Beirut and I

I have been living here for four years. I spent the first year in the mountain town of Aley and I spent three months in the town of Bhamdoun.

I arrived in Lebanon without determining my destination. Most of my writer colleagues had submitted political asylum applications in order to reach Europe.

The idea itself was terrifying to me. I cannot go too far away from Damascus, and thus I settled in Lebanon. Maybe I chose Aley for a year for its proximity to the Damascus route–it was enough for me to see Syrian cars on the highway with «Damascus» written on the plate on the back of the car to be put at ease.

The first year went by without me undertaking any activity besides walking, and writing. I would take advantage of the sunny days in Aley’s harsh winter to traverse those paths shaded by ancient perennial trees, trees that have witnessed a dirty war like the one raging in my homeland Syria.

I left my homeland sad, confused and somewhat lost and my daily walks saved me from a breakdown. During my daily excursions, I was struck by those beautiful abandoned palaces, battered by bullets, pitiful relics of bygone magnificence. Some palaces had kept the features of their former beauty, but stood deserted and neglected–could it be because its masters had died or emigrated, or chosen an alternative homeland?

Before the tragic events that hit my homeland, I used to think that it would be hard for me to choose an alternative homeland. Later when I left fleeing possible death, I did not have many options other than stopping somewhere, and regarding it a home even if temporarily.

When I decided to reside in Beirut, I chose Bliss Street, to be close to the books – the Library of the American University was my only choice. At the same time, I was close to Hamra Street. I wanted to get to know the city of Beirut right from the «heart», from the ancient Ras Beirut district, Hamra’s boulevards that bustle with cafés, restaurants, and bars, and also its proximity to the sea. The sea that I knew from the writings of Ghada Al-Samman, the Syrian author who had lived in Beirut in its years of fame and glory, and then witnessed the internecine war that destroyed the city.

I have come to know now the city of Beirut and its environs fairly well.

I feel wretched at the sight of my compatriots in the streets of Beirut as they go through their daily sufferings to merely subsist.

As soon as we leave our homeland, we discover the predicament that we will always experience with the identification documents crisis.

We have become the holders of an impaired passport leaving us ineligible to travel to any Arab state.

As if «death» is the only thing available to Syrians.

Over the past four years, I have said goodbye to a large number of friends who passed through Beirut on their way to Turkey where death boats awaited them! Who can blame them? Death and poverty have beset most of them, their homes have been destroyed, so they have preferred adventure at sea to staying in undignified displacement camps.

Not a night goes by without a complaint message full of melancholy, sadness, and regret coming in from one of my friends who have emigrated.

Who said that we Syrians wish to replace our homeland with the forests of Germany or to take pictures with the ducks that swim in its rivers?

No one wishes to be away from his homeland, but death was a good reason to leave. When you run out of options and entire cities are destroyed and are ruled by various forms of tyranny–arguably the most brutal of which is ISIS, whose savagery has exceeded all other forms of barbarism in modern history.