A Woman in the Crossfire
Page 30
If the country was in something of an economic and political holding pattern through the late 2000s and early 2010s, Syria was plunged into a tailspin in the winter of 2011 as a growing number of people – informed by concurrent events elsewhere in the region – began to demand constitutional reform and greater public freedoms, including the abrogation of emergency rule, the removal of the constitutional clause securing the Ba‘th Party as “the leading party in state and society” and the elimination of other repressive features of the Syrian constitutional, legal and political landscape. Indeed, by the summer the Syrian regime seemed poised to roll out certain constitutional and political reforms that would defang the mobilization that was snowballing all over the country.
As of this writing, however, and more than a year later, Syrians are still struggling to win these basic demands as well as to reclaim their human dignity and some modicum of control over their political destiny. Living in Damascus with her adolescent daughter at the time, Samar Yazbek was among those brave Syrians who instinctively took action in support of the incipient uprising. A Woman in the Crossfire will survive as a remarkable documentation of the heady early days of the Syrian uprising, just as the “fear barrier” in Syria was crumbling and new feelings of possibility and hope sparkled in the eyes of Syrians at home and abroad. Here is a moment before it became apparent that the regime was set on exclusively pursuing a military solution that would transform any overt opposition into exogenous terrorism, a time before the conflict became irrevocably militarized. These diaries conclude just as the first defections from the Syrian armed forces started happening. It was from around that point, sometime late in the summer of 2011, that the peaceful popular uprising started to take on occasional tinges of an armed insurrection. More importantly, foreign meddling increasingly militarized the situation, from the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to more recent attempts at intervention by the so-called “Friends of Syria.”
Many now wonder whether the uprising has been stamped out. If the Syrian uprising is quelled, it will be difficult to know where to assign the blame. Disorganization, political immaturity and clashing egos among the various segments of the opposition cannot be simply written off. The skeptical if not outright sectarianist approaches to the question of Syria by many politicians, pundits and analysts certainly did not help. The unwillingness of Western governments and security services to risk coming face to face with “the devil we don’t know” also played a part. Whatever the explanation, Syria has been shaken to the core by a conflict that has cost well upwards of ten thousand lives and all but ensures a continuing bloody struggle for Syria to come.
“I don’t like to talk about heroic deeds,” Yazbek writes. “Heroism is an illusion.” Despite her appealing modesty, A Woman in the Crossfire indelibly chronicles simple, everyday acts through which she and thousands of other Syrians disprove her statement. Regardless of how one wishes to characterize her – humanist, patriot, feminist, mother, Alawite – these are ultimately labels with which Yazbek would likely find fault, perhaps by arguing that they can so easily be applied, manipulated or torn off. This is precisely where there still may be some hope, though. The account of herself that Samar Yazbek gives us here as well as the dozens of tales recounted in her diaries offer some means of escape for those who seek to shake off the straitjacket of ascribed identities, be they religious, partisan, gendered, sectarian or otherwise. Despite her very real and visible human fallibility, frailty and fears, Yazbek is not cowed by the seductive dangers of clan, family or sectarian allegiance. Indeed, we do not need her or her interlocutors to claim to be heroic in order for us to honor their heroism. Amidst the rubble of almost unspeakable atrocities in Dar‘a, Yazbek salvages “stories of heroism that will be told for generations.” Let us hope that the day is not too far off when Syrians will benefit from real political victories as well as the freedom to revel in such legendary tales of bravery.
Translation can be a solitary enterprise; I would not have been able to bear the emotional toll of this project without the support of many people and I would like to single out a few here. Siobhan Phillips and Zaki Haidar flatter me with their generosity of friendship and critical intellectual engagement; I thank them both for reading the translation and offering tough criticism and helpful suggestions. A thousand times thank you to Jean Entine for opening Windy Hill, where I was able to hunker down and complete an early draft. I am grateful to Barbara Schwepke and Harry Hall at Haus Publishing and Yasmina Jraissati of Raya Agency for their professionalism and for offering consistent encouragement throughout this hectic process of rapid-fire translation. Lastly, and most of all, I thank Samar Yazbek for sharing her haunting personal story and for collecting these horrifying stories for posterity; she is an inspiring, courageous and virtuous asset in the nonviolent movement for change in Syria. Although nobody can predict what history has in store for the people of Syria, I dedicate my translation to all those who have given their lives and all those who continue to sacrifice in the name of building a new Syria – glimpsed in these diaries as “the Syria of the future, the free Syria that knew no fear” – where dignity, justice and happiness may flourish.
Max Weiss
Cambridge, Mass.
April 2012
SAMAR YAZBEK is a Syrian writer and journalist, born in Jableh in 1970. She is the author of several works of fiction in Arabic and her novel, Cinnamon, is published by Arabia Books in English. An outspoken critic of the Assad regime, Yazbek has been deeply involved in the Syrian uprising since it broke out in March 2011. Fearing for the life of her daughter, she was eventually forced to flee her country and now lives in hiding.
MAX WEISS is Assistant Professor of History and Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, a historian of the modern Middle East and a translator of Arabic literature.
Forthcoming from Samar Yazbek
Cinnamon
A Novel
Translated by Emily Danby
In the dark of night, Hanan al-Hashimi awakens from a nightmare, confused and shaken. Roaming the house in search of some reassurance, she is drawn towards the streak of light under her husband’s bedroom door. Little does she know that the beckoning glow will turn her life on its head, unsettling her fragile mind and sending her servant Aliyah tumbling back to the dusty alleyways of her childhood. Banished from her mistress’s villa in the small hours of the morning, Aliyah’s route back to her old neighbourhood is paved with the memories of the family she left behind and the mistress she betrayed. Exhausted by the night’s events, both maid and mistress seek refuge in sleep. In their dreams, the women’s memories – of troubled childhoods, loneliness, love and their lives together – combine seamlessly to narrate the story of two Damascene women’s search for security and tenderness. From the tinroofed shack of Aliyah’s family home, to the isolated grandeur of Hanan’s imprisoning villa, the characters’ recollections journey through Damascus, painting a portrait of the city in all of its contradictions: poverty and luxury, dormancy and change. Samar Yazbek’s quick-paced narrative balances intense drama with the insightful portrayal of her characters’ precarious mental states. Bizarre and darkly humorous, yet with clear emotional realism Cinnamon is a tale from the inner world of the women of Damascus.
Trade Paper ISBN: 978-1-906697-43-3
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-906697-44-0
November 2012
£8.99/$15.00