It occurred so quick. Within the night, about 9:30pm UK time (half-hour after midnight in Homs), I noticed the primary video indicating that my house metropolis was lastly free from Bashar al-Assad and his forces. Then a good friend shared a hyperlink of a person livestreaming from the New Clock Tower Sq. in Homs. I heard the zaghroutas of girls; the chants of males: “There is no for ever. There is no for ever. Long live Syria and down with Assad.” Folks began gathering within the sq., bringing the reminiscence of the early days of the revolution in 2011, when the folks of Homs had been impressed by their brothers and sisters in Tahrir Sq. in Cairo, Egypt, however harmless civilians had been massacred by the Syrian regime.
Now 2011 and 2024 had been assembly one another. Two dates which have left in between them mass destruction of cities, and the displacement of greater than half of the Syrian inhabitants from their properties.
I wept as I adopted the pages, the photographs, the movies that began rising from Homs. I stored weeping, remembering all of the streets that I’ve not been in a position to see in additional than 13 years, remembering the lives of my associates and family members dwelling within the war-torn metropolis or in exile. I remembered the late actor and activist Fadwa Souleimane, who led protests throughout totally different neighbourhoods in Homs. She turned an icon within the area. She was additionally from the Alawite group, the identical sect of the president she was protesting about. I remembered the late Might Skaf (1969-2018), a Syrian actor and activist who died in exile. I needed they had been right here witnessing this new freedom. Dwelling it.
I couldn’t cease crying over all of the ache, psychological and bodily, that we’ve got been uncovered to. For our total lives, we’ve got lived in worry; it’s liquid in our blood. And once we spoke up, we had been killed, imprisoned or exiled. Homs is seeing a brand new historical past at the moment.
A couple of hours later, I video-called my good friend. I had my hand on my coronary heart. I used to be afraid I’d lose my breath. We spoke and hung up. Slightly later, I heard that rebels had arrived in Damascus. My associates and I gathered on a video name to observe every thing by the minute. About 3am, when it was introduced that Assad had fled the nation, we cried, we smiled. Afterwards, I ran to my bed room, not simply crying, however weeping now. I wished to be there, however greater than that the tears flowed as a result of now, I can say that my exile will not be for ever. I left Homs in 2011 and have by no means been in a position to return. Now I can dare to dream of a Syria that’s peaceable and free, a Syria for all of us.
The previous week had felt like months, so filled with occasions, but in addition like seconds, a mad rush. Everybody was questioning, questioning: what would come subsequent? Traumatising recollections had been revisited. Photographs of the 13-year-old boy Hamza al-Khatib, who went lacking close to Dera’a on 29 April 2011, circulated on social media. “This is for your eyes Hamza,” one individual stated.
When Hamza’s physique was ultimately returned to his household a month later, a forensic specialist consulted by Amnesty Worldwide analysed the video and famous from his accidents that “the boy had suffered repeated violence with a blunt instrument while still alive”. They discovered proof of two gunshot wounds, one to the chest, apparently fired at shut vary, and one to the arm, “with lesions suggesting the boy was alive at this point, too”.
Once we noticed movies of Hamza screened on our TVs, we had been shaking. At the moment the regime was arresting males, girls and kids, torturing them for marching within the streets peacefully. Protesters crammed the streets in lots of cities and villages throughout the nation. They broke the partitions of worry that stored us silenced, traumatised and fearful for therefore many a long time. I took consolation all through that point realizing that so many individuals all over the world knew one thing of our plight and supported us.
I’m reminded once more now of that help. As information of liberation filtered out, I acquired messages from associates in India, Afghanistan, the UK and Iran; in Palestine, Iraq, Australia, Italy, Greece; from Belgium, Ukraine, Mexico, Kenya, Lebanon, the US, Canada and France.
I’m afraid of tomorrow. In fact I’m. Who is aware of what comes subsequent. However wanting on the Syrian folks, and remembering their knowledge, magnificence, kindness, generosity and tolerance, I really feel that a minimum of we will dream of a stupendous tomorrow.
I’m afraid of tomorrow, however allow us to hope. Tomorrow is right here. It’s now. I wish to imagine that I might be house once more, and that house might be house once more.
