A Woman in the Crossfire (6 page)

People from Baniyas tried to find out who the armed fighters shooting at them were, those who spread out along the rooftops as snipers, intervening and arresting people from al-Baida. They were the ones who made the people believe that the ones being arrested were traitors and infiltrators who wanted to slaughter the Alawites. But that was not the case. Maybe it is true that what happened inflamed sectarian sentiment in Baniyas, turning the place into hell, but it all started with those
shabbiha
; they were the ones who shot at the minaret. A number of Alawites in Baniyas related these events to me, about how they left their houses behind, fleeing collective punishment.

Today is the Friday of Perseverance. Fifteen people are killed in Latakia. In Damascus the security forces cut the arteries connecting streets and squares with security and military checkpoints, especially around Abbasiyeen Square. The security opens fire on demonstrators coming from Jawbar after being joined by people from Douma and Harasta; they are prevented from reaching Abbasiyeen Square. Despite the demonstration of hundreds of thousands of people, security does not open fire on demonstrators in Dar‘a. The people of al-Rastan fell a statue of Hafiz al-Assad
¹⁰
, who remains the greatest figure in Syria. In Latakia security forces try to infiltrate the demonstrators; when the demonstrators oppose the presence of weapons, the infiltrators tell them they only carried them for self-defence, but the young men seize them when it becomes clear that they are from the security forces. They wanted to make it look like an armed demonstration. The security and the army would loot businesses. The city of al-Dumayr is surrounded; security is heavily deployed throughout. The suburb of Douma is still surrounded, and the daily toll of arrests is nonstop.

Now Baniyas is empty. The streets are deserted; the shops are closed and many have been looted; city hall and the post office have been torched. Tomorrow the people will call for the army to be sent in and for the security to leave; tanks will remain stationed throughout the city; soldiers will deploy in the streets. There is fear that sectarian clashes may break out at any moment. They have succeeded in framing what happened, as if it marks the beginning of a sectarian civil war that it is incumbent upon the regime to prevent. But many city residents know that this is not the case, that there were invisible hands behind what took place that would like to turn the peaceful demonstrations that came out of the mosques into treasonous activity by armed men who are conspiring with foreign elements. Perhaps that was the only reason the regime could come up with to justify killing the people of Baniyas. But who was killing the army and the security forces? And the snipers, who were those snipers? Maybe figuring out who was behind these actions will be simple enough, but how they managed to pull it off is still unclear. All these thoughts come and go as I enter Jableh, intensifying my anger, my pain and bitterness, but the small happiness I acquire from arriving safely after such a nightmarish journey over the mountains makes me think the time has come to take a break. I do not know this will be my last visit to Jableh.

Now that I have crossed paths with death, I am prepared to see more of it.

..............................

In besieged Dar‘a falling hailstones get mixed up with the sound of bullets whizzing past. Not far from this calamity, land is being surrounded, buried, all alone and drifting beneath the darkened sky, as if in a painting by Dal.; its wounded people slowly die while their mothers watch, mothers whose bloody trembling fingers are wrapped with perforated bed sheets. Before the martyrs' eyelids are closed, the mothers moisten their throats with a few drops of water. People watch the young bodies strewn all around the square disintegrate from behind their windows. After the electricity has been cut off, stenches rise from the dead in the darkness. All people can do is stare at those bodies, which were once beloved and beating with warmth, as they turn to dust.

Not far from my window, hailstones fall, and my heart turns into a hunk of scrap metal in the face of my impotence, as Dar‘a is slowly dying for all of us to see, while the whole world watches. Among those of us who comfortably tuck in our children before going to sleep, there is a thin imaginary line separating real pain from hypothetical pain, and no matter what we say about feeling the sorrow of those mothers, it is a lie. Pain appears in the wake of actual loss. Pain is not purely coincidental now.

Not far from Damascus, just an hour by car, there is a calamity taking place that seems more like the stories we read about in the papers, one we cannot believe is actually happening here. Entire families are surrounded by tanks and soldiers and snipers. Women hide out in their homes, shaking and shuddering from the popping sounds of gunfire, the gunfire that never stops. Anyone who dares set foot outside is a potential martyr. Nobody is around to bury the bodies lying outside the al-Umari Mosque in Dar‘a. Even as voices start to rise up in the city calling upon the authorities to let the martyrs' families bury their dead, the wounded remain holed up inside the houses for fear of being picked off outside or bleeding out in the open without any first aid. I manage to confirm that several pharmacies have been bombed and burned. Why are they setting the pharmacies on fire? So that people won't be able to treat the wounded, of course. Some residents escape the city and flee the country by crossing the Lebanese or the Jordanian borders, leaving death and destruction behind. What does today have in store for the city? Will demonstrators go out this Friday, this Friday of Rage that has been called for by demonstrators in every Syrian city? Will a single one of them dare cross the threshold of his house, with tank turrets and snipers' machine guns all around them?

Last Friday Damascus was a ghost town. It wasn't Damascus.

Despite the calls spreading throughout the Syrian cities for people to come out and despite the death of so many young people, security forces were deployed in all the squares, the number of their personnel and platoons rose into the thousands. With the road to Jawbar closed, my female friend and I drove through Abbasiyeen Square, and there was a strange deadly calm. As we circled the square, the security was just starting to gather; it wasn't yet time for the demonstration. My friend drove us through the streets of Damascus as we looked for signs of life. My eyes played tricks on me, and I cried to see the city empty except for the screams of death and those murderous eyes that were gathering, the eyes of young people who stepped off government-owned tour buses. They carried sticks and chains. I thought about how I had lived in Syria for 40 years but had never seen anything like those faces, their dusky complexions, petrified wooden bodies, hate-filled eyes.

Was 40 years enough time to create such a frightening generation of murderers?

During the afternoon, on our second time around, the situation in Abbasiyeen Square was different: the number of security forces had increased, even along the side streets, and as our car looped around the square, we saw military checkpoints blocking the Jawbar road. There were many different groups assembling and somebody said shots had been fired. We didn't hear any gunshots on our entire trip, but the next day when I met up with a friend, I tried to find out from her what had actually happened in al- Zablatani, not far from Abbasiyeen Square. She told me she had been there and saw a group of young Christian men standing and demonstrating right in front of the security forces, only a handful of them, no more than a few dozen. One of them had taken off his shirt and bared his chest to the security forces' machine guns. He stood there for nearly a minute until the sound of gunfire rang out and brought down the young man. I asked her what happened to him. Although they were only monitoring the security forces from afar, and from behind a balcony even, she said that they opened fire and ordered everyone to go back inside, as those who remained on the street fled. Then the square was empty except for security forces, the sounds of gunfire and the bodies of five young men who had fallen on the ground. State television would later report that the security forces had captured five saboteurs who were killed during armed clashes.

What happens in this moment between when the shot is fired and when the bullet hits the bare chest? How are the two related?

What was that young man who exposed his chest to death thinking about at that very moment?

How long will it take us to understand the language of life? How much sadness do we need in order to endure this fresh blood in a country succumbing to the forces of death? Did the bare chest of that young man, standing there alone in front of them, without uttering a word, frighten them? What did the machine gun that killed him and his friends do after this assignment?

Questions upon more questions, and that afternoon, driving towards Barzeh, a checkpoint appeared in front of us. It was a different kind of checkpoint: there were not a lot of men, five of disparate ages, and it was obvious they weren't security, but they and their machine guns moved closer to us despite the fact that the car wasn't the least bit suspicious. One of them was a young man who could not have been more than 25, his machine gun barrel was pointed straight at us; his eyes were lethal. My heart quaked as we turned around. Beyond that checkpoint there was killing and gunfire. We weren't allowed to enter Barzeh.

That was last Friday, and just as I was about to start recording these diaries, pain prevented me from doing so. I was too nervous to focus on writing. I wandered from friend's house to friend's house. I avoided going home in order to evade detention, because the security apparatus had fabricated more reports about me and posted them on their websites. It was getting difficult for me to go to Jableh or to move around freely in Latakia. I was a traitor to my sect for being on the side of the demonstrators. I wrote two pieces about the protest movement, in which I talked about the practices of violence and killing and arrest carried out by the security forces. They responded by posting articles on a
mukhabarati
¹¹
website discussing my relationship with American agents, a ready-made excuse the security apparatus would always resort to in order to clamp down on people who have their own opinions. I was bounded by my own anxiety and fear, by my daughter and my family, who came under direct pressure from the scandal that ensued in my village when the regime told them that their daughter had betrayed her sect and her homeland. I could not write. The daily news of killing was more present inside of me than any emotion. Then there was the news of my friends getting arrested. Finally, there was the atrocity that ended with the siege of Dar‘a, which continues until today, the Friday of Rage.

I awoke to the sound of hailstones rattling against the window. It was early. I had come home; I simply had to, despite the threats from the security forces, despite all the rumours that were being spread about me among the Alawites, provoking everyone on the coast against me. I must remain calm in order to make sure my daughter is going to be all right even after being threatened she would come to harm. Despite this, I decide to become even more active on the ground with the young people of the uprising, whether at demonstrations or in terms of providing assistance to those young people who had gone underground in order to work for the revolution ever since the security apparatus started following them. These days require a lot more effort, especially in light of the policy of media militarization to which the regime has resorted. We need voices to convey to the media what is actually happening, but most of the young people have been locked up, or will be arrested immediately after appearing on any satellite network.

As of today the Syrian border with Jordan has been closed for five days. The Syrian authorities closed it, and all economic life between Dar‘a and al-Ramtha has stopped. 50 martyrs in one week, and the news is still ambiguous. Under the weight of the security forces, the soldiers and the
shabbiha
, the people of Dar‘a live in obscurity and darkness. News about them is vague, but the stench of death is obvious. Two days ago the son of a representative in the People's Assembly appeared on television with tears in his eyes, saying, “No matter what's happening in Dar‘a, why have they cut off the electricity and water, why are they starving the people, why won't they let people bury their dead, why won't they help the wounded?” Of course, it is obvious that the regime wants to teach all of Syria a lesson through Dar‘a, even if they have to exterminate every last person in the process.

Still no news in the afternoon. The army surrounds Damascus, its trucks and its soldiers patrol the city. Daraya is cut off from its surroundings and we hear that the power has been cut, as the people there fear the snipers who deploy up on the rooftops at night. The full strength of the army mobilizes along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. There are major incursions in several cities. Now, at two in the afternoon, there are demonstrations in Amuda and Latakia, and there is perpetual news about gunfire. I am still waiting.

I sit at home next to my daughter after she returns from two weeks back in the village. She tells me impatiently, “They're going to kill you. In the village they said they're going to kill you. Everybody's saying that, everybody's cursing you and insulting you, and in Jableh they were handing out flyers accusing you of treason!”

I assure her that I am not going to leave the house, that I will stay there with her. She is happily following the marriage of Prince William and Kate. I try to find out online what is going on in the Syrian cities but she asks me to get off the computer and sit with her. I remain silent as she cries and accuses me of abandoning her. I try explaining to her what happened to me, how the security apparatus has smeared my name and incited people to kill me in order to silence the voice of truth. She argues that the situation isn't worth sacrificing my life for, and that she doesn't have anyone else in the whole wide world except for me. I fall silent and go to my room to cry. I don't want her to see my tears, even as she continues yelling. I let her yell as long as she wants, because I know how much pressure she has been under in the village and in Jableh.