Syria’s having a revolution, as I’m sure you’ve heard. Trigger events began in January and February, many of them led by women, and mass rallies in the thousands, then tens of thousands, began in late March. The three rallying “no’s” that express the values of this revolution are no violence, no religious bigotry, and no foreign military occupation — under the overarching “No” to this regime. The three “yesses” are yes to a civil (not religious, not military) state, yes to democracy, and yes to a human rights basis for that democracy wherein each citizen is equal and enjoys rights that cannot be overturned even democratically. The big “Yes” is to keeping the path until the fall of the regime.
It’s been over six months. Our revolution has gone on long enough to have anniversaries of the first protests, the first fallen. From the start we knew it wouldn’t be easy, but now we know. We begin to know what that means. The toll is high, and climbing. The regime seems to believe the part where Machievelli said repression could work, if it is comprehensive enough. Pain, daily. Yesterday saw 47 die. Each of them has a story, a face for me to learn. This is intense.
No Syrian is not suffering now. Outside Syria, many are wracked with survivor’s guilt. The sorrowful among us are weeping at the pain of those in Syria, but we who are not there are in pain ourselves, even if it doesn’t compare to the pain inside.
Inside, the country is being torn limb from limb by its torturers. The torturers themselves are surely exhausted from torturing. Pro-regimists are blaming the struggle, as if it is the cause of the violence being unleashed against it. The free people of Syria are beginning to understand suffering. Some rail against it and call for help from the sky, from a great leader, from a magic bullet; others are realizing that this pain, like the writhing of Christ on the cross, is the process that itself will become our deliverance. [Ed.:“Imitatio Christi” photo of a Syrian protester taken on Good Friday, 2011, by a citizen journalist in Syria. Permission given by the anonymous photographer for its use.]
This article is the first entry by Dr. Mohja Kahf of a regular series of commentaries and multimedia contributions to the blogs of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Muslim Peace Fellowship. Her articles will especially focus on women and gender, as well as human rights, political prisoners, and nonviolent change. Born in Syria, Professor Kahf teaches Middle Eastern studies and Arabic literature at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. A poet, book author, and activist, she tweets for the Syrian revolution @profkahf.