It was supposed to be another lazy Sunday in Paris when I received a message from a Syrian friend I met a long time ago that he will join me for an afternoon drink and a snack. He came to my apartment in the 13th and I promised him a homemade meal of Hawawshi.
Today is the 26th of January, 9 years ago the Egyptian revolution was 1 day old. Later on another uprising would take over Syria and Syria would never be the same again. Our casual meeting started of rather formal and whenever possible I sensed that my friend is trying not to discuss anything of a political nature. He mentioned he wants to visit Egypt and I said Egypt may not be the happiest of places right now. He asked “why?” and that was enough to talk about everything that started 9 years ago in the Middle East and never finished…
Syria is a very unique example of what can go wrong in the Middle East. Like its neighbours, Syria also suffers a deep sense of identity conflict. Syria has been one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East until the Arab invasion. The Syrian identity suffered from the eradication of everything that is Syrian and replacement of the Syrian identity with an fragmented Sunni-Shii identity.
My friend tells me that he learned more about Syria since he came to Paris than he learned when he was in Aleppo. He would love to identify as Assyrian but he does not speak that language and the language he speaks attaches him to a culture he is so distant from. I felt his pain since as an Egyptian I suffer a similar conflict of identity where I try to tell myself I have a “complex identity” that consists of all the identities Egypt has been through.
I asked him how it all felt in Syria when the Arab spring happened. For him, Syria is a very conformist country where the Assad regime has been part of the Syrian fabric. He says that before 2011 no one dared to say “Bashar Al-Assad” and they would refer to him as the “master”. It was an absolute social taboo to talk about the regime not to mention the legitimacy of the regime. The protests broke up in Idlib and they were peaceful in nature. Rumors started spreading that the Assad regime was using brutal force to suppress the opposing sounds and many videos spread over the internet documenting the atrocities committed by the Assad regime. He recalls that at this point only the regime had weapons. The protestors were harmless and unarmed. The situation stayed like this until 2012. Suddenly, weapons appeared in Syria and the conflict became an armed conflict. Hell broke loose in Syria.
He tells me about his life in Paris and how annoying it is when people refer to him as “Arab” because he feels this term is empty of any real meaning. I, personally, can relate to this because I feel many Europeans have no idea how diverse the Arab world is and just because some people speak the same variety of one language does not make them “similar” and does not make their behavior “predictable”.
Lost in our search for identity and home we talked about the meaning of it all. He says “I would take Aleppo over anything. Over there it was peaceful, easy and just lovely. Over here, the society is better but I am lost.” I tell him I feel the same about Egypt but we are both in self-exile because someone holding a gun thinks they know better than us all.
Silence fills the room as we both take sips of our drinks and reflect on the past. We both look at each other and smile feeling that we know exactly how we both feel. My dog lets out a deep sigh and turns in her sleep. My friend receives a text urging him to move to another hangout and we promise to stay in touch.
9 years since the Arab spring happened yet here we are remembering and contemplating what could have happened if things went a bit too different. From Paris here is Alipp, Cairo and all the other Arab cities where dreams simply died.
On the Search for Home 