When you are dehumanized — part 1
Those who enter are forgotten, those who are released are re-born
It was a sunny Sunday in the mid of May 2013. I was waiting for the lecturer to arrive so we can do our Calculus-2 quiz. It took no more than 1 hour to change my life since, until the day I am writing the article.
Feeling bored waiting for the late lecturer, we went out of the hall to have a cup of tea and chit-chat. Android phones and their cool camera were early introduced these days in Syria, so I thought about capturing a comic video scene with my colleagues.
The video does not differ from what is today called “tik-tok” vibes. We were around 15 students gathered laughing and making noise for the joy we were having — instead of just sitting and waiting for the lecturer.
First of all, in Syria, any gathering of 5 people is suspicious from the perspective of the “state”. So we were x3 suspicious having fun in an area ruled by Assad. Several students from the university student’s branch circled us and asked us for our identification cards — exactly circled us just like a police circles drug smugglers.
They tried to convince us at the first, that it is a routine procedure, and they will just do background checking and give our IDs back.
To my bad luck, I descent from a city known for its anti-Assad regime behavior. So when they screened my ID, their facial expressions was enough to tell me what could be waiting for me — although I have never joined in any anti-government activity
In Syria student branch members of the university are security guards for Assad regime, they have all the power to express against any student
Later on, the situation got stiffer. They asked for our mobile phones, emails, Facebook accounts, they collected them one by one and start to search for anything against the government — even they held our notebooks to check for any written thing!
I was not having the best luck on that day, some of my friends are descendants of pro-Assad villages or have their family members actively working in the army. While me? not at all, my family were expats and we resettled in 2006 back home — apart from my origins mentioned in the ID it would have worked out.
In Syria your origin city, the city where your father came from is written on your ID, your children's IDs. So it would make it easier for government agencies to keep eyes on you based on your family ancestors orientation
I had an old LG mobile phone, and on that phone, I downloaded an image from the internet mentioning Bashar-al-Assad to be a duck — A rumor spread wide after a group of activists hacked his personal email [1]. In addition to that, they found a friend on Facebook who posted anti-government material. They looked at me in the eyes, they said “You will be f*cked today” and I was barely taking my breath because anyone following up the brutality of pro-Assad in torturing people for the minor things, knows that the coming moments won’t be pleasing at all!
With me, a colleague who used to know Basel Al-Shahade[2] — a Syrian civil activist against the regime. They found his picture on my friend’s phone, and hysterically shouting “Your god falls down, but Assad won’t”. At that moment, I knew that I won’t be alone in that dark future, my friend will be a part of it!
Your god falls down, but Assad won’t!
To be continued…
Reference
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/assad-emails-lift-lid-inner-circle
