A human being’s life is never a bad investment.
This is the story of a boy, who was raised to be free. Free in his mind, free with what he believed in and free with words with which he could write. He was given all that he needed to be free to express himself.
For many children around the world, moving cities could mean their father was in the military but for this kid, his father would move countries for the sake of the free word. His father was simply a writer.
Having witnessed the threatening situations his family were subjected to due to a vicious regime; this child grew up to be a young adult who never knew what adulthood for a free spirit could be under Assad’s regime.
Ayham tells his story from the stance of a boy, then a young adult and now as an adult, with a heart full of fear that his words can never describe what he has been through, nor his mind could ever comprehend or justify the events that happened.
We’ve always been on Assad’s red list because my dad is a writer. He was a civilian opponent of the regime as far back as 2003 and we used to receive threats. Back then, they weren’t very serious, but they always warned him to be careful. In 2005, the Political Security Directorate (PSD), an intelligence branch of the Syrian government, raided our house. The PSD actively works against opponents of the regime. My dad was already an established opponent of the regime and they imprisoned him for 6 months. They tried to collect as many charges as they could against him, one of these charges was finding a book which was forbidden by the regime in our library. In 2006, we ended up moving to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for our safety. We were happy there, but two years later we decided to move back.
When the revolution started in 2011 everything started adding up. My hometown Saraqib is in the Idlib province. It’s a pocket of rolling olive groves and shimmering wheat fields in northern Syria. It was the 4thprotesting point when the uprising began which is a fact we carry with pride. The Syrian revolution proved to be a turning point for me. It changed my story, my narrative, it upgraded my self-image, and expanded my consciousness.
Every day, I witnessed the atrocities committed by the regime. In 2012, my uncle and his son were both kidnapped and they were found two days later. They had been tortured to death. My uncle was in his 50s and my cousin was only 22. The same year, the roof of our home was damaged by a grenade when we were still inside but luckily, we survived. There was also an airstrike 30m from our house and our neighbour’s homes were destroyed. My friends, my school mates, teachers and 2 of my other cousins were all murdered.
When you go through all this trauma, you stop feeling anything. You stop processing things. You receive information that a person has been killed but there is no time to mourn because something else is coming. There is no time for you to recover, neither mentally nor physically.
We didn’t know we were going to leave Syria, my dad only informed us the night before. He told us to pack a bag and said, “tomorrow you’ll be in Turkey”. The timing of our escape was important. The regime used to carry out security checks on the highways, there wasn’t even enough time for us to say our goodbyes properly. My grandma was 91 year and she lived with us, physically she was fine, but she couldn’t cross the border. She passed away shortly after we left, she had been calling my name the week before. If we ever have to leave again, I want to make sure I get to say goodbye properly.
The Turkish border was 30 minutes away from our home in Idlib. Even though we had our passports, the border was under the control of the regime, and we had to travel slightly further to avoid them. When we crossed into Turkey, we decided to stay in Antakya because it’s the closest city to the Syrian border. At the time, we thought it would only be a matter of months before we would be able to return to Syria. In 2012, the Turkish government’s policy for dealing with the Syrian refugees’ issue was characterised by a lack of legal clarity. During the first few years, there was no legal way to define the Syrian presence.
…I decided to return to Syria for many reasons. I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to be there because you can’t watch other people liberating your country.
Since I was a kid, I hated the regime, and I was always prepared to do something about it. I wanted to be there to play a role. I wanted to be in Syria. There’s an attachment I couldn’t leave behind so after spending 6 months in Turkey, I decided to return to Syria for many reasons. I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to be there because you can’t watch other people liberating your country. I was young, but I was raised to make my own choices, so I was determined to do so. I initially went back to Idlib and started documenting the airstrikes and bombing campaigns before moving around and doing the same thing in different places. I moved around Syria collecting stories from people.
In Syria, you barely find internet connection so once you go, you’re cut off from your family. My dad had remained in Syria, but we were in different places. After 2013, both the Syrian regime and ISIS were sending us threats. My dad played an important role in preventing the youth from joining ISIS. When ISIS threatened us, they were so close they could’ve harmed my family in Turkey or Syria. In 2014, we were told there had been a plan to kidnap me to put pressure on my dad to stop his activities, but they didn’t have my picture. All they knew was that I was tall and had curly hair.
Every two months, I travelled to Turkey for a week or two and I felt I had to tell the stories of the people I had spoken to and speak about what I had seen. I wanted to give words to the indescribable. The numbers alone don’t tell the stories whereas the statistics from Syria are fragmentary, the most accurate human stories remain to paint a clearer picture of the suffering and the struggle for survival. Human stories remain eyewitnesses, and whatever the medium that tells these stories whether in an article, book, or film, not only simulates life, but also protects it from indifference and ignorance.
It angers me when people say Syria is safe. Do you know what it feels like to wake up in the middle of the night after hearing an airstrike and people yelling in the mosque that there’s been a chemical attack?
I spent a little while documenting people inside hospitals. Sometimes when an ambulance would leave, I would go with them. It angers me when people say Syria is safe. Do you know what it feels like to wake up in the middle of the night after hearing an airstrike and people yelling in the mosque that there’s been a chemical attack? There is this overwhelming confusion. Should you go upstairs or downstairs? Should you breathe or hold your breath? This is the exact experience I had in June 2015.
We are forced to move on from dreadful experiences quickly with a lack of emotional assimilation. The memory of bloodshed, chaos and loss doesn’t disappear instead it curdles into an unknown interior presence.
When I lived in Syria, I had to deal with processing trauma by myself. It helped shape my character and I feel older than other people my age. When I meet them, we aren’t dealing with the same issues. We are under pressure to continue our lives and aren’t given the opportunity to adequately reflect upon or mourn what has happened. We are forced to move on from dreadful experiences quickly with a lack of emotional assimilation. The memory of bloodshed, chaos and loss doesn’t disappear instead it curdles into an unknown interior presence. We will never get over our losses, we won’t ever forget or recover, and we don’t have to. The depth of our grief is simply the price we pay for our love.
I got injured in March 2015, luckily it was a slight injury on the thigh. A year later I produced and directed a short film which was one of the most extraordinary experiences I had back then. I remember shooting scenes for my film when warplanes were flying above us. At the beginning of 2017, I made the decision to leave Syria. The Syrian cause had somehow become a global issue which meant there would be no room for individuals. I felt being in Syria became useless for people like me.
Some Turkish officials exercise unjustified moral guardianship over Syrians by offering ‘advice and recommendations’ that can only be considered insulting. The Turkish opposition on the other hand are the most racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and hateful political group you can ever come across.
I moved back to Turkey, but from the beginning I knew I couldn’t live here long for many reasons. I didn’t even want to learn the language because I had no intention of staying there. To be a Syrian in Turkey is a very painful experience. Some Turkish officials exercise unjustified moral guardianship over Syrians by offering ‘advice and recommendations’ that can only be considered insulting. The Turkish opposition on the other hand are the most racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and hateful political group you can ever come across. Syrian refugees are treated as a bargaining chip for petty politicians whose only goal is to kick you out of their country. Do you know how much it hurts to see your suffering traded for shallow promises to their electorate? You are just viewed as collateral damage in case they win the elections and are ready to deport you at any moment to comfort certain nationalist circles. These politicians are completely obsessed with the myth that you are able to return to your prospering country, instead of being refugees with no rights in any country. This isn’t the kind of thought which arises from rational judgement.
When people speak about the uprising of the Syrian people and the factors involved in causing mass calamity for the nation, people must realise they are speaking about one of the most devastating catastrophes of our time. There is no room here for stupidity, ignorance, and pettiness. I read a quote by Tony Morrison which says, “the very dangerous job of racism is distraction, it distracts you and makes you feel obligated to explain over and over the reason of your existence”. If Syrians could transmit their pain, the world would drown in tears. We will never forget the massacres committed by Assad’s forces. Massacres aren’t a normal occurrence, and we should never become accustomed to them. Massacres are a crime committed against everything sound and natural, we can’t come to accept them as an everyday occurrence. Our suffering should be understood, our anxiety noticed, and our sadness legitimised.
The New Zealand crime in 2019 was the cumulative result of anti-Muslim hate speech, should we wait for similar crimes against Syrians to stop the negative rhetoric against them? The real fires are those raging in the hearts of racists. Forest fires are extinguished. As for the fires of humanity and morals, no water can quench them, and they only end with the destruction of the beast hiding in the form of a human being.
The longer I stay in Turkey, the more I feel everything I dreamt of growing up is vanishing. They took the eager version of myself and gave me a very desperate version of Ayham whose name is difficult to pronounce here. At the end of 2017, I did the BEC English business exam, and I received an invitation from the Netherlands to attend the final conference because I was one of the top students, but I couldn’t go because if you leave Turkey, they won’t let you come back. It’s because of the Temporary Protection Identification (Kimlik) they gave us.
We can’t move inside Turkey either, in 2016 there was a resolution for travel permission. If I wanted to travel as a Syrian, I have to go to an immigration centre, have all my papers and stand in a very long queue just to get permission to leave the city. They ask you illogical questions in a very hostile manner. They ask where and why you’re leaving. You must be invited by an official company or a university and get a copy of this invitation in your file for your request to be considered. You can’t just tell them you want to visit another city. This is just legalized racism. In February 2020, I wanted to travel from Antakya to Izmir for few days, but they rejected my application. Eventually I had to bribe half of the immigration centre to get permission. A process which should’ve taken 8 minutes took 2 months.
In 2018, a few Syrian families were selected to apply to receive Turkish citizenship and my family was invited. We conducted the interview and we passed. The entire process takes around 1 year because there are 8 levels for the paperwork to go through. We waited for 2 and a half years during which we started building up our hopes and dreaming, but last August we received a text along with 23,000 other Syrian families saying that they rejected us. We were all in shock. When we asked, they didn’t give us a justification. We needed to hire a lawyer to find out what happened. The reason was the pressure imposed by the Turkish opposition on the ruling party accusing them of giving citizenships to Syrians so they can get their votes in the next elections. Which is not true at all.
Western countries are applying similar discriminatory rules. When I decided to leave Turkey to study, I emailed tens of embassies and hundreds of universities, but it turned out that they only grant visas to a very specific group of people, so I received the following answers: You must be a Syrian minority to get to Germany, a Syrian Christian to get to France, and a homosexual to get to Canada. Now, I’m not saying they don’t deserve or need the scholarships, but it leaves out hundreds of others who fall through the gaps. It plays on your emotions, and you think why not me?
I’ve always wanted to study in the UK but getting a visa in Syria was equally hard. The Syrian regime wouldn’t give me a visa because they knew who my father was. After learning about the minority criteria for scholarships, I gave up. I remember emailing the University of Manchester and they asked for my marks and a letter of recommendation from my high school. My high school was destroyed in 2017 and I’m not sure if anyone from the management board is still alive to give them the documents they asked for.
What have Syrians done to make the world treat them like this? What is wrong with our existence?
What have Syrians done to make the world treat them like this? What is wrong with our existence? Where are the values of the civilised world, the world that has turned into a small village ruled by theoretical values and ideals which ignore the suffering of the Syrian people? Injustice when ignored, turns into hatred, oppression, and revenge. We have endured terrible events that we haven’t properly digested because we haven’t had a kind, stable environment in which to do so.
Migration bans are an ultimate mistake that leads to closing doors to a new flow of ideas which equals a dictator’s method of dealing with the opposition. It just hinders the dissemination of useful ideas which are so important for nations to flourish. Free movement of resources, people and money is the most crucial factor of formation of democracy everywhere.
I don’t like to call myself a refugee. I feel as a refugee you’re constantly being asked to show gratitude towards a country or a person that has accepted you. I can have gratitude towards Turkey for sure, but I don’t have to show gratitude to every single Turkish person. People shouldn’t just expect gratitude. My accomplishments should belong to no one but me. I don’t owe anyone in the world an apology for the space that I occupy. Once you accept, you’re a refugee, you will always live within this constant circle of gratefulness, But the truth is, we need to be seen as humans, not as labels.
What happened in Syria is not a hurricane or an earthquake, it can’t be solved with an aid kit. Money can’t stop a barrel bomb falling over a child’s bed.
When the present is terrible and disheartening, it does not necessarily mean that the past was bright and glorious. I don’t blame the revolution for my losses, and there is almost no end to what I may be ready to do to ensure Syria is free. But this is the price of freedom. What happened in Syria is not a hurricane or an earthquake, it can’t be solved with an aid kit. Money can’t stop a barrel bomb falling over a child’s bed.
When we have screamed for help for so long and no one comes, we begin to write about our feelings instead. Writing, for all that it might begin with experiences of joy or disinterested intellectual fascination, also owes its origins to despair and a lack of someone to cry with. Writing allows us to be heard, to be respected, to have our feelings interpreted, to be soothed, to be known and appreciated. We are a narrative.
Consciousness is a self-reflecting awareness of pattern, of story.
We wouldn’t be us without it.
It’s a powerful thing.
It’s a thing worth celebrating, worth framing
This is my story. One of many, a single voice amongst thousands who have either been killed or silenced by gratitude. To everyone, to the employee in the British embassy who rejected my application for no reason, to the Canadian embassy who are looking for very specific criteria, to the Turkish employee who refuses to give me travel permission every time and the one who rejected to give me the citizenship, to you all I say: A human being’s life is never a bad investment.