We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled Read online

  Dedication

  To those who did not live to complete their stories.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Frontispiece

  Dedication

  Map

  List of Speakers

  Introduction

  Part I: Authoritarianism

  Part II: Hope Disappointed

  Part III: Revolution

  Part IV: Crackdown

  Part V: Militarization

  Part VI: Living War

  Part VII: Flight

  Part VIII: Reflections

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Wendy Pearlman

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  List of Speakers

  Abdel-Aziz: French-language teacher from Sowura village in the Daraa Governorate. Interviewed in the Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan, on October 19, 2012.

  Abdel-Halim: FSA fighter from Homs city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 10, 2016.

  Abdel-Naser: Financial manager and human rights activist from Douma in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 26, 2016.

  Abdel-Samed: Business owner from al-Jeeza village in the Daraa Governorate. Interviewed in Irbid, Jordan, on September 17, 2012.

  Abdul Rahman: Engineer from Hama city. Interviewed in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 14, 2016.

  Abed: Defected military officer and FSA commander from Palmyra in the Homs Governorate. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on August 24, 2013.

  Abu Firas: FSA fighter from Maarat al-Nu‘man in the Idlib Governorate. Interviewed in Reyhanlı, Turkey, on September 20, 2013.

  Abu Ma‘an: Activist and FSA fighter from Daraa city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on August 17, 2013, and by Skype from Irbid, Jordan, on November 15, 2013.

  Abu Samir: Defected military officer and FSA commander from Douma in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 1, 2013.

  Abu Tarek: Engineer from a village in the Hama Governorate. Interviewed in Reyhanlı, Turkey, on September 25, 2013.

  Abu Tha’ir: Aeronautical engineer from Daraa city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on September 16, 2012.

  Adam: Media organizer from Latakia city. Interviewed in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 12, 2016.

  Ahmed: Activist from Daraa city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on October 9, 2012, and by Skype from Leesburg, Virginia, on October 27, 2016, and November 27, 2016.

  Amal: Former university student from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on October 1, 2013.

  Amin: Physical therapist from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 10, 2016.

  Annas: Doctor from Ghouta in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 22, 2013.

  Ashraf: Artist from Qamishli in the Hasakah Governorate. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 3, 2013.

  Ayham: Web developer from Damascus. Interviewed in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 12, 2016.

  Aziza: School principal from Hama city. Interviewed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on March 20, 2016.

  Beshr: Cinematography student from Damascus. Interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 22, 2016.

  Billal: Doctor from Harasta in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Chicago, Illinois, on May 20, 2016.

  Bushra: Mother from al-Tel in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in an informal tent settlement in Marj, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, on February 1, 2016.

  Captain: FSA fighter from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 10, 2013.

  Cherin: Mother from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 3, 2013.

  Eyad: Law school graduate from Daraya in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Mörrum, Sweden, on June 20, 2016.

  Fadi: Theater set and lighting specialist from Hama city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on September 20, 2012.

  Firas: Computer engineer and journalist from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 9, 2016.

  Fouad: Surgeon from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 29, 2016.

  Ghassan: Artist from the Khan al-Shih Palestinian refugee camp. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on June 22, 2016.

  Ghayth: Former university student in economics from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on July 23, 2016.

  Hadi: Shop owner from Salma village in the Latakia Governorate. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 7, 2013.

  Hadia: Clinical therapist from Damascus. Interviewed in Chicago, Illinois, on May 20, 2016.

  Hakem: Agricultural engineer and pharmacist from Deir ez-Zor. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on July 24, 2016.

  Hamoudi: Engineering graduate from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 4, 2013.

  Haneen: University graduate from Daraya in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in a village near Kiel, Germany, on June 11, 2016.

  Hiba: Former university student in pharmacy from Qalamoun in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 30, 2016.

  Hosam: Computer programmer from al-Tel in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on October 16, 2012.

  Husayn: Playwright from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 11, 2016.

  Ibrahim: Former university student in computer science from a village in the Hama Governorate. Interviewed in Reyhanlı, Turkey, on September 25, 2013.

  Iliyas: Dentist from Skalbiya village in the Hama Governorate. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 5, 2013.

  Imad: Former university student from Salamiyah. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on August 2, 2016.

  Iman: Engineer from Harasta in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Chicago, Illinois, on May 20, 2016.

  Issam: Accountant from a village in the Aleppo Governorate. Interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 12, 2015.

  Jalal: Photographer from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 10, 2016.

  Jamal: Doctor from Hama city. Interviewed in Irbid, Jordan, on October 11, 2012.

  Kareem: Doctor from Homs city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on August 26, 2013, and Berlin, Germany, on July 2, 2016.

  Khalil: Defected military officer and FSA commander from Deir ez-Zor city. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 21, 2013.

  Kinda: Activist from Suwayda city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on October 4, 2013.

  Lana: Nuclear engineer from Damascus. Interviewed by Skype from Nordenham, Germany, on December 5, 2016.

  Maher: Schoolteacher from al-Latamneh village in the Hama Governorate. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on July 19, 2016.

  Mahmoud: Actor from Homs city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on September 20, 2012.

  Marcell: Activist and blogger from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 11, 2016.

  Mesud: Activist from Qamishli in the Hasakah Governorate. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on October 1, 2013.

  Miriam: Young woman from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on September 20, 2012.

  Mohammed: Professor from Jawbar in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on March 16, 2016.

  Muntaser: Journalist from Daraa city. Interviewed in Irbid, Jordan, on August 25, 2013.

  Musa: Professor from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on July 11, 2016.

  Mustafa: Barber from Salamiyah in the Hama Governorate. Interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 24, 2016.

  Nabil: Musician from Damascus. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on August 29, 2016.

  Nadir: Activist from Ras al-Ayn in the Hasakah
Governorate. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on October 5, 2013.

  Nur: Beautician from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on August 13, 2016.

  Omar: Playwright from Damascus. Interviewed in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 12, 2016.

  Osama: High school student from al-Qusayr in the Homs Governorate. Interviewed in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 23, 2016.

  Rami: University graduate from the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. Interviewed in Lund, Sweden, on June 18, 2016.

  Rana: Mother from Aleppo. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 9, 2013.

  Rima: Writer and activist from Suwayda city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on October 7, 2012.

  Sadik: Veterinary assistant from village in the Suwayda Governorate. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on July 24, 2016.

  Safa: Mother from Homs city. Interviewed in Tripoli, Lebanon, on January 28, 2016.

  Salah: Landscape designer from Naima village in the Daraa Governorate. Interviewed in Irbid, Jordan, on October 13, 2012.

  Sami: University graduate from Damascus. Interviewed in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 31, 2016.

  Sana: Graphic designer from Damascus. Interviewed in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 30, 2016.

  Shadi: Accountant from the Hama Governorate. Interviewed in Reyhanlı, Turkey, on September 26, 2013.

  Shafiq: Business school graduate from Daraya in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on October 4–6, 2013.

  Sham: Relief worker from Douma in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 26, 2016.

  Talia: Television news correspondent from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on January 12, 2016.

  Tarek: Doctor from Ghouta in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, on September 22, 2013.

  Tayseer: Lawyer from Daraa city. Interviewed in Irbid, Jordan, on August 14, 2013.

  Um Khaled: Mother from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Tripoli, Lebanon, on January 28, 2016.

  Um Naji: Mother from the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on June 22, 2016.

  Waddah: Medical school graduate from the Latakia Governorate. Interviewed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on March 19, 2016.

  Wael: University graduate from Daraya in the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Gaziantep, Turkey, on October 2, 2013, and in Halmstad, Sweden, on June 19, 2016.

  Walid: Poet from the Damascus suburbs. Interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey, on August 28, 2013.

  Yasmine: Early childhood education expert from the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. Interviewed in Malmö, Sweden, on June 22, 2016.

  Yasser: Former university student from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on September 20, 2012.

  Yousef: Former medical student from al-Shadadi village in the Hasakah Governorate. Interviewed in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 25, 2016.

  Yusra: Mother from Aleppo city. Interviewed in Berlin, Germany, on July 24, 2016.

  Ziyad: Doctor from Homs city. Interviewed in Marj al-Hamam, Jordan, on October 2, 2012.

  Introduction

  One evening in the fall of 2012, I met Rima on a breeze-filled balcony in Amman, Jordan. Rima was a television screenwriter in Syria before 2011, when she became active in the movement against the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad and then a spokesperson for the network of local committees coordinating protest throughout the country. She was arrested for a few days and went back to work, but regime intelligence agents followed her with threats of ever more frightening punishment. She fled to Jordan, where a friend introduced us. Rima spoke with a delicate voice that belied the boldness of the risks she had undertaken, but not the heavy grief she shouldered for fallen friends and a homeland whose bleeding would not end. Her commitment to what she cherished as a revolution was unshaken. “Syrians defeated the regime the moment they went into the streets,” she told me. “We will not allow anyone to steal our dreams again.”

  In the nearly five years that have passed since that conversation overlooking the hills of the Jordanian capital, I have come to know hundreds of Syrian men, women, and children. They have included housewives and rebel fighters, hair-gelled teenagers and businessmen in well-pressed shirts, die-hard activists and ordinary families caught in the crossfire. Most opposed Assad rule, as do the majority of Syrian refugees as of this writing. While the drivers of forced migration have evolved over time, the majority of those who fled during the first years of the conflict were escaping aerial bombardment and other mortal punishments levied by the regime against individuals and areas challenging its rule.

  This book focuses on that slice of the Syrian population. The people with whom I spoke do not represent all of Syria’s complex religious-political landscape, and in particular those who support Assad. Nevertheless, they are a population that meets with too few opportunities to represent itself. Politicians and commentators throughout the world talk about Syrians as victims to be pitied, bodies to be sheltered, radicals to be denounced, or threats to be feared and blocked. In the whirlwind of words spoken about Syrians as a global problem, it can be difficult to find chances to listen to actual Syrians, as human beings.

  This book offers such a chance. My drive to record Syrians’ voices took shape as I watched the 2011 Arab Spring unfold on my computer screen at Northwestern University, where I am a professor of political science specializing in the Middle East. Having dedicated more than twenty years to researching and living throughout the region, I was captivated by the joyous street protests, defiant chants, and inspiring shows of solidarity that shook country after country. Like other observers, I doubted that the revolutionary wave would reach Syria. Compared to other Arab authoritarian regimes that saw mass demonstrations, Syria’s single-party police state was more repressive, its military more infused with the regime, and civil society more severely curtailed. Bashar al-Assad’s regime enjoyed assets such as a domestically popular foreign policy, the legacy of an extensive welfare state, and generally high regard for a youthful president. Whereas countries such as Tunisia and Egypt were largely homogeneous societies that saw most of their members alienated from the government, Syria was a diverse mosaic in which many citizens from religious minority backgrounds supported the president, who himself comes from the minority Alawite sect. Nevertheless, Syrians went out on the streets. Defying threat of injury, imprisonment, or death, dozens and then hundreds and soon hundreds of thousands of Syrians dared to protest. Or as Rima explained it to me, they dared to dream.

  The more closely I followed these protests, the more I craved to discover what they meant to those who risked their lives to participate in them. I wanted to understand how the budding uprising was changing them, and how they were in turn changing the course of history. Given the perilous conditions inside Syria, I searched for stories among the millions who had fled the country. In summer 2012, I traveled to Jordan, where I spent six weeks interviewing any displaced Syrian I could. In 2013, I returned to Jordan and also spent two months in Turkey, where I conducted interviews with a more diverse mix of Syrians from different backgrounds and hometowns. In 2015 and 2016, I returned to spend several more months in Turkey, two weeks in Lebanon, and three months between Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. I continued to interview Syrians wherever I found them: families newly resettled within biking distance of my home in Chicago, decades-old residents of Dubai whom I met on the sidelines of an academic visit, and so on. Each interview connected me to ever-wider circles of Syrians with an ever-broader range of experiences, and brought my chronicling of the conflict into the present.

  Along the way, I immersed myself in refugee communities. I roomed with families for weeks, talked in cafés late into the night, and sat at the side of the injured in hospitals and rehabilitation centers. I visited dusty refugee camps, squalid informal settlements, gymnasiums turned shelters, and countless sparse apartments. I did volunteer work that ranged from teaching journalism to eighth graders on the Turkish-Syrian border to distributing clothing in central
Berlin. In these and countless other spaces, I played with children, washed dishes, scrolled through photos and videos, inhaled secondhand smoke, and joined meals as exquisite as they were tightly budgeted. And whenever possible, I asked people if I could interview them about their personal stories.

  The interviews that I conducted were open-ended chances for individuals to describe and reflect on life before, during, and since the start of the 2011 Syrian rebellion. Interviews ranged from twenty-minute chats to extended group discussions, to personal histories recorded over days—and sometimes continued years later on a different continent. I conducted the majority of interviews in Arabic, a language to which I have dedicated half my life to attaining fluency. This enabled an interviewer-interviewee connection that would have been impossible had I relied on an interpreter. Indeed, it became the basis of lasting friendships, as I remain in contact with many of the individuals whose voices appear in this book.

  To move the project forward quickly, I recruited more than twenty assistants to help me transcribe and translate audio recordings of these interviews. Only then was I able to appreciate how the individual narratives that I gathered over years coalesced into a collective narrative that was as timeless as it was timely. I curated this book to convey the lived experience of this historical journey, exclusively in Syrians’ own words. I edited testimonials for length and readability, and used pseudonyms for all speakers unless I received permission to identify them by name. The alphabetized list before this introduction identifies all speakers with a reference to their profession, hometown, and where and when I interviewed them. An abbreviated reference to the speaker’s profession and hometown is also included with each testimonial.

  Sometimes a story needed pages to unfold, while other times the power of a lifetime was captured in a few words. The different lengths of entries in the book capture this rich expressive variety.

  The book is organized in eight parts that trace the historical evolution of the Syrian revolutionary experience. The remainder of this introduction complements the personal stories with background on the context within which they unfolded. Some may wish to read this historical overview in full before diving into the intimate voices, or do the opposite, or move part by part by reading the voices and accompanying background in tandem. Any combination can achieve the goal of this volume: to explain the Syrian uprising, war, and refugee crisis, and lay bare, in human terms, what is at stake.