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how many times have we seen these scenes? palestinians, lebanese, syrians…. fleeing herak village, dera’a province. the women report the men of the village being butchered. tank fire is heard intermittently
Many thanks to Max Weiss for translating this excellent interview with novelist Nihad Sirees for Jadaliyya and for bringing it to my attention. It was originally published in Al-Safir as “Nihad Sirees: I am with fundamental change but I am afraid of revolutions.” In it, Sirees — who recently decided that he must leave Aleppo, Syria – agrees with Ahdaf Soueif about it not being a time for fiction:
Creative writing is stalled today. Not just for me, but for many other writers. The imagination withdraws to an interest in tangible reality. The superstars of writing today are those who write articles about “the events in Syria” or “the Syrian crisis” and, finally, “the Syrian revolution.” People have come to prefer reading posts on Facebook, the latest breaking news, or even a rumor to reading a story, even if its subject matter is the revolution. People are nervous about the country, about reality itself. They rush to read any article analyzing or interpreting what is going on. The best thing one can do is to be brief, and to cast some light on what is happening. I have written some stories and conducted a few interviews about the revolution, publishing some of them here in Egypt. When I posted one or two of them to Facebook, I noticed that this is not the time for imagination but for analytical and journalistic talk. Moreover, the matter concerns me personally and so my mind is now consumed by the latest news story and by trying to understand what is happening and by predicting what is going to happen much more than literary or artistic creation.
Sirees also talks about his novel, The Silence and the Roar (2004), which is being translated by Weiss and will isA come out from Pushkin Press in January of next year. He said:
The German translation.
It observes the phenomenon of authoritarianism. I diagnosed it and wondered about its origin. I purposefully made fun of the dictator in order to participate in tearing off his halo of veneration and then to topple him. Publishing that novel was an act surrounded with danger but I was not worried because that is my role as a writer. Some of those who read it knew how bold it was. In fact, a diplomat who knew Arabic well asked me whether the men of the regime even read literature in Syria! But I never sent it to Syrian publishing houses, which I was supposed to do first in order to get official permission, sending it straight away instead to Dar al-Adab (in Beirut), which published it without any hesitation.
The novel has attracted attention in a number of different countries and languages, and Sirees read an excerpt in German translation at a recent Swiss literary festival. However, when the Syrian official news reported on it:
The broadcast by the Syrian state news agency about my reading reported I had read selections from my novel, State of Passion, which is completely different in subject matter. That novel looks at a situation of female-female love in Aleppo. I think that the news agency, as usual, wanted to say that everything in Syria was fine and that our esteemed writers continue to be interested in matters of love.
Sirees also talks about the relationship between artist and regime, which is interesting to think about with any sort of regime or government, and any sort of artist:
Furthermore, the regime provided huge subsidies for art, especially television drama, and it became concerned with the interests of artists. So its representatives forged friendships with them. A large proportion of those who work in this sector are close to men of the regime and the security apparatus. Intellectuals in Aleppo are no different from their counterparts in Damascus but as a result of the shrinking cultural and artistic voice of the city, you do not hear their opinions clearly. I understand you are referring to one writer in particular who worked after March 2011 to implement the policies of the regime, a writer for whom the regime had done huge favors and now he had to return them. Generally speaking, this is how the regime functions.
Sirees in English:
A translation of Sirees’s حالة شـغف (here called A Case of Passion, here A State of Passion) both times by Khaled al-Jbaili.
Sirees’s twitter feed (@nihadsirees), often in English, mostly news links of late, as you might expect from above.
The Silence and the Roar:
The first three chapters of ”الصمت والصخب” on Sirees’s website.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has an important report up by Dahlia El Zein. The attacks on media personnel affiliated with the Syrian regime has been rightly condemned. But not enough is said about the regime’s more systematic policy to co-opt and in some cases deliberately trap journalists for propaganda purposes. Most shocking however is the role of Sister Agnes-Mariam, the regime-affiliated nun who has been feted both by the far left and the Christian right. The nun has already been condemned by Father Paolo Dell’Oglio, who was expelled by the regime for his criticisms after spending 30 years of his life in the country. The following story is further indictment.
Evidence of government targeting in the deaths of the international journalists is circumstantial, although the journalists on the ground perceived that they were under attack. CPJ spoke with Sid Ahmed Hammouche, a reporter with the Swiss daily La Liberté who participated in the government-sponsored trip that ended in Jacquier’s death. He said he believes the government laid a trap for the reporters.
Gilles Jacquier (AFP)Hammouche and Jacquier were among a group of 15 journalists allowed into Syria on government-issued visas facilitated bySister Agnes-Mariam de la Croix, a Lebanese nun of Palestinian origin with close relations to the Assad regime. Sister Agnes had helped arrange a reporting trip to Homs on January 11, although she declined to accompany the group, saying her absence would help them move freely. Jacquier resisted the Homs trip, believing it unsafe, but Sister Agnes urged him to go or risk losing the opportunity to renew his visa beyond the initial four-day period, Hammouche told CPJ in an account consistent with news reports.
Once they arrived in Homs, the journalists divided into two groups, one with journalists from CNN, CBS, and BBC who were led by the Ministry of Information to visit a local hospital. The other contingent included Hammouche, three French journalists, including Jacquier, his wife, Caroline Poiron, Jacquier’s cameraman, Christophe Kenck; and Swiss and Belgian journalists. That group was escorted by 20 Syrian soldiers dressed in military fatigues and in plainclothes. This group was also supposed to visit the hospital but they were detoured without explanation to a pro-Assad neighborhood, Hammouche said, where they interviewed residents. As they left the area, the group encountered a pro-Assad march and heard an explosion.
To his surprise, Hammouche said, the soldiers took no evident action to protect the journalists or respond to the explosion; instead, most of the soldiers dispersed without explanation, leaving four escorts who appeared relaxed and dismissed the noise as a “sound explosion.” Hammouche said the soldiers urged the journalists to go toward the explosions to investigate. Hammouche said he and a Swiss colleague refused, remaining in one of two government vehicles, but Jacquier and the others traveled toward the source of the initial explosion.
More explosions followed, Hammouche recounted: “There were four explosions total in a 10-minute period. And that’s it. We didn’t hear a sound after that.”
Kenck, Jacquier’s cameraman, rushed back. The reporter, he said, appeared to have died in the explosions. At a local clinic where the body was taken, Hammoche recounted, Syrian authorities were insistent that the journalists give statements blaming the attack on “terrorists.” They also urged Caroline Poiron to give her husband’s body over to Syrian authorities for what they termed an autopsy, pressure so strong that she, Hammouche, Kenck felt compelled to stand guard over the body for several hours before it could be given to French officials.
French authorities later began a criminal investigation; no autopsy details have been disclosed. The Syrian government blamed the strike on opposition forces, labeling it a “terrorist” attack.
A deadly attack, professional resolve
Marie Colvin (AFP)The worst episode for the press came on February 22, when several government shells struck a makeshift media center in a three-story building in the Baba Amr neighborhood. Conroy, a former target acquisition/communications operative in the British Royal Artillery, said he believed the attack was deliberate because the pattern of repeated shelling on the center was intended to cause massive damage and take out its target. He told CBS news that the February 22 shelling did not fit earlier patterns, which appeared indiscriminate. This time, he said, the strike appeared to have military coordination: “The first shots hit wide. A second round narrowed their target. The third set of shots hit the house–’fire for effect,’ it’s called–and they fired for effect and killed two very good people, wounded a few others, and destroyed the building.”Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based daily Libération who was with Colvin and Conroy in Baba Amr before leaving days earlier, told CPJ that government forces could have easily picked out the building since it was the only one in the area with consistent electricity, which was provided by a generator that worked through the night amid an otherwise darkened neighborhood. Reports also suggest Syrian authorities could have picked up the satellite phone signals the journalists used to communicate with the outside world, a tactic similar to one used by the Russians in the conflict in Chechnya. Technology experts have told CPJ that satellite phones can be tracked with relative ease.
For those who survived, like Espinosa of the Spanish daily El Mundo, the effect was profound. “It makes you feel that you can be also a victim of the conflict,” Espinosa told CPJ. “But I always compare my situation with that of the civilians living around me. And always we, the foreign journalists, are a type of VIP in those conflicts so we have a duty to keep reporting. For the local citizen journalists in Baba Amr, it was also the same. They did not stop working because some of their team was killed. In fact, one was working even after being wounded.”
Said Hammouche: “We are witnesses. We serve as witnesses to the brutal oppression. And if we let them scare us away, then they have won.”
From Syria Comment : 21. Juergen :
someone just posted this on facebook:
Having heard a lot of accusations and allegations against our Revolution, I wanted to apologize officially today at the Assad supporters and the world community.
We are sorry!
We are sorry that we, ordinary Syrians have gone for our freedom on the streets. Without permission of the Super Powers.
We are sorry that we have thwarted your plans for Syria and that we dared to havesome of our own.
We are sorry that we wanted human rights for us.
We are sorry that we have exposed your lies, cold-heartedness and the hypocrisy.
We are sorry that we have turned with our Revolution Uncle Bashar into a monster and we feel not ashamed for it.
We are sorry that the sight of our tattered bodies arent suitable for your tv screens and your sensitive eye .
We are sorry that we have asked for humanitarian and medical aid.
We are sorry that we have become refugees, begging on the streets and disrupt the city.
We are sorry that the blood of our children is not red enough to reach the conscience of many leftists.
We are sorry that we have dared to defend ourselves after months of steady killing.
We are sorry that our strive for freedom will not fit into your concepts.
We are sorry that we will not accept your apology.
August 2012
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iranian short movie/ english and arabic subtitles
how similar dictatoships are
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