I am Syrian, but I have not lived in Syria during the revolution. I have lived the revolution from the outside, in Europe. The revolution has always been one of my dreams, from abroad I write what has happened and what is happening now.
Now I am in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, ‘Aintab in Arabic – for centuries administered by Aleppo – with Syrian activists from all cities of Syria. It looks like a city that wants to return to its history. Right there, next to the citadel, which looks like the citadel of Aleppo, we met.
I knew that I would be very happy and excited to meet them, but I am much more than happy. I look at them, thinking about these three hard years, and the sorrow fill my heart. They are young, tell of war, blood, deaths of family members, but then they laugh and joke with each other. Everything can be crushed under the violence and end, but not hope.
Yaser is from Darayya (a town on the outskirts of Damascus), for me Darayya before the revolution was a conservative town, I did not know that the good grapes you eat in Syria comes from his land. Yaser says: “After many massacres by the regime in Darayya, we managed to escape in Jaramana (a district of Damascus), but I have continued to help the besieged people there. A Christian priest in Jaramana protects me. When the security services stopped me because I am from Darayya and I carried aid, the priest came to tell them that I work for his organization to distribute aid to the displaced. “
“I never thought,” said Yaser, “that Christians could be so close to us (Muslims) in this way. A Darayya before the revolution, it was difficult for us to accept the presence of less observant girls. But now, not only I, but also the young people of Darayya, we know that religion is not an outward behavior. For the first time I see young guys in this conservative community, who want to marry girls who are less so. “
Zen el Din is from the region of Idlib, known to be controlled by extremist Muslim groups. Zen says: “We got rid of the regime in the area of Jabal az Zawieh, we have a strong presence of gang-related or extremist Qa’ida. We see bombs that go down from the planes. No, we do not run, where we can escape? “. “We want to create a cultural center. True, everyone is talking about the importance and necessity of bringing aid food and medicine, but the cultural aspect is very important. We also love life and we love to have fun. The cultural center will be made to all citizens of the villages of Jabal az Zawieh, and for young people who have studied in schools and universities that now cannot go there, for them we will have a library. For families who cannot read … maybe, for them there will be the theater and the cinema”. Naively I commented: “That’s great! There is a growing role of civil society in your area, then”. He replied: “I do not know what the civil society is, I know that we have always been ignored by the regime, and now we want to do whatever we wanted to do”.
Nadin, is girl escaped in Turkey because she was documenting violations, and was persecuted by the regime. He just says, “I miss my university, they always said I was the best in the faculty of engineering, it is one year that I cannot go there.”
Khayyam comes from Aleppo, he was working on a campaign made by young people that was born as a reaction to the numerous errors by the extremist gangs, who want to impose their ideology by force. Khayyam went to demonstrate peacefully against the regime from day one. Khayyam says: “The regime has suppressed the most beautiful manifestations, they bombed us when we had nothing in our hands. I was forced to join the Free Army because I have lost family members. But I looked at how much violence was there, I could not bear weapons, killing and revenge, even if I understood them. I left the weapons, the weapons only bring violence. I decided to work with non-violent civil society, I decided to rebel against all those who do not want a free and democratic Syria, but in a nonviolent way”.
Khayyam talked and I listened. A lump in my throat choking me. I looked at him, so young, how much he suffered and how his experience made him grow. I watched these young people around me, with their accents from all parts of Syria. I feel how proud I am, I am Syrian, these guys are the ones that represent me, nor Asad nor the jihadists, even if they occupy almost all the space of the western news. Please look at them, listen well, they are here. If you lower your voice a little you can hear them.
Eva Ziedan (Ph.D., 2013) is an Syrian archaeologist formed at the universities of Damascus and Udine. Here she has worked for years as a linguistic and cultural mediator for the ACLI. Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011 she is committed to civil society in his country and, through the portal SiriaLibano.com, in raising awareness of the Syrian cause in Italian public opinion. Since the summer 2013 she has been working on a project in support of Syrian non-violent activism.