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Title: Revolutionary echoes from Syria
Author: Anonymous, Hourriya
Date: 2016, August
Language: en
Topics: Syria, Turkey, Rojava, Hourriya, interview, war
Source: library OCR via PDF, retrieved on July 11, 2020 from https://hourriya.noblogs.org/post/2020/01/17/1-revolutionary-echoes-from-syria-out-of-print-pdf-available-instead/
Notes: Hourriya internationalist anarchist pamphlets | hourriya.noblogs.org | hourriya_eng@riseup.net

Anonymous, Hourriya

Revolutionary echoes from Syria

Introduction

The discussion below reflects an overview of the conditions experienced

by individuals who are trying to liberate themselves from the system of

social hypocrisy and the mentality of subordination. Our experience is

still fragile, a newborn.

During the revolution and even now the difficulty lies in our inability

to observe clearly the inherent authoritarian power within the society

and the state. Consequently this prevented - and still prevents - us

from stripping the layers they hide behind and fighting them raw and

bare.

Many individuals were launching a double war: one against a totalitarian

regime. Another against their own forced affiliations: be it ethnic,

religious or sectarian. When futility and frustration shattered the

Syrian struggle, our loses were also doubled: not only did the regime

crush the revolutionary movement, the achievement we made on a personal

level were also wasted. Our sense of belonging to the uprising weakened,

to be finally replaced by our ex-ideologies: tribalism, nationalism,

Islamism, etc.

To add insult to injury, the dismantling of the political system was

deemed “more important” than any other struggle. Consequently,

revolutionary forces saw no contradiction in allying themselves with

other hierarchical authorities to confront the bigger danger, namely the

security state and its institutions.

With the beginning of the revolutionary movement, in a small meeting -

among a group of friends - we concluded that if the conflict lasted more

than three or four months, the whole country would succumb to a civil

war. This was not a lucky speculation. The social balances inside Syria

were very clear (sectarianism, religious tensions, nationalism .. ).

Alas, This early realization had not pushed us to develop a new

strategy.

Revolution theorization, and theorization in general (any attempt at

analysis, induction, or critique) is considered a crime when carried out

by the “common” people. Contrarily, intellectual work is monopolized by

a unique social class, “The cultural and political Syrian elites”. A

class with a long history in political struggle and detention, giving

them the “right” to “represent” the people.

These cultural and political boundaries contemplated and drawn by those

elites, confined revolutionary work. The enthusiastic and brave

revolutionaries, fully conscious of their “lack of expertise” turned

their heads to politicians and intellectuals looking for solutions.

Innovative means of struggle were then replaced by rooting for political

parties “representing” the “voice of the Syrian streets” in UN meeting

halls.

Who’s to blame? The corrupt politicians? Our gullibility for believing

them? Religious ideologies that turned the struggle into a holy war?

Foreign policies that sought to keep this region in a constant state of

war?

We have no blame-meter, nor will it be much use anyway. What we can

infer with certainty is that the question of “who’s to blame” has cost

us dearly.

We managed, in a short period of time, to conquer fear of imprisonment,

of police brutality, of live bullets and death. Tragically, these

sacrifices were in vain, because courage alone is not enough.

Critical thinking was needed, to reflect upon the movement and see where

it’s going, how we can “win” the largest amount of battles with the

least amount of sacrifices.

Instead, we glorified our suffering and kept thwarting forward with the

revolutionary body of the movement taking more violent hits, until it

was completely and utterly fatigued and crushed.

It’s our own Black Knight syndrome (see Monty Python for reference).

Yelling “ ‘tis but a flesh wound” when we were getting killed, detained,

tortured on a daily basis, without getting anywhere far.

Our testimonies and overall analysis included in this interview doesn’t

fall far off. It suffers from our constant need to sugarcoat an

otherwise tragic attempt at liberation.

We invite the reader to keep a critical spirit reading these lines. It’s

full of our own contradiction and logical fallacies; and limited by our

experiences, to summarize we don’t offer the Truth.

A. and R.

Two anarchists from Aleppo sumsom@riseup.net

conversations with two anarchists from aleppo

First Part: Next to the river

The first question is: how did you organize before the beginning of the

revolution, to start with this revolution?

The question indicates that a single, united group was behind the

earliest demonstrations, while the events were a little more

complicated. There were several “organizers”. Contrary to the Egyptian,

Tunisian and the majority of revolutions, the capital city played a

marginal role[1]. All attempts to organize demonstrations in Damascus

were a total failure. It was the small, marginalized cities like Daraa,

Banyas and later Homs that were the key players in the beginning. Each

of those cities had a different story and way of organizing. For Daraa,

a tribal, family-centered society, organizing manifestations with

thousands of people wasn’t difficult in the technical sense.

At the mean time, a lot of people, especially those of us living in

places where protests were nearly impossible, we were active anonymously

on social media, trying to create networks and find a way to break

through the regime’s security apparatus.

If we want to discuss what finally “sparked” a revolution after four

decades of state oppression by an authoritarian, totalitarian regime,

there were a series of events that took place in a short period of time,

following the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.

Ten days after the first failed attempt to demonstrate, around

mid-February[2], something happened in Damascus, a guy was arrested by

traffic police and that’s really the first moment when a lot of Syrians

demonstrated together seeking for... karama... dignity.

Yes, he was arrested and humiliated and it was for a small matter. It

was in the suburbs of Damascus. A lot of people gathered spontaneously

and started speaking about it, well they actually started shouting for

dignity and they said that Syrian people should not be humiliated by the

regime and so on. And there were many people actually, by the thousands.

So the minister of interior actually came to this square and he started

telling people “this is shameful as a demonstration, what you’re doing”

and they were like “No, no it’s not really a demonstration”.

Laughs. “We’re just kidding.”

But it was... a lot of people shared the video and we all saw for the

first time that we can do this. Because there were a lot of failed

attempts to make demonstrations, there were a lot of failed attempts to

actually stand in solidarity in a square with the Tunisian or the

Egyptian revolution. The police would come, even during just a silent

vigil in solidarity with the other revolutions, and the cops would come.

So this was the turning point I think, when people saw that we could do

this.

We discovered at that point that we can film and we can share this short

videos. But for all people, as there were no activists or no special

classes inside the society at that time.

In this manifestation you mean?

A. Yeah, I mean no special classes or activists in this manifestation.

After this manifestation, we start to imagine we are all involved in

this.

R. There were no leaders.

A. So after that we lived in a situation where a lot of stories took

place which were not filmed by anyone. There was a demonstration in a

city far away called Hassaka, it is on the border with Turkey. So there

were long days of sharing weird, hush-hush stories about protests in

far-away cities, about small clandestine groups organizing for a big

protest. We were waiting for something to happen, we were very sure

something would happen in that month. And at the beginning of March we

put another date for our next attempt at a demonstration[3], it was the

fifteenth of March.

Another call-out.

Yeah with a specific place, a square in Damascus, and it was not so.

there were not so.

There weren’t many people[4]. There were a lot of intellectuals, like

former prisoners and political prisoners and they arrested a lot of

people that day, even they would.. The professor?

Tayyib Tizini.

Yeah he was like I think 70 years old and he’s a philosopher and an

ex-political prisoner too and they arrested him. It was big news that

they arrested a lot of people so they released them in a short period of

time. They were very careful at the time as not to add fuel to the

already-flaming fire. When they saw that a lot of people took interest

in the matter, they released the demonstrators two or three days later.

In a “normal” situation, they would’ve kept them for at least 5 years or

so.

The biggest event happened in Daraa, three days later, at the 18th of

March. One week before this big demonstration, the secret police in that

city arrested ten or more children. They arrested them because they

wrote “down with the regime”, they wrote a lot of slogans which they

picked up from the Egyptian revolution. So after that the secret police

and the regime wouldn’t release them.

At that time, a story spread like fire across Syria. One that I’m not

sure ever happened, but I think the fact that it reached all four

corners of the country says something about the events that were

unfolding. The parents of the detained children went to the military

security branch in Daraa and they demanded the release of their

children, and the police told them that they wouldn’t do it and that if

they (the parents) still needed children they could send down their

wives and the police could. you know. I don’t know if this is true but I

wouldn’t be surprised because this is the way of.

This is the mentality of…

So, the 18th of March thousands of people in Daraa took to the streets,

they weren’t demanding the toppling of the regime, there weren’t any

demands like this, it’s more. They were talking about freedom, talking

about dignity, and they were talking about reform actually in the

structure of the regime. During the first month we never imagined that

we would actually call for... And of course from the first moment they

started firing live bullets at the demonstrators. It wasn’t that at

first they didn’t know what to do and then they changed. No they were

very direct from the first moment that they would face demonstrations

with fire, they never really questioned if they should do this or not,

and I think eleven or twelve people were killed the first day of a big

demonstration in Syria.

Actually the first day there were four people killed. After that the

protesters occupied a mosque, a main mosque at the city[5].

And this is what gave me hope, because this society in Daraa city is so

religious, but even with this religious mentality they put leftist songs

by an artist called Samih Shkair. He wrote a song immediately after the

demonstration, it’s called ya hef.

What a shame. What a shame that you are killing your own people that are

demanding freedom and you, you are responding with fire. And it became

very popular very fast, because it directly blamed the regime. Because

even at that point there were a lot of people talking: well, is it the

regime or is it people infiltrating in demonstrations and shooting at

people? But yes, he is a very popular leftist artist and they had no

problem with this.

They put him on the speaker of the mosque. It was a revolutionary step.

Pause

The army surrounded the whole city, after two days, actually the special

forces inside the army, known because of their professionalism, the way

they use violence.[6]

They are very loyal to the regime, it is a battalion which is known for

its loyalty to the regime so they can make sure that no one would defect

from the army or anything. Of course the telephone lines, the internet

was cut off in this city so no one could actually know what was going

on, we just got short clips from people. For example there was one man

and there was a tank coming towards him and he was filming and he said:

“Come on, kill me, show people what you are doing in my city!”. There

were only short clips and they were very low quality actually because no

one really had professional cameras and telephones and. So, it was the

people who were, you know, they were the journalists and the

correspondents in that situation, for the war on this day. But if you

want to talk about how we organized ourselves, then I think you would be

more qualified actually to talk about this.

I am trying to build a background first of all about the media

situation, I will stop because it started randomly, it’s not. We

achieved a point when we realized we should start organizing ourselves,

we should start something organized. Because all of the media channels

refused to publish this kind of videos, even Al Jazeera, all of the

mainstream media actually. There was only one channel actually called

Orient, it belongs to a business man, a Syrian business man, who

invested his channel in this Syrian revolution for some reason.

Yes it was actually still based in Damascus when he started showing

these videos, so then their office was closed and they opened another

one in Dubai to continue, I think their office in Damascus got attacked.

Yes. So after like one month, there was actually no media coverage, only

this one channel and the social media, youtube and facebook. At that

time it was quiet in most of the cities, in Damascus and Aleppo it was

so quiet, there was nothing happening until April I think. But the third

biggest city in Syria which is called Homs joined the revolution.

And there was France 24 which was also showing this videos, and BBC. But

Al Ja- zeera and Al-Arabia, which are the two main Arabic speaking or

Arabic based channels, they weren’t. But BBC and France 24 I remember

that I used to watch them and to see what was going on.

It was short, like two minutes.

It didn’t make the headlines. It was just. you know.

“There is something happening in Syria.”

“If you want to know.”

Laughing.

We were so disappointed, especially with Al Jazeera, because they aired

an intensive coverage of other “Arab Spring” revolutions. They had like

10 hours for Egypt and Tunisia and they just give us like written

breaking news. So the situation is, the most powerful weapon we have is

the media, it is the most powerful weapon with which we can face the

regime, our cameras. Because for some reason we have, we don’t believe

we can defeat this system just by going to the street and nobody knowing

about it. We should use these videos to show the whole world and to call

the whole world to defend us. Because we know this regime is so violent,

it will kill us at any moment, so if we have a media spot, the regime

will calculate this as a new situation, it will not go as far with its

violence so we can manage. The first organized group was the media

group. Young people cooperated with channels, they made the channels

actually, on youtube, and I still remember the first channel, local

channel on youtube which was called Ugarit. After that we got Flash and

Sham. These were the local groups based on youtube. They were organized,

they had correspondents everywhere. They collected movies and made it a

little bit.

But these were people who organized together and who knew each other

already from before the revolution, or was this something growing in the

revolution?

I don’t think so because it was across Syria, in different cities so I

think people actually. And it was hard because there was no trust, you

had to build the trust because anyone could be an informant of the

regime. So it took some time but in the end they could form a large

group of many correspondents across Syria that could film and edit, they

started editing the videos, increasing the quality.

At that moment we were using Skype, but we were using fake names and

closed chat rooms, to get to know each other. For example I was living

here in Homs, in a certain neighborhood and I had gotten a hold these

videos. So there was something like a platform opened called Ugarit. We

were all involved in this channel. And after we had an alternative

platform, like it is a channel but there was no kind of “we know each

other as persons”. There were no persons actually, only the matter of

what we were doing at that time.

You mean that there were no people physically meeting each other,

everything happened through skype?

For media, at the earlier part of the revolution, yes there was no

physical meeting, except for friends who knew each other, because. This

has nothing to do with coordination, managing how we were going to

coordinate protests on the streets. But the first organization, the

first organized phenomenon in Syria was a media group. And after that

the creation of a coordination developed. People dealt with each other

in the same city, sharing videos, uploading videos on youtube. After one

month of doing this work, it had created some kind of trust between this

group so: “OK, let’s go and meet in this place and talk about how we

can...” And even when we meet physically we were still afraid of each

other. Not really afraid of each other, afraid really there is someone

who presents himself as a revolution guy but maybe belongs to the

regime. We were afraid of the regime, more than we were afraid of each

other. So we decided not to share our real information, everybody knew

we were using fake names, nicknames to protect ourselves and this was

not a problem. So everyone was working anonymously, but physically at

this stage. Especially when we are talking about those cities which

don’t have a big revolutionary movement, but were building a big

movement inside the city. But when we talk about Daraa for example, the

revolution has already started inside the city so everyone already knows

each other. And Homs, the same situation. And there is a small city

called Salamiyah, where I came from, it is like the city of atheist

laughs, secular city. It joined the revolution from the beginning, and

this was something which gave us some hope and power because there were

ten thousand people on the streets in this city, this city with a

population of no more than 100 000 people. So we have an impression from

this city protesting and it was a huge number for us at the beginning of

the revolution. And besides “freedom” and “dignity” they rise as a shar…

Slogan.

Slogan, secular slogans.

For example?

“The religion for God and the nation for all.” Something like this. It

is kind of diplomatic, but it was good. Laughs. hmm... What else, about

how we organized, we are talking about how the organization developed

during the revolution.

So at one moment the idea grew that there was a need for coordination,

did I understand well what you said? Like at which moment this idea was

growing and why and how this took form? Or is it too fast, maybe we are

not yet at that point.

Ok, there were a lot of local coordination groups, and they made a good

job at the beginning of the revolution, and were called.

Local coordination committees.

Local coordination committees actually does not include the majority of

coordination groups and they were trying to represent everybody. They

put goals, and values to “protect” the revolution from going so radical

with religion, or sectarianism.

When did this start to develop more or less? A.

It started from April onwards and they were trying to conjoin all the

other coordination groups, virtually or physically but I don’t believe

that was something based on values or believes, I think it was a

political step, for example this council declares a document which said

clearly “the revolution seeking for equality for all people regardless

religion, gender, nationality etc”. And there were a couple of groups

inside the council who agreed on paper, but when it came to actions they

did the opposite. After three months, in July, when the violence had

risen, something new appeared, which was called…

The Syrian revolution committees.

These committees were controlled by the Brotherhood movement, not

officially but under the table, this is how the Muslims brotherhood

works.

Syrian Revolution Committees, what was this? A.

It was the alternative of the Local Coordination Committees. Or it is

not the alternative, it is like munafiz... competition.

Especially when they started to become weaker and weaker because the

regime arrested a lot of activists from these committees, the local

coordination committees. They were starting to shatter. So that gave the

opportunity to the other committees to replace the work that had been

done by the local coordination committees.

And these committees had good thoughts, good goals, good values. But

they didn’t give anything new, a new strategy for example for how we

could resist as a civil movement[7]. After the struggle was becoming

more complex, more and more and without any solutions, so people were

seeking to find another political solution. So it was not just a matter

of how the Brotherhood hacked this civil movement, there was a real

problem that wasn’t solved. So after that we got this phenomena “I can

make a council and invite some friends”. You know we started to be

divided between a lot of groups who wanted to be the center of all these

groups. But the main view is that we got two councils, the Syrian

Revolution Council and the Local Coordination, local councils because

they had a good relationship with the main media channels and other

international organizations let’s say they got a good support from a

couple of factors. In July the politicians started organizing as well,

the individual politicians organized and what happened next...

Yes, the Syrian National Council I think this is how it is called.

The one that was outside of Syria?

It is inside and outside.

Like the official representation.

And this is very important because why do people choose to trust

politicians instead of trusting the councils which were created during

the revolution? People immediately stated to be so motivated about

waiting “What’s this guy going to do?” and “Who is this politician?”.

Most of them were educated, highly educated. The discussions in the

revolution were about them and how they would make a solution for the

whole situation, not what we will make. Our mission at that moment was

to go on the street and to do the same thing as we did before. To go to

the streets and say “freedom, freedom”, get killed and go again. To come

with bodies, I don’t know how to say... funeral. Funeral, funeral.

We were stuck in a vicious circle kind of, and the reason why people

trusted so many councils, so many groups over and over again was because

they were looking for a way to get out of this circle, because we were

really stuck. Well first of all we don’t have any experience, any civil

disobedience experience, any political experiences in order to have the

tools to inflict change. So what we saw from other Arab revolutions, we

did the same thing. But the thing is that the regime we have is very

different. It wasn’t going to wait you know “These people seem very

determined to change the regime, so I’ll just leave”. No, it wasn’t like

this, we were faced with violence over and over again and it was

actually increasing, not decreasing, with time. So we felt like we were

doing the same things and we weren’t getting any results. So every time

when a group or especially when politicians came into the scene people

felt like:“These are political prisoners, ex-political prisoners and

they have a political record so maybe they know what to do, because

these councils and these civil groups that are being formed don’t really

have a solution for what is going on”. So this is really. People started

to loose hope I think, at that time. So they became more willing to put

their destiny into the hands of others, no matter who those persons

were.

At the same time we developed good skills with media, with filming. So

for example in Homs they put a lot of cameras around the neighborhood,

filming 24 hours on 24, and this for watching, for controlling actually

what the regime would do, in the night, how they would arrest people for

example. So we’ve got a record, a huge record actually about how they

arrest people during the night and when it came to streaming, it was

this new level on.

Streaming?

Streaming. Streaming is.

The video was live, it was not upload ed after the demonstration, it was

during the demonstration that people were seeing it. And we got a lot of

help from big news channels like Al Jazeera who started showing, sharing

these videos live. Yes and by that time there were a lot of

neighborhoods, in Homs for example, that were totally liberated of

regime presence, there were only people and they were organizing within

themselves food, so it became freer for people, it was safer to…

How did they chase the police from these neighborhoods in Homs?

How did they take them out? With a little bit of violence, with locals

who have Kalashnikovs. Something like this. They helped these people,

but the main power was the people. When we are talking about Homs, about

this neighborhood for example Baba-Amro, or Khaldiyah. All the people

there were going to the street so we’ve got thousands in the street, ten

thousands actually. They occupied the whole city. So the regime was

thinking about how it would manage this situation. So the regime left,

but not for long actually. This area didn’t remain liberated for a long

time. We are talking about the civil era.

Yes it was for weeks but then the regime would come back.

Come back with the army, not with police. X.

And you were saying people were organizing food and so on and so on. Can

you explain how this was done?

It was based on. Actually the economy. We had kind of a local economy in

each city. So all classes in Homs for example they were in solidarity

with each other. The rich people did a good job during this period of

time, they were giving free food to people during these days.

They kind of collectivized at some point the food and they divided it

within each other. But also because these neighborhoods were liberated

but at the same time they were surrounded by the army, so they were

blocked from. there was sort of a siege around each neighborhood which

didn’t have any regime presence anymore. So they would organize patrols

of people that would leave at night to go and get food and come back

and. I know this because I have a lot of friends who were at Homs during

that period, even people who left from cities like Aleppo, they went

there. They would tell me stories about how they would take advantage of

the army sleeping or doing other things and they would go to other

places in the city and they would bring stuff, and come back.

And a lot of. For example in Aleppo there was nothing happening, it was

a little bit of a quiet city, but there were a lot of people who

supported the revolution. They couldn’t do anything in Aleppo but they

did a lot of support, by food and money, sent it to Daraa, sent it to

Homs. But this way doesn’t help us on the long term, you know it was a

short term solution. It built a kind of bond between cities. Before the

revolution, we had a lot of problems between cities.

When we’re talking about this time period in July really the biggest

thing that happened which shocked everyone was Hama. Because this was

the city where the biggest massacre in the history of Syria took place

and where 40 000 people were killed in the 80’s. But they made a demo in

July and a lot of people were killed, so then the muhafez, the mayor of

the city, he sympathized with the revolution and so he ordered everyone

from the army that was in this city not to fire at demonstrations.

To go out of the city.

Yes, he kicked them out. And so the next Friday like 800 000 people were

in the demonstration.

Who did he kick out, the army?

Yes, all of the regime officials from the city. There was only the mayor

and the civilians of the city. And I think that almost everyone, the

children, the old people, everyone really participated in this huge demo

and it was on TV. It was the first liberated city of Syria let’s say.

And so at that time it was mostly only on Friday that people, large

amounts of people would go out into the streets but then they started

having demos every day. You know these huge carnivals you would say

where someone would stand up and sing and everyone would dance and it

was amazing. And people started coming from other cities like from

Aleppo, where they couldn’t demonstrate in their cities so they would go

there. And the thing is, although Hama is a bit religious there were a

lot of people from different sects and women without veil and they were

welcomed. So, it was, I think it was the utopia of the Syrian revolution

because everything good about the revolution was there in that square,

it was a huge square.

Yes, I still remember in that square we met two guys and one of them was

saying:”I am from Hama, I am not radical I am not a real Muslim

actually, we are now in Ramadan and I am smoking you know you saw me, I

am not.” he told me. Laughs. So we’ve got like a stereotype saying that

all people in Hama are so religious, so radical and they talk only about

god and. But what happened there, I was there, I attended one of those

demos and people were in a really great situation, psychologically.

Happy, singing, there were no problems. Actually, for sure there were

some troubles here and there but the big energy of this demos was like

perfect I can say.

Two weeks later, the mayor was invited into the house of the president

and he fired him from his job and he put another one. He was really

violent…

A soldier.

.very radical. Yes he was a military man, and then the army of course

stormed the city of Hama and everything stopped.

There was a famous singer called Kash- oush, he created a lot of.

They were revolutionary songs but at the same time they were mocking the

regime, they were trying to. Because it was mostly fear that was the

barrier for a lot of people so we used comedy a lot in order to just

make the regime seem inferior, that we just shouldn’t be scared of them

because they are mostly stupid and [laughs] something like that.

So when the army occupied Hama they take his. what’s this.

They slut his throat. They killed him and they threw him in the river.

This was the end of the civil era of the revolution. This was the first

sign of the end.

The beginning of the end.

After that there was the free generals movement.

Yes, generals of the army they defected from the Syrian army and they

founded this thing. So it stopped being you know locals defending their

neighborhoods and it became more experienced army men.

Can you explain about these locals defending their neighborhoods before

we go to the military?

Ok.

Most of the. they declared a mission about what they had to do, the

locals. They said “We are here to protect the demonstration. Not to

fight the regime. We are here for protection not.for war”. So. It was

really different from city to city. For example when we are talking

about Daraa it was more controlled by the civilians, the demonstration

power. More than the military. Because you know, some groups had the

power especially when we are talking about weapon power. So they would

be more authorized to do and give orders: ”We should do this and we

should do this”. So with this criteria in Daraa for example it was more

friendly between the locals that were armed and those who were not

armed. In Homs it was different. Because in Daraa the whole society was

involved in the same time. There is actually no big difference between

the country side and the city. When we are talking about the Horrani

they had this traditional bond, families and so on so on. And Homs was a

little bit different because in that city we have three sects, actually

three sects and two religions; Christians, Sunnis and Alawis. So from

the beginning of the revolution there was a division.

Laughs. They don’t like each other.

At all.

There is a very sectarian hate between the three.

Also we can add to this situation that Homs had a problem between the

countryside and the city. So the locals who were armed, most of them

were from the countryside. And most of them were people from an area

called Baba-Amro. This is an area based on traditional society which is

called Bedouin.

It is a tribal society.

They trade weapons, I am talking about the past, drugs, and they were

already so violent. So they got more power with their attitude. They

didn’t care about values such as freedom. They have other sort of ideas.

it is not acceptable for them to accept freedom as a value. Instead of

it they would be more motivated for revenge and fight the regime. This

kind of difference in the conflict is based upon which society we are

talking about, because Syria is not one society at all. And with this

sensitive situation, when we are talking about Homs there are three

religions, three sects and a bad relationship between people and

everyone who is involved, who had the most power inside this struggle?

Two groups, the regime and the armed locals who were seeking for revenge

and fighting the regime, it didn’t matter what happened to the city.

But to be perfectly clear, this happened across the board because it

wasn’t like people organized themselves and decided to hold up arms in

order to defend the neighborhoods. In a lot of cases they were people

who already had arms and there were a lot of people who chose to stay

peaceful and decided not to hold arms. So the power was divided between

these two groups. People who had arms felt that they were more powerful,

because they were putting their lives in danger more than peaceful

demonstrators so they thought they should be in control, they should

decide. There were a lot of conflicts between the two, the people who

kept holding on to the principles and the values that we set from the

start of the revolution which were not about revenge, which wasn’t

something personal with the regime, which was not something against

specifically the Alawites that as a sect were in control of the regime.

It’s about a better life for all the citizens, for everyone in this

country. So there was this conflict between these two and in the end I

think when civil demonstrators weren’t going anywhere, I think they felt

they were stuck, those people were allowed. eum. or had even more power

in order to set the course for the rest of the revolution. They said:

“Well if peaceful isn’t working we should go to arms”. And so the people

who had different values, who were leaning more towards revenge, who

didn’t really take part in the revolution from the beginning but who

joined afterward when they were fueled by hate and not by. They were not

really revolutionary they were just, they had personal matters with the

regime that they needed to sort out something like this, so they took

over from there, I think.

They were all like this, the people taking up arms?

No, off course not.

I mentioned Daraa. We didn’t have this kind of situation in Daraa.

And other places.

We are talking generally actually. It is not the truth that Daraa

represents the revolution values and Homs doesn’t. No but the situation

there was more balanced between a lot of powers, a lot of sources, of

values, of.

Yes and off course when, because the regime knows about hate between or

conflicts between different sects, different religions in cities where

you have different religious groups like Homs, they try to play on this,

they try to play this card. Because at the beginning there was everyone,

it wasn’t homogeneous like after, the demonstration wasn’t from a

specific sect it was everyone coming together. But afterward, when

violence was targeted towards a specific group, when they took Sunni

prisoners and they tortured them while they were more indulgent with

other sects or religious groups, they tried to fuel hate in between

them, to try to turn them against each other.

And officially actually also the consultant of the president showed up

at the media and she said: ”Here in Syria we have a lot of sects,

religions. All people live together in peace and if this will still

happen, this situation will be in danger. And we can remember stories

from the history how Sunni killed Alawi.” she mentioned a lot of stories

about when the regime had no power, no control, the people were going to

eat, to fight each other, to kill each other. So it was a kind of

warning. They warned us that this would happen. And about this I have

justified information from Homs at that time, they killed Alawites,

opposition Alawite people, young and politicals, politicians and they

made stories about how it was Salafis and jihadis and terrorists who had

killed them but actually the secret police had killed them and they, for

two months they played this game and the city already they.

There was tension to begin with between themselves. It was easier for

people to believe these stories than in other places.

You’ve got the radical religious people from both sides, they proved

these stories, they justified these stories: “This is real, this is who

we are. We hate each other”.

And the thing is they bombed, they bombed a school in an Alawite’s

neighborhood, a children’s school, and people started saying it was the

regime who would benefit from this, that no one would benefit except for

the regime from hate between people, turning people against each other.

But people would really believe these stories because they’d say:” Why

would the regime do this, he belongs to the same sect, so why would he

kill his own people?”.

It is like an everyday question: ”Why would the regime do this?”.

Yes but it is true because he was, he tried to commit such atrocities

that it would be impossible or unbelievable that people would actually,

they couldn’t believe that the regime would do this. He tried to go to

extremes in order to make it. (intervention of a dog passing by) . So

what do you think, what should we talk about now?

We could talk about the military defecting... You have the feeling that

all things that were happening, how the things were evolving, there was

something in your hands still at that moment or it was slipping out of

your hands?

Yes I think so, but at that time we went into reaction, we weren’t

acting, we were just reacting to what the regime was doing. We lost a

lot of the power we had, we lost a lot of the control we had because as

time progresses people started loosing the enthusiasm, loosing the

energy they had at the beginning of the revolution and they were seeing

that a lot of lives had been lost and a lot of blood has been shed and

nothing seemed to change, the regime seemed very determined to continue

with the policy it had and. I think maybe more people were beginning to

sympathize with the revolution and we were becoming more but at the same

time there were a lot of people who were leaving. So. Everything was

becoming chaotic at that point. We didn’t know, we didn’t know what to

do. And the two main cities, Aleppo and Damascus, seemed too hard. I

mean I was there and I remember I blamed a lot the people of my city

that they weren’t doing anything, because there were only small

demonstrations taking place. But the regime was more violent with these

cities because it was too afraid that something would happen there

because it could loose a lot of support, especially with Damascus being

the capital of course, and Aleppo being a very industrialized city with

a lot of investments and interests, so if it lost this city the economy

would be destroyed, and this is what happened actually. So what he did

was the tribes that are known to be very loyal, that were mostly drug

traffickers, they were deployed, they weren’t eum. What do you call

them? Eum. Like shabia we could say. Shabia is, you know they are not

officially with the regime but they are paid in order to.

They call it paid thugs in English.

So it was crazy they had knives, and long I don’t know, bats, and they

would go and it was. I don’t know but eum.

At that time we started demos inside of the university and we faced this

group of people which was mentioned. It was the start of a student

movement and it was so amazing because there were a lot of backgrounds,

from a lot of different cities, inside the campus. What happened. We

took like one month, struggling, we made a lot of progress with each

other, if we are talking about a space coordination. We had a solution

for how we could communicate between each other even if we were so

different, even if we have different backgrounds, different views about

what is this revolution, what is the future of this revolution. We

escaped from this struggle between each other. After that eum. I don’t

know why the regime was a little bit tolerant with us at the beginning,

I think to not make a lot of trouble inside the university, you know

this is the university, it’s students and a big city, and all was so

quiet except for this area. So at the beginning we faced the police,

official police, they used against us gas, fake bullets. And it was

amazing for us, this kind of condition. “Oh, we have gas now we are

humans not...” laughs. But after that they sent Shabi- aha and it was a

bloody night, nobody killed but a lot of students had injuries.

Dangerous situation. After that they escalate to violence, they for

example they eum... It’s not a kind of bomb it’s. It’s a kind of bomb

they throw it inside of the building. And it was a crazy night, the end

of this struggle inside the campus.

You were staying the night in the campus as well? You slept there?

I slept at my cousin’s room Akheel, we were me and Akheel.

But the students are living there or it was an occupation of the

university?

No we were sleeping there, we have rooms, we have beds. We call it the

university city.

Because the thing is that it started really early actually. It was the

only movement that was going on in Aleppo. Because at the university

city of course there are a lot of people who came from other cities

which witnessed a lot of demonstrations, they came from Homs and from

Daraa and well first of all they were infuriated because the people of

Aleppo weren’t doing anything to stand in solidarity with their city,

but at the same time they wanted to do some-thing so everyone there got

together and. it was.

It was fun.

But what was going on? You were doing demos in the campus?

Yes, it’s kind of a lot of buildings, its like a neighborhood we could

say, there are streets inside the city, without cars. So we occupied, we

don’t occupy it with... just at the night, six hours each day. So we

have bottles, for the police. Laughs.

Yes, you threw rocks and.

We threw molotov’s, rocks and. We were playing actually, we had a lot of

fun. And it was like.

But you were not going to classes, they were no classes going on

anymore?

No, at night there were no classes.

Ah, this was at the night, OK.

Yes, at the night. Because in the evening this city was surrounded by

police, blocked. There were a lot of parties, groups, the Baath party

groups, inside the city. They checked a lot of the identities: “You are

from here, from there”. They controlled during the evening, but at night

there was not a lot of light you know so we could hide there and we

could run etc.

And so what did you want to tell about these bombs?

At the end of, at the last day in the university, actually they bombed a

building with...eum...BMB?

Oh yes, the smaller tanks, not the big ones. A.

They are called BMB.

It is a medium size tank.

Yes, there was a student thrown from the roof, two students actually.

One of them thrown off by the secret police, and the other one was

thrown off by the students. He was a student but he was cooperating with

the secret police. He was also an Alawite. So they throw him from the

roof and the regime used this story to bomb the building, to attack and

throw students from the building. Like twenty or thirty students got

thrown from the roof. Or people just escaping from the police and they

throw themselves from the building. So it was, this last day was a

disaster and everybody after. We couldn’t do anything because the

university was shut down so everyone should travel to their cities.

They closed the university?

No, it was the end of the second semester. X.

But I didn't understand, they threw bombs in the building?

It is a kind of small bomb, it makes gas, but it damaged one floor of

this building. It made some damage like whole rooms were destroyed.

And this was the same night they threw all the students from the

building?

The last day was the most violent day, yes they threw students from

windows and arrested a lot of us, they used white weapons etc. But

before this day there was also a familiar violence which happened during

the strike I could say the struggle lasted for 4 weeks, the government

was tolerant with us just for 3 or 4 days and after that they changed

the chief of police and started with a new strategy, eum... what

happened during this struggle. During the last weekwe were losing our

bond, students seemed more. More violent, no communication, they just

regrouped: “We are from Idleb” for example, from this city.

Because of what the regime was doing the people were.. ?

Yes because of the news we received, it was so violent about what

happened in Idlib, what happened in Homs, what happened in. So, people

started shouting to each other: ”You don’t do enough in your city!”.

Like this, and off course if someone from another sect, if someone is

not Sunni, or especially if someone is Alawi, they will never talk to

him, or they were trying to protect themselves from him. Also there were

reasons for this. Because what happened also we got an Alawist group

working with the secret police, armed with weapons, making patrols

during the night. So everything we were working on, the bond, the

values, no matter what was the background, collapsed. And it was such a

huge loss. Sings. This is the end.

So you see all the civil movements, all the revolutionary movements that

were created at the beginning of the revolution were being destroyed at

the same time period you could say, in different cities, in the

university which was very important also. So yes, people started

becoming more hesitant, asking themselves if this was the right way, are

we doing the right thing, should we look for other means of fighting the

regime. This is where we started thinking of an armed struggle, and not

a peaceful struggle.

Second Part

Earlier demands of the revolution. In the case of Daraa for example one

of the problems was that -following an international environmental

agreement- the government banned drilling water wells in the city. This

isn’t a bad bill in itself, except for the fact that Daraa is an

agricultural city with no other sources of water. The government never

supported the farmers or provided new means of irrigation, especially

since a severe drought had hit the area. Bribery became omnipresent in

the city. Some farmers would pay the secret intelligence or the mayor a

couple million Syrian Lira to drill a well. This created a huge problem

for the locals who began to gradually loose their main source of income.

Add to this the issue of youths being detained in the city and you get

the perfect recipe for a revolutionary hub.

After that the people were seeking for demands, not to change the

regime, they were seeking for a negotiation with the regime. I can refer

to the paper that was made by this council of Horan families. There are

ten points: about the release of the children, to fire the mayor of

Horan, let people make wells inside of their lands, kind of demands like

this. So actually we are not talking about revolution but we are talking

about social movements. Before this, the social movement was dead in

Syria, there was nothing actually happening, no one made demands, no one

spoke up, people just lived their lives with shitty conditions. So we

think it is an important moment to use and transform it into revolution.

I still remember my friends from Horan inside the university, they told

me: “Look, this is not revolution. This is something special between us

and the state. You Aleppian, you rest of Syrian people, you don’t have

anything to do with this issue. Don’t drag us into what you are thinking

about.” It is not the majority of Horan, not the majority of Horan is

like that but the official speech of this city was like this: “It is not

revolution. It is some conflict between us and the city and we will

solve it as soon as possible”. Could you continue from this point?

Are we talking about how at the beginning of the revolution the demands

were not really revolutionary as much as it was for social reform, or?

Is this what you are talking about?

Yes, exactly. It wasn’t a revolution, it was. We noticed that we were

alive now, that we could do something, we could demand, we could

protest. But it was not revolution. Until April, the 18th of April, the

morning when the main square in Homs was occupied. At night, the secret

police (mukhabarat in Syrian) blockaded the square and gave people half

an hour to empty it completely. Those who chose not to leave were

killed, all of them. We still don’t know exactly how many. Hundreds! It

was a Monday.

The next Friday, people demonstrated under the name “The Good Friday”.

It was Easter. It was like a message: “We are not racist, we are not

just Sunni’s. We consider this day as a national day. On the other hand

online, in the virtual world, the revolution began with a specific date,

the 15th of March, I am talking here about the virtual world. At the

beginning the names of the Fridays were national, revolutionary names

that did not divide people or categorize them by distinct identities.

After that they had begun to give Islamic names with radical Islamic

concepts like jihadist and stuff like this. So, with the Good Friday,

we. Like most of the country, even Aleppo, Damascus, were involved in

this Friday and went into the street to protest against the regime and

in Homs at that point they demanded the downfall of the regime. This was

the biggest moment of. Now, it’s so serious! Laughs. Homs became the

center of the struggle. Homs because it was the responsible city for

this demand, we accept what Homs went through, we as other cities. So

this request moved from Homs to all the rest of the country. All the

people now don’t demand to make some kind of reform with the regime, now

we know that the regime will never listen to us, it will never reform or

make any promise. So at this point we say: “The Syrian media is lying,

the regime is lying, we cannot trust the regime”.

I think, was it you who explained this point before, like that there was

always a new center. Maybe you can explain it again because…

OK, eum... OK, so like A said, the first demands to topple the regime

were in Homs and after that there were huge demonstrations taking place

in Homs and whole neighborhoods that got, that were liberated from

regime presence, there were only the civilians living there and

self-managing the whole neighborhood. So we felt like Homs took a

central role in the revolution because they made the largest sacrifices,

a lot of people were killed there, they were organizing large demos,

they were trying to even. I don’t know, you could say there were a lot

of activities taking place there. At the beginning there weren’t many

cities involved in the struggle still so we felt like Homs was the

center, the central city in the struggle. So everyone was talking about

Homs, Homs was like the capital of the revolution for a long time. So

every time the regime would enter the city and reoccupy a neighborhood

that had been liberated, we would feel like a part of the revolution was

being lost, we’d feel very disappointed, we’d feel conquered by the

regime, that we became weaker. And this is because we put such high

hopes on a specific city and we really gave them more responsibility

than we should have, I mean no-one should hold such a huge

responsibility on their shoulders.

But also not just us.

Yes, but them also not.

No, also not just them. We are talking about media too, we’re talking

about Al Jazeera, they focused on this city and they made stars like

Khaled Abu Salah, like... What’s he called? Goalkeeper?

Al-Sarout.

Al-Sarout, yes. We’ve got like stars from this city, revolution stars

from this city.

And the thing that happened was people in Homs started at some point

exaggerating what they were doing, even exaggerating the number, the

toll number of people who actually died in order to keep this role that

they are the ones who sacrifice themselves, they are the capital of the

revolution, in order to keep up with this title that has been given to

them. They actually fabricated a lot of news and this cost the

revolution to loose a lot of credibility in the eyes of even other

Syrians who were hesitant about joining the revolution or not. Because

they saw the regime lying but also the opposition, so they are not

really that different from them. And this is what happened, different

areas like even small villages in Homs (Qusayr) were opposing for months

and they kept resisting and this village also became a star and everyone

was like: “They will never fall and we will keep struggling”, even

people who aren’t really there, you know. And actually the regime did

conquer it because of course it has many, many more soldiers and more

weapons and everything. The whole revolution lost, instead of everyone

trying to organize within themselves and standing in solidarity with

this city or with that village and saying even if this village, even if

we lost here we are still strong there and we can keep going. It is not,

the revolution is not Homs, the revolution is everyone. We didn’t do

this, we were always very emotional, which was the negative side. We

were always sad, always felt like we were being, we aren’t going

anywhere, like the regime was too strong and we couldn’t keep up with

what it is doing to everyone. So, centralizing the revolution in

specific areas of Syria has really cost us a lot on many levels. On the

level of credibility, on the support that we got from others who aren’t

involved, and even the sentiment and the energy we had towards the

revolution because with each failure we felt weaker and weaker to the

point that we felt that we didn’t have anymore energy, that we didn’t

have any strength, that perhaps we couldn’t fight the regime, maybe it

was a mistake to begin with…

Yes, this is true. And we never made a plan to go and occupy Damascus,

which is the most important city. If we had occupied Damascus and made a

lot of trouble in Damascus, that would have been a huge damage for the

regime, more than in other cities. So people preferred to go with their

villages, with their cities, to say to other cities or to say to other

people: “We are here, we support you”. To make solidarity with other

cities you know, rather than to focus on what was the goal of this

protest, what was the goal of this demonstration. Yes, I understand, it

was important to be in one’s own village, or in one’s own streets, in

one’s own neighborhood to say what you want to say but we needed these

people in a specific place, not in their own place because it was not

helpful for the revolution to make demand in theses villages. So what

happened at the beginning of the revolution, the revolution was civic,

without weapons, without power. There were a lot of villages, for

example we have a village like Albedaa (which means the white), we know

about what happened there. The intelligence forces went there and they

arrested the whole village, the whole village, we are talking about

hundreds of people. They arrested them and started to humiliate them and

torture them, treat them like animals, and they took them to what we

call the black hole. We didn’t know anything about them until one month

later, because of a brave man who appeared in a film. He filmed himself:

“This is my name, I am from this village. What happened in this village

is this and this”.

Yes because they. Well I think what was really important was that the

police or, well they are all police to me, they were stepping actually

on the bodies of people. They were on the ground and they were stepping

on them, and what they were saying was: “You want freedom ha! This is

for freedom”, and they would step on them. So what really was

infuriating the regime was this: that the the regime felt it has

subjugated people to the point that is was impossible for them to

imagine a different kind of world, a different kind of.

Yes, and this is also what made the situation more religious. Because in

these videos they don’t just say to people: “You want freedom ha”, they

say: “Say Bashar Al Assad is your god”. And this made the situation more

radical religious, for people to defend: “No fuck you Bashar Al Assad,

Allah is my god. I don’t pray, just for Allah”, so on, so on.

When the video was aired on TV stations, the regime denied it happened

in Syria and they said it happened in Iraq when the American army was

occupying.

No it was not the American army actually, Peshmerga.

Ah, Peshmerga. So one of the people whose face was shown in the video,

he went out on camera and he said: “My name is this and I was there and

this happened in Syria”. This was. Because for the first time you could

see someone from the incident who came out to speak and to confirm what

happened.

And it was really brave what he did in that period. Because one day

after that they arrested him and until now he is still in prison, we

don’t know anything about him... I mentioned about why don’t we go to

Damascus instead of protesting in our villages, in our countryside small

cities. There were only two attempts to occupy Damascus, made on the

countryside of Damascus. For example what happened in Cairo, it was not

just the population of the people of Cairo who were protesting in Tahrir

square, all Egypt was there. All Egypt came from the countryside, from

far away cities to Cairo to protest in Tahrir square. And that never

happened in our case. A lot of people went to Hama for example but we

didn’t have any plan to go and occupy Damascus.

I don’t know why.

And that cost us a lot. If we were focusing on Damascus instead of

dividing our powers in the whole country and call for help. People in

Daraa they shout for: “Where are you Aleppo, where are you Damascus,

where are you Tartus”. And people made invitations through

demonstrations. We imagined that the whole country should protest at the

same time. And it was a really hard task. We were not organized enough,

we had hard conditions, the regime was violent, so the goal we put in

our imagination to protest in the main squares in the whole country at

the same time, it was kind of dreamy and not realistic at all.

But, like just to make it a bit more clear. First we are talking about

the mistake of centralizing the struggle and then we talk about how we

all have to go to Damascus. But this would also be a centralization of

the struggle no?

Yeah, it is kind of centralized but it would be understandable, for me.

If we destroy Damascus. Laughs. The whole regime would be destroyed. But

the regime has no interest in Homs and it already destroyed it, but it

will never do this in Damascus because it is the main point of power for

the regime.

And there is something else because a lot of these demonstrations that

were taking place across Syria, were taking place in areas which had no

regime presence anymore. So people were just, it was becoming a

tradition that every Friday or every day people would go in the street

and demonstrate but nothing was going from there. They weren’t building

on this, they were just repeating the same thing and what we are saying

is if these people and all of us really came up with a plan to occupy a

quiet city, a still city, like Damascus at the time, it would have cost,

even if we didn’t demonstrate if just a lot of people would go there

because they weren’t going to stop people from entering the city they

don’t know. If a huge number of people would have just gone there, they

would have been just walking around the streets without doing anything.

If we had just came up with other means of struggle, other than demos

because either it wasn’t working because people were just getting killed

and then repeating the same thing over and over again, or it was already

dead. I mean if we are demonstrating for the regime to leave this city

to go somewhere else we’ve done this already so we aren’t putting

anything at risk, we are just repeating the same thing. So instead of

this we should have come up with a different way of fighting the regime,

in its castle, in Damascus, or even in Aleppo if people would just go to

a big city where we had a lot of problems of media coverage, it would be

a shock to the regime because it would never imagine that cities, big

cities like Aleppo or Damascus would revolt. But if people were

demonstrating in small villages, in small cities that didn’t have regime

presence anymore, if they just had moved to another big city and they

would there... Because first of all it would shock the regime and second

of all other people would see. Because these people were really afraid,

no one would go into the streets and demonstrate, they were sitting at

home and they were hesitant to join or not to join, to support the

regime or not. But if they saw people in the streets, even if they are

not from the same city as theirs, demonstrating they would see: “These

are civilians”, that they don’t have arms. A lot of the regime’s

propaganda and lies would be uncovered because they would see with their

own eyes what is going on. But we didn’t, we were stuck in this, in this

cycle.

Instead of blaming. Because we are stuck on blaming Aleppo and Damascus.

People just for example Homsian, this people of Homs blame a lot Aleppo:

where are the people, where is the support of Aleppo. And that has

enforced a couple of ideas about localized movement, and you are

responsible for your city, if I am from Aleppo I am responsible for what

will happen in Aleppo. So they don’t consider me as a friend, as a

comrade of this revolution, they will blame me for my failure to make

this city move in solidarity with the other cities. Instead of doing

this, come to Aleppo and let’s do something here. It is not my city,

just forget these fucking ideas like my city, it’s stupid, fucking

cities, the whole country is for us, so let’s. It is still these kind of

walls like “I am from Aleppo and you are from Idlib, you...”. And that

enforces this idea and people were becoming so proud about “Ah, I am

from Homs!”. Also, about centralizing the struggle in Homs, my cousins,

I have cousins they are not from Homs but they started to say: “I am

from Homs.” Laughs. Really, it’s like that. We have a village that

belongs to the Assad family which is called Alqerdaha, so anyone who

wants to make an authority on people he will say I am from Alqerdaha and

the other man would be very afraid of him. So it became like this. “I am

from this village, in this village you know we are...”.

Yes, it is a tribal mentality I think. No one felt like we had a common

enemy and this would abolish all the walls we have, all the barriers and

the sense of belonging to certain groups that have discrimination

against another group. We always felt constrained by these affiliations.

So this is, if we are talking about the civil struggle, the peaceful

struggle at the beginning of the revolution this is what really was

holding us back from getting to the next level, from innovating new

means to fight the regime, new tools and not just to keep using the same

ones when we saw that even if it had effect it was a little effect and

it was very slow, it was slower than we imagined. Because the thing is

that when we saw the Egyptian and the Tunisian revolutions we thought

that it would be that easy: if we could just get to a square and occupy

it and people would see that we were peaceful that we didn’t have any

weapons and that the regime keeps killing us and keeps bombing us and

everything, the whole world would stand with us and the regime would be

in such a shame that it would leave. But it wasn’t like that. Firstly it

was very hard to do that and second of all this may have worked on a

short term but as time progressed and violence escalated and we had

never changed our tools... Because I don’t think we knew what else to

do. We didn’t have any former experience in the matter to help get us

out of this hole that we had dug ourselves into. Because we had this

preconceived picture of what everything would be like and when the

things that happened didn’t meet our expectations, we didn’t change

anything. And this is where I think everything started to collapse.

Yes, also when the Libyan revolution started and the NATO decision was

adopted... Eum... The new flag rose in the name of the Syrian

revolution, and it was not a decision of... You know they start people

and one of them, we start with that talk like: “This flag, old flag, is

the Arabian flag. Because it is the flag of the Arab united nation

between Syria and Egypt, which was declared by Jamar Abdel Nasser, so it

is not the Syrian flag, we should use the Syrian flag and this is a

historical fact. We should change our flag”. What a silly thing we were

discussing, why did we put another struggle in this society.

Because we were failing and the…

Because we were thinking to generate the same thing as in Libya. Because

the same thing happened in Libya, they had two flags, the green one and

the old one. So we wanted to simulate the conditions and after one week

we were seeking for NATO and we called this Friday…

Foreign intervention. Yes, after what happened in Libya, we started

thinking that a foreign intervention in Syria was possible, before we

didn’t. And so we thought if we are failing on a local level maybe a

foreign intervention could solve our problems. That the regime was too

violent, too strong for us but maybe if... you know the western

countries and America if they could come with their big drones and they

would drop bombs and the regime would leave.

Laughs. Now we are seeking for, also in the demonstrations we are

seeking for a help from the Islamic world, from the arab world, and we

created such a thing like “Where are you, Muslims?”. We made an official

invitation for Muslims to come here and declare jihad.

Yeah and when they did…

And when they did, they said: “Fuck you Muslims. Get out of our

country.”

Yes and even when we’re being subjugated under different names and with

different types. When the Free Syrian Army entered the city of Aleppo[8]

and people were start ing to criticize its wrong doings and were saying

that they are doing this, they are doing that and it’s not good and that

they should change their behavior, we tried to communicate with them and

then people are stating: “And what are you doing, they are putting their

lives at risk to save you and what are you...”, so people started

becoming like the lovers of other dictators, under other names but they

returned to their old selves when they accepted that people would treat

them in a... You know as slaves that don’t have an opinion, that don’t

have freedom to decide. Just because... I don’t know.

Because: “They didn’t take enough risk. They didn’t risk their life. So

you have no right if you are in safety.”

Between brackets.

Yes, it became like this: if you have a gun and you fight the regime you

have a right to make decisions, but if you are not holding these guns

you should be so careful about your words and what you are saying about

the Free Syrian Army. We should be kind of respectful about these guys,

what they are doing, they risk their lives, so you should respect them.

What I was talking about we should belong to each other and if they made

something wrong we should say it to them: “You are making mistakes

here”. It doesn’t mean we hate them or we don’t respect them, it is not

a matter of something personal between us, it is a matter of the whole

country and the whole revolution. I belong to this revolution and I put

risk to belong to this revolution. I don’t need to prove my beliefs and

to go and fight with guns, it is not your business to talk to me like

this.

They were starting to create new classes. While at some point we were on

the same level, we were all comrades in the revolution and we were all

the same, then it became people who had arms, and people who didn’t.

People who demonstrated, people who made strikes, people who stood in

solidarity with the revolution but never really did anything. But at

some point we started becoming divided: the class of activists who were

going to do I don't know what and the class of humanitarian workers and

the class of the Free Syrian Army, and everyone has this persona

generalized, like the Free Syrian Army shouldn’t be criticized because

they were doing this and this and the activists are doing that. And each

group started developing these biases, the in-group bias favoring its

own group and against other groups. These rumors started being created

and every group started hating the others. I don’t know.

We are talking about the collapse of the revolution now.

Yes, this is it. When we had a common struggle, a big common struggle

that united us and we were fighting for it, when we felt that we were

loosing we started having these pitiful small things that we wanted to

win. Like I am an activist and I want to win this sort of thing, I want

to prove that my group is better than the other group because we weren’t

really succeeding on a bigger level. So we started just inventing this

conflicts between each other in order to feel that we are doing

something, like the flag for example. It would never have been a

conflict if we weren’t really feeling like we are loosing.

Laughs. But it is fucking revolution, what the fuck are you talking

about.

Were there different propositions for flags? I don't really understand

what was the conflict about this flag, not everybody agreed to change

the flag?

Yes, not all people agreed about changing the flag. But the idea behind

it, I don’t like. I was one of the supporters to change this flag.

Because, when I think about it, yes fuck this flag, this flag is fucking

racist Arabian flag and the old flag was you know good for everybody,

Kurdish for example they don’t have any problem with the green flag, the

red one is a nationalist flag. So logically it is right you know. When

you take it historically, to change the flag, the old flag is more

representative for all groups in Syria. But the other flag represents

the ideology of Ba'ath and Arabist party so... But it wasn’t like this.

People who supported the other flag, the majority of these people that

supported change, they supported it because of what happened in Libya,

in the Libyan revolution. This caused a new conflict between them,

between the same groups. At a specific period of time you’ll have enough

problems to deal with, and now you bring another problem that divides

the people, the groups who support the flag and... So this is my point

about the flag.

Because at the end flags are very national symbols to everyone, to every

Syrian person. I think I never really cared because I don’t give a shit

about flags, I mean I think it’s just a colored piece of cloth, but to a

lot of people it is a symbol. So even to the supporters of the regime or

people who were in between felt like these people, the demonstrators or

whatever, they are trying to separate themselves from us and it is true

what he regime is saying that they don’t care about Syria, they want to

destroy this country because they are messing with the most nationalist

symbol of all Syria, the flag. People even started talking about

aesthetics, about how this flag is better looking than the other flag,

so why change it? And there were a lot of stupid arguments being made

and this allowed the regime to spread its propaganda about how, because

people don’t really read history, about how the revolution flag was the

flag of the French colonization of Syria. And people actually believed

this and so more and more rumors were spreading about how these people

are trying to destroy the country. This helps the regime because it

divided people even more than they already were. It created two

countries I think or people fighting amongst each other. “Why did you

have to do this?” and I don't know how to explain it because when we

were inside the struggle we became very defensive like: “You know what

you are saying about this flag is wrong, it has nothing to do with

France, it was actually from after France left and this and that”. And

we shouldn't have, I mean it is a stupid conflict that…

Yes, those are fake arguments, it's a fake struggle.

So you see how something really small can end up…

And people started hating the old flag, they even took it from…

They started burning it.

Yes. And now you don’t remember about how we bring this flag inside Hama

square. Because during the revolution people took the red flag and there

was no problem with it and they treated it as holy flag. Laughs. But

this changed.

What's next?

Compromises. As which group.

Who are we?

OK, like at the beginning of the revolution there were limited the

religious slogans. We just accept “Allahu akbar”, we’re cool.

It wasn’t at the beginning.

“Allahu akbar” was at he beginning. Also it was the key in for example

Aleppo, when we wanted to start a demonstration, there was a special man

who said “Allahu akbar!” and he would run. Laughs. This was his mission,

you just shout “Allahu akbar!” as loud as you can and you run. So it is

OK, but it was not the main slogan, so people just said it at the start

of the demonstration to say: “we are here”. And it was okay until then

but what was happening after is that people started to change all the

slogans which have to do with freedom, dignity and economist issues and

the demands of what we want were replaced by religious slogans. Like:

“Our leader forever is Mohammed and he is the leader of our revolution”.

OK great, now we loose laughs christian and a lot of atheists for this

revolution. And a lot of friends started to talk with me: “Now you

became a Sunni, we thought you are atheist what happened to your values,

you are supporting these people saying this kind of shit?”. I was trying

to explain: “No, they are not mean, they are emotional, they are under

the pressure of violence” and it was true. People started to talk about

this religious things after violence escalated, after the regime started

to challenge the holy god of Islam. So the army wrote on the walls “Our

god is Bashar Al Assad and you should pray to Bashar Al Assad”. We got

so many videos during the revolution of someone being tortured and they

say to him: “Pray to your god!”. And they put a picture from Bashar Al

Assad, and this drives people to be more religious and more and more and

more...

It is a strategy?

Yes, off course it was a strategy. They used this already before, in the

80s, in Hama, they used the same way and this is the same methodology of

the regime, and we knew this, but what can we do with this situation?

How can we react? We felt if we just keep standing beside the people and

go with them and say the same shit they say and after that we will make

discussions with them: “OK, let’s be more logical people, let’s calm

down and think about what the regime is trying to do with us”. But

actually the task was much harder than what we can do about it. This

videos... we started to... if we can stop these videos to be in hands of

people.

These videos of people being tortured?

Yes, but it was impossible because Al Ja- zeera and Al Arabia where

showing them on a large media scale.

They were also part of this because their policy, their strategy was

actually to accentuate how other sects and other religions weren’t

taking enough participation in the revolution. How it was a kind of

Sunni revolution and how the regime is a sectarian Alawite regime and

it’s not that he’s indiscriminately trying to kill anyone that stabs in

his back, no it was systematic to target specific groups. And they were

funding more religious groups, with arms, with money. And they were

trying to play on this card because it is really Sunni, Qatar and Saudi

Arabia, well they are the Sunni branch of the power in this scale so

they were helping the regime in this game really.

And also the regime started to bomb the mosques and humiliate how

Muslims pray. For example there are a lot of videos... So it became, the

struggle became Sunni against the whole country and this is the majority

of the country so they could have controlled the whole country.

But I really don’t know which part of it was our fault and which part of

it was…

But it’s not…

This what happened, I mean can we blame ourselves for what happened or

can we just say that the regime was smarter than us maybe, or he had

more resources.

No, we could say... It was not just what happened during the revolution

that made the whole thing like this. We’ve got a history of this. We’ve

got a history with this that started four or five centuries ago. We have

this situation between the sects and even if we are not talking in a

historical context, we could just take it from what happened in Aleppo

and Hama in the 80s. And the example of the power the Alawite accent had

in Syria, because when you talk with an Alawite accent in Syria, you

have the power of the accent you know. You could terrify a person. So

the conditions are ready for it to be a civil war, and the regime with

all its power, with the help of other countries like Saudi and Turkey

and Qatar with their media. We resisted for four months and I think we

did great. Four months it was a great thing to do. Because it is weird

to imagine a successful revolution with these conditions. We’ve got like

5% to succeed and we take the rest to…

It wasn’t conscious but yes OK. But yeah, we talked about this before

that all this hate between the components of the Syrian society was

repressed and when it finally came up it turned into a civil war because

it is the only way to... So people think that: “Why don’t we just go

back?”, people are really just tired and want to go back to a place in

the time before 2011, to a time when everything was peaceful and all...

But the thing is it wasn’t peaceful, it was just on hold, it was just

put on hold and eventually it would have exploded if not in 2011 then in

2015 but it was going to explode because it is not normal for people to

hold so much hate and to be in such bad conditions and not to act on it,

not to manifest their hate and these negative feelings they have towards

each other. So maybe at the beginning people were idealizing the

situation, idealizing the revolution that we are standing together now

and this regime is affecting all of us negatively the same way, we are

all poor, we are all repressed and persecuted and we can’t express

ourselves, we can’t do anything, so we should stand together in order to

conquer it. But then, many factors played a role but eventually people

stopped looking at the regime, they started looking at each other and

realized: we have unfinished business with each other and now we have

the opportunity to act on this. Yes actually like A said I think

everything was going to be like this sooner or later because we don’t

really have a chance with so much…

Even M (anarchist comrade) he said to me one time: “I can’t believe you,

listen to his accent! It is, you know, the revolution we are talking

about! I love you!” Laughs. M was so surprised by listening to an

Alawite accent talking against the regime. Not because he is racist or

something but because it is really weird you know. It is a fact, the

majority of Alawites they support the regime. For a reason, of course.

Yes, but the thing is that you can’t explain that when they are being

targeted, when they are being killed. Are you going to sit down with

them and explain the social-economic conditions the Alawite community is

being put through, that create the conditions for them to act in this

specific way, that it has been a strategy for the last 50 years, since

Hafez Al Assad, purposely putting this community in the corner, in order

for them to act exactly this? Because some of them yes they benefit from

the regime, but the majority they don’t. They are just convinced that

the regime is protecting them because before the Ba’ath party took over

they were a really persecuted minority when the Sunni, the majority,

were in power let’s say, they were mocked, they were put down and they

were marginalized. So when the Alawite president took over they felt

like now everything will change, now we will stop being in this

position. And yes, the accent, a lot of things changed for them, in the

end it wasn’t really... The majority of these people remained living in

distant villages where they have no electricity, where they are really

poor, but still they defended the regime. This is what he did, created a

human shield, by really convincing, really convincing a large number of

people that everyone around them wants to kill them, wants to eat them,

that unless he stays in power they will be obliterated. You can’t

explain this to people, they won’t listen to you. What others see is an

Alawite defending the same regime that is trying to kill him, so they

see the supporters of the regime as just as guilty as the regime itself

and so sectarianism started to grow stronger and stronger and we

couldn’t do anything to stop it, we couldn’t be logical with people

because everything was so emotional, just can’t just sit down and

explain it to anyone.

The other day you said that in the beginning you would have had more

chance to bring forward our ideas. Do you think this would have made a

difference? In what sense do you regret that you didn't do this or is it

just a consideration?

Yes, I regret we never took this as an opportunity, an unprecedented one

and maybe it would never happen again for tens of years, an opportunity

for change on all levels, not just on a political level. We restricted

our demands with a list, even if it was unconsciously: “We want this and

this and this... And maybe if the regime leaves we’ll have the chance to

change a lot of things”. But we were so restricted by the demands we had

in our minds, to the point that we didn’t really think that people now

for the first time they are willing to change, they are not afraid to

change, because change is really scary sometimes, but that this was

exactly the time to express our ideas and discuss them with people and

to see, to understand our society because we had been so isolated. I

feel we had a really preconceived and very distorted image of what the

Syrian society was in its core. But we lacked the experience, we

lacked... I don’t know. Maybe it’s just, it’s hindsight, you know when

you are confronted with a situation but then things pass and you think

about it and you think: “Why did I do this?” and it is so clear, but at

the time it wasn’t. There were a lot of things going on and we couldn’t

really have a clear image of what we wanted and what we should do. But

still I think if we had done this, it would have changed a lot of

things, it would have at least gave us more time, more unity to sort

these things out, to think them out between each other, not just between

closed groups in different cities. We could have all sit together and

talked about it, not just each group developing its own ideas which were

really isolated from the rest of the scene which was then going in a

different direction.

Let's take a break!

Third Part

I am going to talk about the humanitarian issue now. I was just thinking

I should give some context about why this thing happened, because in

July 2012 the Free Syrian Army entered Aleppo from the countryside. In

almost three days they occupied a number of neighborhoods in the city,

neighborhoods which are mostly close to the countryside but it was big

neighborhoods with a large number of people. So of course the regime’s

response was to bomb the neighborhoods immediately and thousands of

people were displaced and came to the other half of the western side of

Aleppo. This is why we talk about the eastern side and the western side

because the western side remained mostly unoccupied by the Free Army

forces, it was occupied by the regime and the other side under their

control so there are always conflicts between the two. So it was summer

and they (the displaced people) came to the government buildings like

schools and other government facilities that were empty at the time. And

immediately, I don’t know how these things got organized so quickly but

it was crazy because in a matter of two days hundreds of people came to

clean the schools and prepare them with... We took out the desks and

everything, to make enough space. And everyone started working at the

schools, we were divided into school systems, every school had staff

that was working there mostly. And we did classes, you know school

classes, and we were feeding all these people with contributions that

were coming from other people living in Aleppo. Of course we were also

working before that happened because there were refugees coming from

Homs and other places far away from Aleppo, but never at such a large

scale because there were now thousands of people leaving their

neighborhoods and coming to schools. So as time progressed, there were

more and more, what would I call them, people who used to be active in

the revolution, who... When the Free Syrian Army entered the city, all

the activities stopped, from magazines, every, you know revolutionary

outlet no matter what it is, it stopped, and all the people active at

that time became humanitarian workers. They started working in schools,

n'importe quoi.

Why did all the activities stop?

Well, I think... First of all because the neighborhoods that the Free

Syrian Army occupied were the same neighborhoods that we would usually

demonstrate in, and they were being bombed and the people were leaving.

So the Free Syrian Army kind of blocked the only neighborhoods that we

could be active in. And at the same time there were a lot of changes

going on, even most of the people we were working with on the magazine,

a lot of them used to live in these neighborhoods, so they moved and the

groups got a little broken. And the fact that they had no other thing to

do made them kind of move into the humanitarian aid. What can I say?

There weren’t any discussions being held at that time, everyone was

trying to focus on sparing these people, the suffering that they have or

they endured and how we can help them not to feel like they are

displaced. There were a lot of small theater acts and we showed them

movies sometimes. But everything headed in that direction, we stopped

everything we were doing, everything was on hold.

But theater acts, like what?

Like there were three people who used to work with puppets and things.

Ah, you mean for children?

Yes.

And movies, like?

Actually M was someone who occupied that position, so it were mostly

cartoons. Mostly for children, no one really thought about... Yes, and

there were doctors there also. But... I left shortly afterward, so... I

don’t know what happened exactly later but…

I just wanted to add something here about when the Free Army entered the

city. They didn’t take any responsibility about the people’s safety. Or

they didn’t alert people to leave this area because they would occupy

it, at least. They just entered the city and they changed the whole

situation so now we should, as a civilian movement, we should now deal

with the humanitarian issues, regardless what we were working on before,

like magazines or demonstrations or whatever thing we were doing, so the

whole city was hanged.

They were occupying civilian neighborhoods and they knew what the

consequences were going to be, the regime doesn’t really care about...

anything really…

Everybody was happy, we are talking about activists, demonstrators.

Because the first day, Z told me about it, all the security were in

their bases, hiding in their bases.

What security?

Intelligence forces, police. So it was like, you know, there is no

police in the street. I don’t know why I mentioned this but I think this

situation just makes that people don’t blame the Free Syrian Army, I am

talking about demonstrators, they don’t blame them.

They were the saviors at that time. I don’t know if this is worth

mentioning but when we were working at the schools I saw a lot of my old

friends who used to support the regime actually, but they came to these

schools to work. They took this as a humanitarian non-biased territory

where they can come and work together.

And the church was involved in this.

Yes off course. There was a monastery, they were the organized ones that

were working on this before this happened in Aleppo, with displaced

people from other cities.

But all the food was sent by this organization?

No, these were contributions mostly. A lot of people would buy bread and

sometimes send money. Especially that it was Ramadan at that time when

the Free Syrian Army entered the city. But it was crazy, the people that

were displaced, sometimes they thought that you worked for them.

I remember, because in Ramadan most of the shops are closed until very

late at night. And one person came and he said that he wanted shampoo,

no he said that he wanted hair gel actually. And I tried not to scream

at him but I really couldn’t: “Why are you asking me for hair gel or

what should I do now? Demand and supply, you supply here. What do you

what me to do?“. Laughs. But I think it sucked the life out of people

who were active before in the revolution. We were starting to see this,

because we were starting to see atrocities being committed by the

others, by the other army. And I don’t know, we stopped seeing the

revolution from how we used to see it, it was becoming more of a

humanitarian kind of thing. It was the situation we were put in: you

could sit home and do nothing, because you couldn’t do what you used to

do, or you would come here and work with people who were suffering, and

becoming Mother Theresa you know, becoming this and listening to stories

about how people... And I’m not saying it’s, because we didn’t go

through this, but sometimes when this is all you are getting, all you

are hearing, this affects how you see the revolution. It becomes misery

when it used to be work and energy and everything. Then I couldn’t see

how I am doing anything. I felt like I was just handling the

consequences of what was going on, I wasn’t changing anything, I had no

effect, I was like a straw in the ocean. So I left. I left Syria. And on

the way I saw for the first time the countryside of Aleppo, which was

destroyed. I never visited these areas before. And then on the borders a

Free Syrian Army patrol stopped us, they wanted our passports. So my

father, my father was with me and he gave my passport to him. So he was

checking the passport and he said: “Why are you giving me her passport,

she is a woman“. This is the last scene I had in Syria and it was so

ugly to actually witness that really this is what all of this has let

to, this is how you say goodbye you know, to me. The guy from the Free

Syrian Army battalion he told my father: “Why are you giving me her

passport, she is a girl.“. He meant that he shouldn’t look at a woman’s

face.

It’s kind of religious.

Kind of?

Yes, it is a mix between religious and psychopath.

Laughs Where do we go from here?

On the other side... This story…

Do you know what you want to talk about?

About the magazine.

OK.

So, the idea was to create some platforms to work on, on a cultural

base: to write something, to record some songs, make some art, so on and

so on. We had three ideas: magazine, radio and music band. We started

with the magazine, we were six; five males and one female, at the

beginning. The female was not R. Laughs. We didn’t have any skills about

how we could make a magazine, we didn’t have any background about how we

could write an article. So we decided to just write an introduction

page, and the other articles we collected them from writers we talked to

through facebook. So we weren’t so interested by the content, especially

with the first issue. Of course we put some filters and criteria to the

topics but we didn’t focus on this thing. Instead we were focusing on

how many issues we will print and how we could distribute them. We

didn’t have a network to communicate with so we started to look for

people, we didn’t know them except from skype. The whole situation was

so dangerous, there is nothing to stand on and we took this decision,

and printed the magazine. So when we succeeded with the first issue, it

was like a dream you know. With the second issue we focused more than

before, I started to write, Z also and R2. So in the second issue we got

four articles from our group and another four articles from the social

network. So it was developed like this, and in the third one I got two

articles, Z also, and it is: now I know what I am doing inside the

magazine, A also, A2. All the group of Tamarod (name of magazine, Rebel)

had specific missions to achieve, so we became a group, a real group,

organized and... but... we failed to continue this project. For a lot of

reasons, one of them was that it was hard to continue at the same rhythm

and we didn’t prepare ourselves to print one issue every ten days, every

ten days we should print something new. For that we got an alternative

solution, so we started not focusing just on printing the magazine. We

started to print posters and going at the night and put posters on the

walls.

What was written on these posters?

For example we met a girl on facebook, she is a digital designer and we

asked her to design something about kalashnikov and the violence and the

non violence too, or the acceptable violence, the alternative violence

we would say. So she designed a photo that showed a woman…

It was a pinup actually, it was a pinup right?

What? Pinup?

Pinup, the ones, the American ones.

“If you don’t have a kalashnikov, you could use molotov.“, it was

written.

“Switch to molotov.“

With a tutorial how you make a kalashnikov.

Molotov.

Laughing.

To come back to the magazine, how did you distribute it?

For example, we knew someone who worked in the coordination and he had

an access to this area, let’s say he had an access to 100 persons. So we

would give him let’s say 25 issues (our standard was 1 issue for 4

persons) and so on so on. We just had a circle of persons working on the

countryside, working in a neighborhood. We’d give to someone and this

person would give to three or four others, and these four would give...

Like this.

Did you get a lot of feedback on the magazine?

Yes actually. And the facebook page was a little bit active with

comments and shares and it was a little bit famous in this time period.

In the region of Aleppo or also outside of it? A.

Especially in the region of Aleppo, but we printed one issue in Daraa,

distributed also dozens of issues in Salamiya, but mostly on the

countryside and the city of Aleppo. There was like a link between us and

other magazines in other cities. So, we printed another magazine for

them inside Aleppo and distributed it for them and they did the same

thing for us. So it was like this: we don’t have anybody in Daraa but we

wanted to give some messages to Daraa for example so we could print

something there.

There was a lot of cooperation between different magazines, and a lot of

magazines in different areas of Syria would exchange their newspapers

and distribute it to the maximum amount of people possible.

Yes and also we built a cross connection between each other. It was like

we built a syndicate for magazines.

Because a lot of magazines were being established in different places.

We had a lot of, because I worked in alternative media - the website -,

a lot of them were actually quite good. I mean, maybe their strategy was

very different from Rebel magazine but they had interesting ideas.

Yeah. ... But we were the best one. Laughs. X.

You didn't talk about the radio yet.

Yes, we recorded, we started with one program.

On the internet?

No actually we were just recording, we were preparing some substance to

start with it. So we were just recording to achieve let’s say five hours

and start with five hours streaming, and after that we continue like

this, that was the plan. But what happened, it was very difficult. We

succeeded in recording 40 minutes actually. Because of the problem in

the group. You know you have a lot of activities now, you have a radio

activity, a magazine activity, a singing activity, and... We succeeded

with the magazine and in the beginning it was so new, we should try

again and again and at some point it becomes a little boring kind of

something you have to do. On the other hand, the musician band, it was

fun because they had the chance to go to one of the most famous villages

in the countryside of Aleppo which would become the capital of the Free

Syrian Army. Just I am trying to remember the name of the village,

(Mare) Okay, no, it doesn’t matter. But people there they were so

conservative, and most of the songs were kind of leftist or you could

say communist, because the singer he used to be a communist and after

that he had a lot of leftist ideas, so. It is not acceptable to sing

that kind of songs in that place. But it worked. For some reason it

didn’t bother people and they would listen to them and everything was

fine for the group and it was kind of an achievement and so we started

to think about how we should be prepared for when we would occupy the

main square in Aleppo, the musician band should be better than every

musician laughs that is inside this. And they started to work more to

develop the musician band so, there was no singer professional one, it

was just the group who was singing together. So we started to make an

invitation and make interviews ... laughs... for singers. To test their

voices and something like that. Laughs. It was so funny to begin with

this project because we met a lot of people, and we tried a lot of

different types of music. I wrote two songs, but silly ones, just

mocking with the situation. The musician band was released three months

after the magazine and it had like 10 or 12 songs. Yes, at the end of

the project we made only one issue outside of Syria. We tried to, maybe

it could work, but the whole motivation and the power we had got clashed

because we got all the power from people you know, people gave us

feedback, not just on the virtual life, we needed a physical contact

with people, we printed and distributed around the countryside and in

the city, and when we left all that disappeared. So, all of us

recognized that there is no meaning from doing anything with the

magazine anymore. Especially there was no source of money like we got in

Syria because there we were in our homes, our families were supporting

us. And now we needed to get a job and take care of our basic needs. So

most of us were thinking about how we could deal with these new

conditions. This with managing the magazine, but we failed this mission.

So we decided to stop with all this work and we looked for a new

solution and we looked for a new meaning for this magazine, to not let

this magazine get hanged. And I don’t know, maybe in the future we could

continue this magazine. It means a lot to me because most of my

memories, my revolution memories are connected to this magazine. ... But

I should correct this, the plan was to make the magazine to be like

every 15 days, or maximum 1 month, but what was happening. For example I

got arrested or somebody got injured or would have an exceptional

situation and should now deal with it, so there was no, you know,

rhythm, a stable rhythm to this magazine, it was kind of a problem

because people would think it is just one number and it is gone, and

then after three months “O, it’s the second number”. You should build a

stable relation with the readers, not every randomly “okay now...“. It

was crazy like this…

You still want to add something?

Afterword

I met A. in 2013, on a travel in Egypt. He stranded in Cairo, as did so

many Syrians during Morsi's rule. I met him and some of the comrades

with whom he created the Tamarrod magazine. Their travel continued

afterwards. Some years in Turkey and then from Greece on towards Western

Europe, the infamous refugee route.

M, a Syrian comrade who had been living in exile in Egypt for years and

participated in the Syrian revolution as a surgeon, brought me into

contact with this group. We spent some evenings together, looking for a

quiet spot in ever burstling Cairo. Accompanied by Mo, an Egyptian

revolutionary, we sat along the river Nile, or drank some beer in cafe

Hurriya.

We talked about cultural expressions such as movies and literature, and

about revolution. Off course. All was about revolution in those days,

all conversations leaded towards that beloved topic. Even if massacre

was on its way to Egypt, the battle against Morsi was full on. Even if

barrel bombs were dropping on Syria, there I was sitting with these

comrades who made me feel what their revolution was all about.

It is a strange thing, to come into contact with people living a

revolution, and it blew me off. I met people so different from the ones

I knew. And I am certainly not talking about cultural differences. I'm

referring to an etat d'esprit, so wide, so open, so full of fervent

vibration, experiencing something I could only grasp before loosing it

again.

I got convinced that the most beautiful thing about revolution are its

people. Its people who are ready to defend it, to discuss it, and above

all to live it.

Thinking about Egypt still makes one nostalgic, as leaving it has made

me lovesick. Going back the reality of pacified democracy felt like

waking up from a dream full of torny roses. As love can catch you and

change your view upon the world surrounding you, so does revolution. And

it does the job in a thoroughly profound way. You can't compare it, but

somehow you can. The pain accompanied by a lost case, is like the pain

of a love lost.

So getting back to Europe I missed the people of the revolution, their

passion and love for change. Their desire for change which was not a

placid theoretical one, but a real experience that goes beyond limits of

which one cannot imagine what will be there to find. I missed their

vividness, their urgent interest of exchanging ideas and confronting

views. And their openness towards them.

The Syrian comrades told me about the magazine they created back home

and about the printer stuck in a war zone. Explained me about their will

to continue the project once arrived in Turkey. They told me many

stories if which I understood not even halve, and were very attentive

and interested in what I had to say.

They were fully aware that the world didn't give a fuck about the Syrian

revolution. Many revolutionaries in Egypt turned away from expressing

solidarity with the Syrian revolution since Islamic involvement became

clear. European anarchists didn't take up their responsibility as

revolutionaries in this case at all. Let's say it was a revolution too

easy to not care about, because: “too hard to understand” and “Islamist

not revolutionary”, or “it's a civil war let's forget about it” and “I

will not get involved in humanitarian aid”.

For my part I felt ashamed. It's not that we didn't try to express our

solidarity with the Syrian revolution back home, but I needed to admit

to myself that I hadn't had the courage to really open up the Syrian

chapter of the revolution book. The many images of mutilated and

murdered bodies, of bombarded children and tortured elderly which one

could come across in European cities, spread by Syrians living abroad,

blocked me. The image created was one of defeat, of mass murder, of

atrocity, and nothing else. It lacked the other side of the coin.

Therefore I wasn't incited to search for the story beyond death and so

my solidarity towards the Syrian revolution had been a shallow one,

lacking depth and a true attempt at understanding.

But the Syrian comrades attracted my attention, yes it was a question of

feeling, and since this was the case it became an impossible task for me

to warm up people back home for this cause. But I searched for the

powerful story of this revolution, the story that will forever remain

inaccessible for the one's not willing to know, for the one's not

willing to make the effort.

A. told me in Cairo that “the one who wants to know about the Syrian

revolution will find his answers.”. And it is true.

Are you willing to learn? To meet with a world of magic and tragic? To

leave racist prejudices behind? Because the Syrian story will forever

remain a closed book for the one who is fed by fear of loosing the grip

on their fixed frames to interpret the world. To led go of these anchors

for a moment and watch the difficult reality full of conflict and

contradictions. To be able to watch it without pre-constructed moral

judgements or idealized views upon what the fuck is revolution.

Because revolution is contradiction. Revolution is an ongoing fight

between different currents. It is a conflict between reaction and

whoever wants to push the revolution further and further, beyond any

limits known to humankind. Revolution is not a clean story, something

which we can only believe if we read holy books or seek for holiness in

the books we read.

So we need to make the effort. The effort not only for the Syrian

revolution, but for revolution in general. It's an effort of sitting

together, gathering the necessary information, analysing, making the

necessary contacts and deciding upon what to do. But not only. First and

foremost it is an effort at mental openness. An effort at leaving the

“revolutionary” I know everything-arrogance behind. A preliminary

condition without which we cannot even start imagining a project.

The Syrian revolution is an underestimated revolution. Revolutionaries

elsewhere have not lost many hours of sleep thinking or acting in

solidarity with the events. More generally we can say there is a huge

lack of courage for confronting one's self to this thing revolutionaries

pretend to desire: revolution.

A lack of courage and a certain laziness. Because yes, it takes an

effort to understand. A big effort, and one can always easily say that

“my own context” is more press ing, or more easy to understand. Thereby

we can forget about what is going on, and read books about it in the

years to come. To discuss about it in twenty years time, when all is

dead, and we can sigh together that revolution is always on the loosing

side. And we can dream about revolution, without even realizing that

what we are able to dream is nothing in comparison to what Syrians have

lived.

We can invent purified versions of the conflicts which will never help

us at living them, since we will always find some excuses as to why this

conflict doesn't meet up to our expectations of a purely

antiauthoritarian revolt. Anarchists are somehow relics of a world

passed away, holding onto the past, getting lost in the present, not

knowing how to confront dream with reality, preferring to dream than to

create. Anarchists are dreamers, an undeniable and necessary quality if

one wants to storm the existent, but as well one that can make an

individual by moments utterly incapable of intervening because the

dreams seem too unreachable and so why would it matter to even try? But

our dreams and ideas are not there to be protected in its purity for

days more beautiful to come. They are there to be used in order to

destroy this world of chains today.

At last I wanted to say that revolution is not a matter of scales, and

points and evaluations saying:“O, this one it lacked point number five

and seven. And this one is my favourite.”. We are not at school.

Revolution is a striving, always difficult, always beautiful and

passionate and equally cruel and devastating. There are no objective

criteria to decide upon “What is a revolution?”. We will leave this

question to history teachers. Because revolution is a givenness, when

it's going on it is going on. Let's please stop this crap of deciding

upon whether these were revolutions or not. Because if we are not able

to acknowledge they are we will be able only to stand in solidarity with

history books and love the teacher instead of the living revolutionary.

And we can forget about getting to what it is we have to do: to act in

solidarity. To search for ways of giving blows to reaction. To

understand what is going on and the games power is playing, in order to

know how to attack the world we are living in. I am convinced that the

current situation in Syria and elsewhere is partly due to the lack of

revolutionaries mental courage to put one's self at the side of the

courageous revolutionary not wind but storm, in “the Arab world”. And we

need to reflect upon this.

The interview with our comrades R and A is a contribution to the

discussion about how we could organize to make connections between

fights taking place in different contexts, realizing we are living in

the same world, are living the same oppression and that the struggle

against it needs to be an international one. Our reality is much more

closer to the Syrian one than we often realize. The current

militarization on European soil and its borders as well as the

recuperation of negating forces by Islamic tendencies give us the cruel

proof of it. But that is food for another text.

I, as others, have been looking for ways of expressing solidarity with

the different revolutions taking place. The lack of comrades willing to

act makes it a task difficult to bear once the revolutions are shattered

into blood, prison and reaction. Once we need to be tough and

persistent, knowing why we do it even if it's not easy nor magnificent.

This interview offers an anarchist perspective on a revolution lived by

comrades of ours. In Syria as elsewhere, anarchists try to forge their

way in the tumult of the present. So let's continue our attempts, get

more intelligent and leave the ready-made answers behind. Let's discuss,

let's look at the events from an internationalist perspective. Let's do

the necessary effort, fearless and without prejudices. As is revolution.

[1] From the 17th of December 2010, the day that Mohamed Bouazizi

immolated himself, upto the 14th of January 2011 when president Ben Ali

left, the uprising which started in Sidi Bouzid essentially spread in

the southern regions and the central regions (Gafsa, Sous, Gabes and

Kasserine) before moving upwards to the capital of Tunis, embracing

Thala, Regueb and then Bizerte and Sfax. Apart from the demonstration on

the 27th of December, Tunis only really insurged in the week before the

fall of the regime that Tunis, mainly starting from the university and

the neighboorhoud of Ettadhamen-Mnihl.

[2] This gathering took place on the 17th of February 2011 in the

neighbourhood of Hareeqa in Damascus. About 1500 persons participated.

[3] A first call for a Syrian “Day of Rage” was launched for the 4th and

5th of February 2011 in Damascus, but nobody showed up. Security forces

on the contrary were very present at the appointment.

[4] In the old city of Damascus around two hundreds persons gathered in

response to the call. But thousands of others gathered simultaneously in

the cities of Hama (center of the country), Hassakeh (north), Deir

al-Zor (east) and Daraa (south). Everywhere demonstrations were

violently dispersed by security forces. The mukhabarat, the secret

police, made several arrests.

[5] The Omari Mosque.

[6] On the 23th of March 2011, the occupied mosque got attacked by

security forces . An unknown number of people were killed duig this

attack, numerous people got injured and many got arrested later on after

being taken in by hospitals. The following weeks, hundreds of raids took

place and hundreds were detained. The 25th of March 2011, a call to a

“Friday of Dignity” brings tens of thousands of people to the streets in

Daraa. A statue of Hafez al-Assad gets destroyed during the

demonstration. Massive demonstrations took equally place in the cities

close to Daraa like Jasem, Dael, Inkhil and Sanamayn. In this last city

more than twenty people were killed by security forces repressing the

demonstration. Thousands of people take the streets in Homs, Hama, Sa-

raqeb, Jableh, Amouda, Baniyas, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, Lattakia, Damascus

and Aleppo.

[7] “Civil movement” is the term used by large parts of revolutionary

activists in Syria to indicate the popular movement, generally outside

[8]of political parties or existing political structures and unarmed.

This term allows to distinguish between the “civil” movement and the

“military” movement. The military movement will be formed later on,

starting from local people who took up arms to defend the demonstrations

against security forces. The terms “civil movement”, “peaceful

resistance” or “civil disobedience” do not seem to imply a total

rejection of “violence” as one often understands in Europe. When Syrian

revolutionary activists are using these concepts, they embody wild

gatherings, massive demonstrations, sit-ins as well as riots, attacks

with molotov cocktails, arsons against official buildings, burning

barricades. Therefore the distinction seemsto point out the difference

between a “military” approach of revolution and a “popular” approach of

revolution.

[8] At its starting point commanded by former officers of the regime and

composed of several brigades, the FSA was formed in July 2011. They

enter Aleppo on the 20th of July 2011, taking over the southern and

western neighboorhouds of the city. Battles with the army and its

reinforcements (tanks, helicopters, airplaines) started from the 28th of

July. From December 2012 onwards, the regular demonstrations start

criticizing the Free Syrian Army and protest against its abuses.