This post is also available in: Français (French) العربية (Arabic)
As Syrians in Lebanon, it seems that we are living the war all over again, caught unaware by the fears of a past war flooding our memories. I am living through two wars: one that exists in my recent memory, and another that exists in my present, like the thousands who are living in tents after having fled death and collapse in Syria. But today, as refugees, death is behind us and in front of us. It is literally everywhere.
I will not compare what I am living through to what those with missiles falling over their heads and near their homes are having to endure. Those who walked for hours because they have no other means of transportation. I won’t compare it to what Syrians who were hit by explosives as they slept were subjected to. I still have the luxury of writing about my fear.
Our proximity to war, the threat we face, and the number of times we experience death approaching us may vary, but what does not vary is the deep feeling of being shaken, of wanting to survive.
Being a woman in war
Living through war is harsh, but what makes it harsher is being a woman in war. You have two battles to face: that of avoiding death and staying safe, and that of being a woman all throughout—with the daily difficulties and challenges that may not be immediately apparent or seem silly.
During the first war, in Syria, poetry and writing saved me. I decided to write about everything: about death, life, and desire, about my deep feelings and my woman’s body in the midst of war, about how closely linked death was to my desire for life and ecstasy. I published a poetry collection titled Thirty Minutes on a Booby-Trapped Bus. I still feel like I am on that bus. In a vehicle about to explode.
Today, when I look back on those years when shells were raining down on us and when houses shook from the intensity of the bombing, I think about how I used to chase the light… the light of writing and life. It may sound beautiful, sure, but it is also exhausting. This is all I have been doing for 33 years: surviving society, customs, traditions, outdated ideas, patriarchal ones, harassment, war. I feel that even the act of writing here is another attempt to survive, to adapt, to understand what I am currently going through and feeling.
Either war and death turn us into cruel people, or they make us care more deeply about humanity and understand the suffering of those around us. I am determined, despite everything, to continue being human.
War, again
Today, war has broken out, again. But this time in Lebanon, the country I sought refuge in after being exhausted by conflict and crises in my own country. I knew that Lebanon was an unstable country, but it was the best option for a Syrian girl whose passport wouldn’t let her in to any of the countries she dreamed of. Lebanon was, for me, the first stop on my survival journey. So I have to adapt to my nationality and live according to that, according to what the world allows me to do—that is, according to who I am supposed to be based on where I was born. I have to deal with being treated as inferior. I was subjected to racist behavior at several airports, where security officers mocked me for being Syrian and traveling in a regular manner—as if the normal thing for us is to cross seas and forests, not to be ordinary people who get their passports stamped and proceed like any other person seeking to reach their destination.
I’m not shaken by these racist encounters, nor do they make me hate myself. I know very well how to deal with them, and I often ignore racists for one simple reason: no one can consider someone of a different nationality or identity to be inferior to them unless they lack humanity. And there is nothing you can say to people who’ve lost their humanity. They will only try to prove that you are inferior to them. Imagine that, some people make themselves feel bigger by making others smaller, making fun of where they come from.
As if all this weren’t enough, the Israeli war came to make me discover that forms of war can change. Yes, we are facing things we didn’t imagine would happen, like some shelters in Lebanon refusing to admit Syrians just because they are Syrian. Even in war, there is preferential treatment according to who people are, where they come from. Syrians find themselves alone, without any support, after their country’s government already abandoned them. Even on the Lebanese-Syrian border, Syrians are treated badly, unlike the Lebanese. Syria has never ceased to shock us anyway. It is always able to prove that the injustice against Syrians will never end, will only change shape.
Returning to Syria seems almost impossible, be it due to potential arrest or the economic collapse. Not to mention that there is nowhere for refugees to return to. The notion of return has no meaning. It may even be dangerous.
A go-bag, not ready to go
Though it’s necessary to have a go-bag with things like official documents, money, and some personal hygiene items, I am still unable to open the bag and put things in it. Every day I put it off for the next day. I say to myself, “Today passed peacefully, maybe tomorrow will be the same.” But the truth is that no days pass peacefully. Death hovers around us. I see it in the eyes of my friends and colleagues. I feel it in the air. Even the concept of peace has become relative, related to the area you live in and the streets you take. My friends reassure me that I’m in an area that will not be bombed. How ironic.
But I also think that this refusal to pack my bag comes from my desire for things to be okay. From my belief that this beautiful country will be okay. And we will be okay with it.
Perhaps one day I will look back on these years with peace of mind. Perhaps I will see them as a profound experience that changed me deeply, that changed my outlook on life, on things, on my idea of humanity. Either war and death turn us into cruel people, or they make us care more deeply about humanity and understand the suffering of those around us, based on our own suffering. I am determined, despite everything, to continue being human.
