Of course, we would make sacrifices. Some people would die. No doubt about that. But we thought that we’d never have the army attacking us. Because the world would protect us. And we all knew that the minute international forces stepped foot in Syria, the whole army would defect. They would turn on Assad and that would be it.
Beshr, student (Damascus)
My brother went to the protest outside the Egyptian embassy in Damascus, in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution. When people organized a similar protest outside the Libyan embassy, I decided to go.
By the time I got there, the demonstration was already under way. I saw this girl holding a candle. The wax was melting all over her hand, but she didn’t stop her chanting against Qadhafi.
Security guards were surrounding the embassy and recording everyone’s faces. I was a little afraid, but also so happy. Later, I called my brother in Saudi Arabia. I told him that I went to the protest and was chanting, “Freedom! Freedom!” I felt like I needed to tell him about it. I said, “You have to experience this.” I can’t describe it . . . it was like letting all the energy out of you, all the things you’d kept hidden for so many years. You felt like you’re not on this earth. Like your soul is just flying somewhere else.
I had an MP3 recorder in my pocket and recorded the protest. That was a dangerous thing to do, so I kept it hidden. I still have the recording. Even now I listen to it every month or so. I just replay it, again and again, and when I listen, I remember exactly how I felt when I held it in my pocket.
Rima, writer (Suwayda)
For no reason, a police officer assaulted someone in Hareeqa, in the old market in Damascus. In less than five minutes, hundreds gathered and started protesting against the regime. They chanted, “The Syrian people will not be humiliated!” A friend at work told me about it. He was so excited, but I couldn’t believe it was real. It was the first time in our lives that we saw or heard about anything of that sort. In less than one hour, videos of the incident were uploaded on YouTube. I watched them and was so happy that I cried. It meant that the revolution in Syria had begun.
Walid, poet (the Damascus suburbs)
We started talking about the situation in Syria. We agreed that Egypt was ready for an uprising. We figured that we needed at least five more years of political mobilization and activity before we could reach the stage that Egypt had reached. We told each other that we were going to start working toward that goal.
And then there was a call for the revolution to begin on March 15. And we went out. Just like that: The revolution began. Demonstrations were going forward . . . were we going to say, “Wait, we’re not ready, we need five more years?” No way—no, no, no, never. A revolution was going forward, we were going to go with it.
Shafiq, graduate (Daraya)
I was working with computers, so I was on the Internet 24/7. The events in Tunisia and Egypt looked so easy. Our path was open before us. Freedom and dignity were going to come.
The first Facebook page was created: the Syrian Revolution against Bashar al-Assad. They began to write: This happened, that happened, somebody did such-and-such. They set a date: March 15.
I was waiting for March 15 like I was waiting for a rendezvous. It was exciting. I needed to see March 15. The number of people signed up on the Facebook page reached twelve thousand. I imagined that one thousand would show up.
I started meeting with a guy who became one of the first activists in my town. Let me call him Nizar. He told me that I shouldn’t go to the demonstration just for the sake of it; I needed to have a specific role. I told him I could do media. He bought me a camera. We bought a shirt and made a hole in the pocket in the shape of a circle. We put the camera through it and I wore a jacket over it. He told me that as soon as I got to the protest, I should turn the camera on and leave it on. When I saw an opportunity to record, I should open my jacket.
We arrived at the Hamidiyah market in Damascus. The first person to start shouting was a man. Word spread that he was from the regime and was encouraging people to protest so they could then arrest us. Then this girl spoke out. Her dad had been arrested in 1982. She shouted, “God, Syria, freedom, and nothing else!”
No one joined her. To be honest, I was scared. Everyone was watching. But Syrians always feel affected by the bravery of a woman. A woman is not braver than me, so I’ll join. So I joined in: “God, Syria, freedom, and nothing else!” My voice got louder and louder. The chanting made me forget all about the camera.
Then the security cars came. I withdrew. I felt a sort of fear. I moved back and watched. The security forces arrived with sticks and they started to beat protestors. People from the area joined in and started to hit the protestors, too.
I felt sad. I hated the world and hated life. I felt sadness for the young guys, how they were chanting for the benefit of the entire nation and were beaten. Sadness for why things are the way they are: Why we don’t have plans, why we don’t have organization, why, why, why? I wanted to drink water, to walk away, to get out of there.
I got in a taxi and told him to take me away. I hadn’t filmed anything. I came home upset. Damn, how those guys were beat up. What if it was me who had been beaten up instead? Imagine if I was in their place and everyone was just looking at me, doing nothing.
I sat for hours, and thought, “This is a revolution. This is what happens in a revolution. I could get beat up and I could die. This is for a goal. Either I accomplish the goal or I die.” I put pressure on myself: “What’s your problem? What happened is normal. This is a corrupt regime; you shouldn’t expect anything else from it.”
Ahmed, activist (Daraa)
People say that the revolution started with the call for protest on March 15, 2011. But that wasn’t the real beginning. On March 15, people finished demonstrations and went back home. What happened on March 18 in Daraa was completely different.
A security officer named Atef Najib had become head of the Political Security Service in Daraa two years earlier. He is Bashar al-Assad’s cousin. This person was a megalomaniac. He asserted his control over everything—borders, customs, other security services, state institutions. Even traffic police. One of his decisions was to forbid people from selling land or real estate without security clearance. Then he gave his own men security clearance and sent them to buy the land at very cheap prices.
So people were already upset. Then the issue of the kids blew things up. One morning, teachers and students arrived at a local school and were surprised to see that someone had written on the wall slogans like “You’re next, Bashar” and “It’s your turn, doctor.”
Until today, no one really knows who wrote it. The school headmaster called the Political Security Service. Agents came but didn’t do any sort of investigation. They just needed to arrest somebody so they could write a report to show that they had done their job. They collected kids whose names were written on the wall, even if they’d written them years ago. Most of the kids were younger than sixteen. They tortured the kids and the kids told them everything they wanted to hear. The officers even asked them to give their friends’ names, and then the officers went and arrested those friends, too.
The kids’ families asked the local head of the Baath Party for his help. When the kids still weren’t released, the families formed a delegation to go to talk with Najib. He refused to let the kids go. Instead, he told them, “Forget your children. Go home to your wives and make more children. And if you don’t know how, bring your wives and we’ll show you how.” Word about the insult spread and soon everyone in Daraa knew.
That was Thursday, March 17. Now, let’s go back to March 15. People from the leftist parties had planned to protest in front of the Daraa city hall. My father was one of them. When they arrived, they were surprised that the place was filled with security agents waiting for them. So they just walked away, without even raising a banner or chanting a word.
The same night, intelligence agents arrested some of those men, including my dad. They in
sulted them and told them that they better not even think of demonstrating. The men were set free that night. They decided to have a march the next morning at the mosque after Friday prayers. Why the mosque? Because that’s the only place where people can gather without the security services stopping them.
The next day there were security agents stationed at Daraa’s two main mosques. So my dad’s group went to a new, small mosque, called Hamza wa Abbas. They found no officers there, but they did find the families of the arrested kids.
They had a secret signal to get the protest going. After the imam finished his sermon, someone would shout, “God is great!” Others would repeat after him and they’d all walk toward al-Omari, the major mosque in town. And that’s what happened. The kids’ families joined the protest, because they were already angry. They reached al-Omari, and people who were praying there joined the protest, too.
We expected that people would sympathize with us, but we were surprised that it took only minutes for everyone to know what was happening when they saw us marching down the street. People joined and started chanting. They came from everywhere: from houses, from streets, from other mosques. And at that moment, we were no longer in control of the situation. It became a public matter.
We hadn’t been demonstrating long when we saw helicopters bringing security agents to the municipal stadium. Buses of soldiers were already there. The demonstration gathered at the edge of the valley, which separated us from the part of town where governmental institutions are located. Security forces gathered on the other side.
Police came. The mayor and officer who arrested the kids came, too. They threatened to arrest and kill people if they didn’t back down. That made people even angrier. They continued demonstrating and then started to throw stones. The security forces opened fire. Two people were killed. A third was injured and later died from his wounds.
People in Daraa might have gone home that night and tried to find another solution if the regime hadn’t shot and killed people. The next day, people went to the funeral for the martyrs and started chanting against the regime. Demonstrations continued and security forces killed more people. And at that point, we realized that protest couldn’t be turned back. The situation changed from a political idea to a popular movement.
Muntaser, journalist (Daraa)
My brother was at the Hamza wa Abbas mosque. Everything was planned in complete secrecy. We didn’t know if the protest would actually happen until it did.
I was waiting at al-Omari mosque. When I first saw the demonstration coming toward me, it was a weird feeling. I was so happy that I was going to cry. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Until then, we’d only had pro-regime marches.
The first two martyrs were killed. The second day there was a funeral procession. We didn’t expect anyone to participate, because of the killing that had happened the previous day. But we went to the funeral and more than 150,000 people attended. People came from all the surrounding villages.
Everyone agreed that the regime is criminal, but we were afraid to go out. Then the chance came to us. If we lost it, did that mean we’d never be able to go out again? Also, we knew that if we went back, the regime would come and arrest all the young people who had protested that first day. They’d all die in prison. So there was no choice. We entered a road with no return.
Abu Tha’ir, engineer (Daraa)
The first protest was on Friday. Then there were funerals and more demonstrations. On Tuesday night, a sit-in began at al-Omari mosque. Around three o’clock in the morning, regime forces stormed the mosque from all directions. They killed dozens and injured at lot more. They burnt holy books and wrote things on the wall like “Do not kneel for God. Kneel for Assad.”
People in all the surrounding villages heard about the massacre in al-Omari mosque and started coming to Daraa city. They entered, calling, “Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful.” And then security forces opened fire on them. Imagine: This village has ten dead. This village has five dead. This village has three dead. This has two dead.
This is how the revolution exploded in the entire province. The government sent dead to every village. The funerals began. And imagine, each funeral becomes a demonstration. If I ever write a book about this, I’ll call it How to Spark a Revolution in One Week.
Husayn, playwright (Aleppo)
When the revolution began in Egypt, we were on Facebook giving Egyptians advice and sharing revolutionary songs. We felt like we were in Tahrir Square along with them.
And then the first demonstration occurred in Daraa. In Aleppo, I heard about it and wrote a Facebook status in support. I didn’t hit “enter” to share it; I was too scared. My fingers were on the keyboard. I told myself that it was shameful that I was sharing things to support revolution in Egypt, but when the same things were happening in my own country, I was too afraid to do anything.
So I finally hit “enter.” I went to bed sure that the regime’s people were going to arrest me the next morning.
Abu Tarek, engineer (rural Hama)
I called my friends in Daraa and asked them what was happening over there. We all felt moved. But what was the solution? What should we do?
In my village, we sit together in the evenings and play cards and chess. We talked with each other and decided: Friday, March 25. We should have a demonstration, going out from the biggest mosque in Hama.
The regime knew that something might happen, so it sent its people to calm things down. The former secretary for the local wing of the Baath Party was at the mosque. He’d been the secretary during the 1982 events. The imam invited him to speak to the crowd, and he said, “Nothing happened in Daraa. Everything you’re hearing is lies.”
People had accumulated so much anger over the years, pent-up anger that needed to be released. They started shouting, “Shut up! Don’t tell us what to do! You’re shameful and corrupt!” And then everyone got up and marched out of the mosque. We walked only three hundred meters before the security forces rushed into the crowd and started beating us.
The next Friday, the security forces started beating people while they were still inside the mosque. They didn’t even give us the chance to leave. Despite that, the second demonstration was even bigger than the first. All of Hama was saying: We’re going to march.
I have a cousin who didn’t support protest. He’d say, “This isn’t the right time. There’s no preparation. We’re not organized.” My response was that the regime was going to prevent us from organizing forever. We weren’t allowed to have a political party or a newspaper or a meeting. I had to get security clearance to invite fifteen people to my house to listen to someone tell stories.
The regime didn’t want change. It was in control. It had five hundred thousand security force officers and the entire economy in its grip. At some point we had to confront it.
Kareem, doctor (Homs)
March 18 was the first demonstration in Homs. Friday prayers ended and people marched out of the mosque, chanting. Security agents were waiting for them at the gate. They grabbed most of them and dragged them away on buses. The demonstration was immediately aborted.
The next Friday was March 25. My friends and I were drinking coffee together, as we did every Friday. We didn’t think anything was going to happen. And then we started to hear a loud noise. Hooooo! It was people! We went down to the street. Hoooo! A huge number of people. They were marching from the old city toward downtown.
We couldn’t believe it! Is it real? Others joined, and it grew and grew and became an enormous demonstration. I joined, too. The security forces were there, but were shocked and didn’t know what to do.
People chanted for about three hours. Then busloads of regime supporters arrived, most of them Alawites. They threw stones and then both groups were throwing stones at each other. Security forces intervened. They shot tear gas and arrested a lot of people.
One of the protestors climbed the wall of the Military Officers’ Club and tore down the picture of Hafez
al-Assad. He stomped on the picture until he tore it to pieces. When this scene was broadcast on television, people couldn’t believe their eyes.
Fridays passed and each demonstration was larger than the one the week before. If you came to Homs during the week you’d think that life was normal. Stores were open and people went to work. But the security forces had videos of the demonstrations and were arresting anyone who appeared in them.
On Fridays, security forces filled the main square downtown and set up checkpoints to prevent people from getting there. In response, every neighborhood started launching its own demonstration. Even people who don’t normally pray would come to the mosques just to participate in the demonstration. Everyone had this thirst to do something. There was confidence that we could overthrow the president by peaceful protest alone.
Ziyad, doctor (Homs)
Once, a young man entered one of the mosques in Homs. You could see a necklace around his neck, but the rest of it was tucked inside his shirt. He lined up and prayed with everyone else. And when he bowed, the necklace fell out. The pendant was a cross. People said to him, “Either you’re wearing that necklace by mistake, or you came to the mosque by mistake.” And the Christian young man said, “I came here to go out in the demonstration with all of you.”
Miriam, former student (Aleppo)
One Friday, my brother went to the mosque, where there was supposed to be a protest. As they finished the prayer, he thought to himself, “Why is it always someone else who starts the chanting? This time, I’m going to be the one!”
So he stood up and started chanting, “God is great!” And everyone just stared at him. It turned out that they had changed the location of the protest.
We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled Page 6