women have started coming out to demonstrate now that the houses are emptied of their men; sons and husbands are in prison and women have taken over the task of demonstrating.
I expect more violence. The number of people killed has now actually risen to six, and it is not yet nine oâclock in the morning on the seventh of May.
I write down the most important things that have happened since the beginning of the uprising. Two months in and the protest movement is growing. It started in February in a small way. In March it spread, and then there were the events in Darâa. 25 March was the Friday of Dignity, when the first person was killed in Damascus, and many were killed in Darâa. Then there was the presidentâs first speech and his talk about a conspiracy against Syria. On the Friday of Steadfastness 37 people were killed. The students in Damascus started to mobilize, then the students of Aleppo.
The Friday of Perseverance took place in the middle of April, and Good Friday saw the largest harvest of victims; then there was the Friday of Defiance and the organizers were punished. Thoughts I try to put in order: eight hundred civilians killed by the security forces, a large number of army officers among the dead. The rhetorical posture of the protest movement in Syria is growing and growing. There are so many details about pain and subjugation and death, about fear and the consecutive breaths of life⦠the life that is slowly expiring here before the eyes of the entire world.
8 May 2011
..............................
I didnât wake up as early as usual today. Now that I am addicted to Xanax, I sleep more deeply these days, missing the sunrise I was once accustomed to watching. Itâs 9 a.m. as I sit high up on the fifth floor balcony across from Arnous Square, looking out on al-Hamra Street and the districts of al-Shaalan and al-Rawda. From my new home I can see in all directions; besides the safety, this is its main virtue. I try to reconstruct my memory, which has been fraying ever since the protests broke out, and ever since killing became an everyday occurrence in this country.
Today I need to be more focused, but there is news from Homs, where the electricity has been turned off in some neighbourhoods, a siege tactic the regime depends upon, and news about heavy gunfire there causes me to lose my focus again. What drives me even crazier is the internet disruption. I have to do something, the problem requires a quick fix or I wonât be able to find out any news from the protests. The siege of Baniyas is surely ongoing, the electricity and water and communications lines are still interrupted, but there is no news yet about any more dead. The arrests continue. I am extremely irritated. I am headed, quite possibly, for a major depression. My fingers tremble. I have no desire to see anyone or anything, to follow the news or even to write. I am shaking.
This morning my bad luck seems to be getting worse because the first scene I see on television is a sniper action against a young man running down an empty street â the image is shot from far away, there are trees on both sides of the street, the sound of gunfire, and suddenly the young man drops after being shot from behind, in his back, falling down like a scrap of paper. I shake even more. That young man has a family, friends, a name. I donât know who he is, but I know he had a life, and that he is a Syrian citizen, killed by another Syrian citizen.
How has the blood of this united countryâs people become so worthless?
How did the security services make people so savage?
Memories of the first protests come rushing back, when I was able to move around more easily. I wasnât prepared for all this violence, and I donât just mean the metaphorical violence that came crashing down when I was accused of being a traitor and other kinds of defamation, but violence in its material and tangible senses, real violence. I
I expect more violence. The number of people killed has now actually risen to six, and it is not yet nine oâclock in the morning on the seventh of May.
I write down the most important things that have happened since the beginning of the uprising. Two months in and the protest movement is growing. It started in February in a small way. In March it spread, and then there were the events in Darâa. 25 March was the Friday of Dignity, when the first person was killed in Damascus, and many were killed in Darâa. Then there was the presidentâs first speech and his talk about a conspiracy against Syria. On the Friday of Steadfastness 37 people were killed. The students in Damascus started to mobilize, then the students of Aleppo.
The Friday of Perseverance took place in the middle of April, and Good Friday saw the largest harvest of victims; then there was the Friday of Defiance and the organizers were punished. Thoughts I try to put in order: eight hundred civilians killed by the security forces, a large number of army officers among the dead. The rhetorical posture of the protest movement in Syria is growing and growing. There are so many details about pain and subjugation and death, about fear and the consecutive breaths of life⦠the life that is slowly expiring here before the eyes of the entire world.
8 May 2011
..............................
I didnât wake up as early as usual today. Now that I am addicted to Xanax, I sleep more deeply these days, missing the sunrise I was once accustomed to watching. Itâs 9 a.m. as I sit high up on the fifth floor balcony across from Arnous Square, looking out on al-Hamra Street and the districts of al-Shaalan and al-Rawda. From my new home I can see in all directions; besides the safety, this is its main virtue. I try to reconstruct my memory, which has been fraying ever since the protests broke out, and ever since killing became an everyday occurrence in this country.
Today I need to be more focused, but there is news from Homs, where the electricity has been turned off in some neighbourhoods, a siege tactic the regime depends upon, and news about heavy gunfire there causes me to lose my focus again. What drives me even crazier is the internet disruption. I have to do something, the problem requires a quick fix or I wonât be able to find out any news from the protests. The siege of Baniyas is surely ongoing, the electricity and water and communications lines are still interrupted, but there is no news yet about any more dead. The arrests continue. I am extremely irritated. I am headed, quite possibly, for a major depression. My fingers tremble. I have no desire to see anyone or anything, to follow the news or even to write. I am shaking.
This morning my bad luck seems to be getting worse because the first scene I see on television is a sniper action against a young man running down an empty street â the image is shot from far away, there are trees on both sides of the street, the sound of gunfire, and suddenly the young man drops after being shot from behind, in his back, falling down like a scrap of paper. I shake even more. That young man has a family, friends, a name. I donât know who he is, but I know he had a life, and that he is a Syrian citizen, killed by another Syrian citizen.
How has the blood of this united countryâs people become so worthless?
How did the security services make people so savage?
Memories of the first protests come rushing back, when I was able to move around more easily. I wasnât prepared for all this violence, and I donât just mean the metaphorical violence that came crashing down when I was accused of being a traitor and other kinds of defamation, but violence in its material and tangible senses, real violence. I
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