had been a gift from his father after Abdul Basit had passed his university entrance exams. He sighed and smiled gently. Another that would definitely have been on the list, was his old favourite: ‘Hamlet is an extraordinary book, such a wonderful piece of literature. Every time I read it I am taken to a different world. It has given me such deep and powerful memories.’

  Yet another contender, the title of which Abdul Basit could not quite recall, was a kind of self-help book about how to overcome difficulties and take your life in a positive direction. He had passed it on to a close friend, whose whole outlook on life had been changed by what he read: ‘My friend was a total hash addict,’ Abdul Basit said, ‘who sat around doing nothing but smoking the stuff all day. His life was going nowhere. Then, after reading the book, he gave up smoking the drug and got involved with all kinds of good and creative things in the community.’ Abdul Basit clearly took great joy in being the one who had passed this life-changing book on. And there are many others, he told me with boyish excitement, that he would love to have brought with him. ‘Those are just the books I have read that I love so much. There are also thousands of others that I have not read yet and am aching to discover. I would like to have taken those too.’

  Having managed to make contact with both Abdul Basit and Muhammad, my hopes of finding others from Daraya were growing by the day. This tight-knit community seemed to have stayed that way, despite all being parted in the evacuation. Proof of that arrived on a chilly autumn morning in London. It took the form of a brief WhatsApp message from Abdul Basit. Beneath a polite enquiry about my well-being was a contact number for his close friend and co-founder of the secret library, Anas Habib. I was told that he was well and keen to talk to me again. This was very cheering news and I wasted no time in dialling his number. After several attempts a voice emerged through the crackles and bleeps. It was Anas. We hadn’t talked or exchanged texts since news of the evacuation, yet here he was on the line. I began by asking him if he was in Idlib: ‘Yes, Mike, thanks be to God, I am in Idlib, near the Turkish border. It is far from home but conditions here are so much better than in Daraya. Thankfully we are no longer under siege or being shelled and shot at. There is food here, whatever you can think of, I have found somewhere to sleep and local people are very kind.’

  Anas told me that the people he missed the most from Daraya, were those he had become close to during the siege. Friendships forged during such traumatic times of shared pain and suffering tend to endure better than most. After all, if you can get along
well during harrowing periods like those, ordinary life should be a comparative walk in the park. Anas had come to love this unity and regretted that it was harder to find in Idlib. Also, he told me, some people there held very different views about the aims of the revolution to the evacuees from Daraya. They wanted sharia law not democracy and civil rights. For Anas, this was definitely troubling: ‘It’s a new world that is not pure in the way Daraya was. I’m not comfortable here, within myself. I’m not at peace any more.’

  One thing that I knew would have consoled Anas in these challenging times was books. I wondered if he had somehow managed to smuggle out a couple of his favourites from the library before leaving Daraya. Shaking his head, Anas told me that he didn’t even think about doing that. He had heard rumours that others who had done this had come to regret it. He later discovered that the regime’s soldiers searched everyone’s bags very thoroughly, and would have found anything he had hidden. That would have meant that the books, which didn’t belong to him anyway, would have been lost for ever. He hoped that, in leaving them all behind in Daraya, they would at least still be there when he managed to go back. But this topic got Anas thinking about one book above all others that he would love to have packed. ‘It is a collection of poems that I adore,’ he told me. ‘It’s called The Tears of Men by Faisal bin Mohamad Alhaj. I would have given so much to have this with me now because it so closely reflects my mood.’

  The Tears of Men

  Never dead are those who left the world to the tombs,

  If what they died for is preserved in our will and carried in our hearts.23