A Woman in the Crossfire

by Samar Yazbek

  This morning the doorbell starts ringing early, at 5:30 a.m. In the building where I live now there is only the old people’s apartment and a dentist on the ground floor. We are practically the only residents, that old woman who lives with her half-crippled husband and I. The two of them are tragically alone and I would tip-toe past their door coming from and going to the top floor where I live, because she is sure to open up and make me stand there for a long time as she talks about her loneliness and her sadness over the death of her only daughter. At first I stood there and listened, I would visit, but that meant spending half the day there and furthermore, it would mean spending my entire day in a foul mood. There is something agonizing about the life of those two elderly people, something that makes the way I think about oblivion more concrete. Two lonely old people in Damascus, with no children and hardly any relatives who ever show up. They live in a fusty apartment, which hints that they once had money; their problem was never poverty but rather that life has passed them both by, or that death has passed over them as well. This is painful for me to see. Today her husband falls down on the ground and throws up. As usual I fall asleep to news that made me wake up in pain from grinding my teeth together. The news of the refugees is saddening.

  I don’t know what I am supposed to do. The old man has nearly lost consciousness, the old woman raves and curses her life, their house smells fusty and the whole place is a mess. I stayed to help her for a while. I was shaking by the time I finally left. I think for a few seconds how my nerves were so badly frayed that I would start crying at the least painful sight. The old woman looked into my eyes, and my face felt redder than usual as I told her that all she had to do was call and I would be there at any hour, that I was like her own daughter. Tears streamed from her eyes as she threw herself into my arms. She was frail. I was trembling. She said, “Ahhh, my girl, if you only knew how much her death stings my heart.” I said, “Auntie, God rest her soul, this is God’s plan.” I got up, put back her headscarf that had fallen and walked away so she wouldn’t be able to see my own tears. I didn’t even look back, quickly climbing the steps. There’s nothing left. That’s right, there’s nothing in this life worth celebrating.

  The images rush past my eyes, horrifying images from when Syrians started getting killed and imprisoned and mutilated and dumped in mass graves. Now there are pictures of the refugees on the screen, showing how they live. Simple folk say that they ran away from tanks that did not distinguish between young and old, between women and men. Every day they appear on television, talking about being chased as they ran away, how they left everything behind, escaping with their lives even as the Syrian army continued sending reinforcements.

  The strange thing is that they forced them out of their homes and then chased after them as they fled. It wasn’t enough to kill them and displace them in order to teach them a lesson. They had to follow after anyone who was still alive – this is madness.

  Today the president gives his speech, which is shocking and frightening and even worse than the last two. His appearance conveys wilful ignorance. The Syrians are angry and go out to demonstrate against the speech. The president keeps saying there is a conspiracy, that there were gangs. He doesn’t recognize the suffocating crisis the country is living through. From time to time he laughs and pedantically explains some bit of common knowledge. He is a cartoonish Frankenstein, reciting a stilted book report about the mechanics of organized, premeditated crime. The Syrian people answer back: Urban demonstrations in Homs and Hama, Idlib and Aleppo and a number of Syrian cities. His speech makes a mockery of Syrian blood and it spells, in brief, the continuation of the military-security solution.

  Following the president’s speech, state television announces the discovery of a mass grave in Jisr al-Shughur – they say it contained security forces and army soldiers. It is the third grave they show. The bodies have been dismembered and disfigured, and they are shown on screen. The people of Jisr al-Shughur and the defecting army officers say it was security agents and members of the army who carried out the killing, and who dug mass graves in order to slap the charge on armed men and confirm the official narrative: The annihilation of the city was intended to cleanse it of these armed men.

  The madness continues and the killing continues. The regime says day after day, Either us or this scorched earth policy and whatever remains of your remains, O Syrians.

  I am waiting for something to happen, despite my lack of confidence. I am really hoping for a miracle to save this country from perdition.

  21 June 2011

  ..............................

  Today there is a massive demonstration in support of the president. All public employees have been coerced to go out or they will be fired and shamed publicly. They turn everyone who works in government agencies into security forces and anyone who doesn’t do as they’re told is kicked out. Walking through the streets I notice the faces of the supporters, and as usual my tears precede me. 40 years have passed, my entire life, and in spite of all the torments I had been through, I never cried like this before. In just a few months a woman like me finds out what a flood of tears looks like, a few months in a life gone by, a sad life. I don’t regret what happened, the uprising has renewed my faith in ideas about life and justice and strength. I am out in the streets searching for something I had lost, something I imagine. I notice it in the face of the young men and women as they ride around Damascus on top of sports cars, carrying flags and pictures of the president. The young ladies wear lots of makeup and are beautiful, as though they have been invited to a party; the shiny black cars become a parade clogging up the streets of Damascus. I step to the side and watch. I cannot stay at home but I should go back there in order to add to the story of what happened in Jableh. Jableh, my city, where I was born, which is now off-limits to me. A lot of things are off-limits, but somehow I still feel satisfaction tugging at my heart like a thin string of happiness, like a thread made of dust.

  The story of Jableh

  My awesome girlfriend who volunteers to go to Jableh and bring back stories of what happened was also from the city. Her family lives there. Unfortunately, it is not possible for me to send her to the Alawite villages as well because, by accident of birth, she belongs to the Sunni community but we agreed to put out these diaries concerning what actually happened, to report the truth of the events. Our idea was to report what had taken place in the city where we grew up, which was shrouded in murky news that is hard to confirm given the dense deployment of security forces and shabbiha and minions of the Assad clan there. After her ten-day tour during which she conducted a number of interviews, she told me I was as good as dead to most Alawites. They consider me a traitor, whereas the people of Jableh sympathize with me and think I am on their side. What a nightmarish tragedy. What is the logic of justice and what is the logic of truth?

  Here is a testimony of a young man from Jableh:

  “After Bouthaina Shaaban came out with her speech full of jobrelated and political promises,” he says, “Jableh witnessed daily demonstrations in support of the regime and we heralded the beginnings of change in Syria. The daily pro-regime marches in the streets of Jableh became inflammatory and exhausting for our spirits and our nerves. How could we not get annoyed when there was no human sympathy? Our first attempt began as a humane and human desire to articulate our refusal of injustice and our rejection of state media lies. We would have successfully protested on the Friday after the massacre in Dar‘a by coming out of the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque if we had not been surprised to find it surrounded by fire trucks. They brutally dealt with a young man who loudly opposed the presence of security agents inside the mosque. The first Friday only got as far as an indoor sit-in even though the support and encouragement among those who were praying inside the mosque was huge.

  “The next Friday we succeeded in getting out of the mosque and into the square we dubbed Freedom Square because it was the first square to witness our attempts at going out and organizin
g our ranks, and because it was the safest area for us to assemble. That was a big Friday with huge hordes and tons of supporters. Our slogans called for freedom and support for the people of Dar‘a and Douma, focusing on slogans that would reassure our brothers and sisters in the Alawite sect and encourage them to join us in rejecting the language of blood and conflict. We kept on going out after evening prayer, there were more people every day, from all different classes – doctors and engineers, unemployed people and university students. Even women joined us, as did some of our brothers from the countryside and from neighbouring villages. Our slogans at this point didn’t exceed demands for reform, the combating of corruption and calls for freedom.”

  I stop here to think over these details. I know what that young man means by corruption in Jableh and how the security forces and the regime shabbiha control the city, how some corrupt Alawite officers and businessmen were reported to have bought up the city, illegally and shockingly turning its people into tools in their hands. These are the places and streets I knew and grew up in as I changed from a little girl into a young woman, where I had so many memories. My school was in a mostly Sunni neighbourhood, but back then there weren’t any problems between us. Most of my childhood friends were Sunnis and I didn’t even know what the words Sunni or Alawite meant. I found out when I was a little bit older and went to high school.

  The young man continues: “We kept on going out every day for two weeks without any security or army or shabbiha coming near us. If there was any movement on the part of the representatives at all, it seemed to be in making arrangements to deal with our employment and cost-of-living problems. They were cosmetic changes without any meaningful treatment of the issues, so we responded by calling for justice. They didn’t understand that our demands weren’t only concerned with jobs and the cost of living, that they were bigger than that. They were existential and had to do with freedom we hadn’t felt the sensation of for 41 years, with democracy and party pluralism, with changing the constitution that deified the single Party and enthroned the dictator. We also called for equality of opportunity, for the corrupt and the thieves who plundered us and plundered our future and our aspirations to be punished, for a dignified and just life that would achieve equality of opportunity regardless of the connections or favouritism that Jableh perhaps suffers from more than any other city or province. Jableh swarms with corrupt people and is full of villas and palaces owned by those with influence, even as entire neighbourhoods and villages go without electricity or water or any chance of a decent life for them or their children, all because they don’t have any influence. The corruption in Jableh reached the point where the city is the property of one or two figures who bought up most of the properties and land under other people’s names in order to obfuscate and cover it up, but everybody knows all the details. Everybody knows these facts by heart.

  “Our protests peaked on the Friday of Dignity, 22 April 2011, which they called Great Friday. It was the largest protest Jableh had ever seen. More than three thousand people took part, including a large number of women. One of those was the mother of the activist T.B., who is still in prison; she was carried on the people’s shoulders as she chanted, O Jableh, Where are your men, O Jableh! Our slogans included: One One One, Sunni and Alawite are One! and O Noble People of Jableh, Answer the Call of Freedom! All our slogans always encouraged our brothers and sisters in the Alawite community to join us. When some of them did we realized full well how great the pressures and the difficulties were that surrounded their joining us. Over time our slogans evolved and we started to call boldly and clearly for the fall of the regime. On that Friday we marched through all of the neighbourhoods of Jableh with huge crowds until we reached the family home of Atef Najib. We called for him to be brought to justice for every drop of blood that was spilled in Dar‘a and for him to be prosecuted for his crimes. This was the first contact we had with members of the Alawite sect who rejected our demonstrations and our slogans. They blocked our path, meeting us armed with sticks and knives along with a large number of residents, standing in the way of our right to revenge. At this point a local shaykh got involved and addressed the young men, urging them to go home. They retraced their steps toward the cinema roundabout near Jableh town hall, where they collectively held evening prayer in the street before dispersing. One group went home while another decided to keep demonstrating. They headed on foot to the al-Amara roundabout, chanting for freedom and the martyrs. There were no more than a hundred, maybe two hundred of them and this was the second time Alawites prevented the demonstrators from advancing, blocking their way to the roundabout with fire trucks that began spraying the demonstrators with water as neighbourhood residents joined in pelting the demonstrators with rocks and vegetables. Curses were exchanged and one eyewitness reported that a resident of the al-Amara neighbourhood opened fire in the air in order to frighten them after rumours spread that the demonstrators had come to the neighbourhood in order to kill them and break into their homes and capture their women. In their pro-regime demonstrations they marched through every neighbourhood and we never opposed them or bothered them. Why wouldn’t they let us peacefully demonstrate with our slogans the way they do? Are the streets theirs and theirs alone? That Friday ended with tensions running high between the two sects and nasty rumours on both sides, promises and threats, and nobody knew who started those rumours or where they had come from.

  “The next day there was a pro-regime march in which cars and motorcycles went all over Jableh led by a Hyundai Tucson with a big mounted machine gun for all to see. When it passed by the Corniche, some young Sunni men from the neighbourhood blocked the street with trashcans and carried sticks and hunting rifles, in preparation for any direct contact between the two sides, especially since news of an armed assault had spread throughout Jableh. The real contact between the two sects took place after the Tucson opened fire and quickly sped away, jumping the curb with terrifying speed. Eyewitnesses from the neighbourhood said that a young man from the village of Zama was wounded and the young Sunni men rushed him away for treatment. The young men joined in breaking up the clashes and moving young Alawite men to safety, far away from the tense square.

  “After this dangerous incident, high-level connections were called in by some of the well-known financial and commercial residents of Jableh in order to mend what had started to unravel between the two communities through reciprocal visits, in order to calm down the situation and bring it back to the way it was before. The mediators succeeded and both sides came out together in a joint march, chanting, Sunnis and Alawites are One, exchanging kisses and greetings. The early signs of tension that were clear for everyone to see came to an end and along with them the story of the popular checkpoints that had been set up after rumours spread about each sect attacking the other in order to kill them and put an end to their existence. These rumours had spread like wildfire throughout Jableh and its villages after we started going out to call for freedom. To this day, neither side knows the truth or the source of those rumours. One likely explanation was that they were a security fabrication, a threat from the regime regarding what would happen if security, safety and stability were lost, especially when there had been news of young men from the villages and from the Communist Party joining our demonstrations, no longer afraid of hoisting banners that called for the fall of the regime. The fear barrier had been broken. After this dangerous incident, we thought about evacuating Freedom Square to outside the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque in order to avoid any confrontation with the other sect. Our battle isn’t with the sect. The regime is our problem and we understand all too well how it seeks to hide behind the Alawite sect and exploit their fears in order to stay in power.

  “The next week, Sunday afternoon to be specific, after the new governor in Latakia had been appointed, he came to see us, wishing to meet with city representatives and some of the young people of Jableh at the mosque at Freedom Square in order to hear our demands and needs. The meeting between the
two sides ended two hours later with the young people announcing, We want to topple the regime! At this point the governor stormed out, vowing, “Now I’ll show you all.” The very same day the city witnessed a substantial deployment of security forces and the army as well as a large number of regime shabbiha dressed in civilian clothes but who were distinguished by their tennis shoes and, of course, armed to the teeth with weapons and ammunition. Two hours after the meeting was over, public safety in Jableh was divided on a sectarian basis, with dirt barricades set up in all the Sunni neighbourhoods, particularly in all the ‘zones of disturbance’, as they called them. The partition started outside the Teachers’ Union and extended all the way to Jableh Stadium. Large trucks set up dirt and sand barricades at the entrance to the city and the entrances to the well-known neighbourhoods (al-‘Azza, al-Dariba, al-Jirkis, al-Saliba, al-Fayd); snipers were stationed on top of government buildings, giving them free rein to look down on the streets and easily watch all the action, destroying any green space in order to expose the area for them, like the Jableh cemetery, which had most of its famous ancient green trees chopped down at the root.

  “The activity in the city that day was abnormal – suddenly a substantial and intimidating security presence on a calm and natural day where nothing seemed to indicate the need for such forces in a small city like Jableh. In less than two and a half hours, without any warning or alert, Jableh started to hear the heavy gunfire of a chaotic attack. For many hours throughout the day, shooting continued to blanket the city, forcing people to hide wherever they were, in stores, for example, to avoid being hit by bullets. They didn’t know the reasons for all that gunfire, or who the targets were. A premeditated massacre befell the people of Jableh, with brutality and fury never before seen in its modest history. Nine young men were killed and many others were wounded. They prevented ambulances from arriving, which they might have targeted anyway. We were able to get some of the wounded out of there and into the neighbourhood mosque in order to treat them and prevent the theft of their organs by the regime shabbiha at the national hospital, as had happened with a young man from the Al Jum’a family. He had been assisted by K.Q. in his own responsibility as a member of the People’s Council. Only the young man came out with his neck slit all the way down to his stomach, in spite of the fact that his original injury was to the foot. We depended upon doctors who hadn’t been taken away for arrest and torture on the charge of aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists and infiltrators. It was obvious that the regime shabbiha were using very sophisticated weaponry and a kind of explosive ammunition that either killed people or completely incapacitated them. We were trying to help one guy who had been hit in the head by sniper fire, it was unreal to see his brains spill out like that. At that point we used the imam’s cap to scoop his brains back inside his head. It was a sight I’ll never, ever forget. Most of the martyrs had to be buried in secret and far away. Before allowing anyone to recover and bury the bodies, security required people to sign a form stating that the ones who killed them were armed men and saboteurs. Only a limited number of family members were allowed to be in the presence of the security agents.