I remember hearing ambiguous phrases such as «halt the fighting between brothers,» and «the need to preserve civil peace.» It’s strange that I can still remember this rhetoric even though nearly 40 years have passed. I still remember the precise details – but later on, and after all these years, I understood that these expressions were merely a cover for what we didn’t dare call occupation, or tutelage.
However, this tutelage – which the regime worked tirelessly to justify over the last four decades – remained a source of shame that could not be denied, and governed my personal relationship with Lebanon.
I was one of the Syrians who traveled the least to Lebanon, even though as a Syrian citizen I wasn’t responsible for what was taking place. I had no justification for Syria’s intervention in the Civil War and its play on the contradictions that were raging between the Lebanese.
The sight of Lebanese politicians who would travel to the Presidential Palace increased my feelings of shame. I’ll say that I withdrew within myself and because I have no kinder expression for it, I decided that Beirut was not my favorite city. I visited it only a few times over the decades, and justified this by saying that Beirut was no longer that splendid place that every Syrian writer must experience. The feelings of shame accompanied me at every moment; we were a party to the Lebanese Civil War and not peacemakers.
Several long decades unfolded before the Syrian Army left Lebanon, after the Hariri assassination. The sight of that exit also filled me with shame: soldiers who were poor, and defeated, and among them were officers who smuggled out ceramics, cigarettes and whiskey, and everything that could be smuggled. Lebanese and international banks were home to their money, under conditions of total respect. I often thought that this history, which accompanied the people of my generation, was overflowing with contradictions. But I discovered something dangerous early on. Syrian policy in Lebanon prevented any type of coordination – even feelings of solidarity – between Syrians who rejected their country’s intervention in Lebanon and Lebanese who didn’t know that the regime in Syria didn’t mean the Syrian people.
This complicated and problematic relationship, despite its stark clarity, required the Syrian uprising to destroy the wall that was built over four decades between Lebanese and Syrians and restore some truth to the picture.
This wall collapsed during the first days with the collapse of the wall of fear in Syria, with the first demonstrations. The idea of a single people in two countries began to grow little by little, – but in contrast to what had been promoted in the past, meaning that the Lebanese would not dream of freedom before change came to Syria.
The Lebanese were divided between those who support the Syrian revolution and opponents of it. This is the only true picture of the relations since 1976, when the Syrian army entered Lebanon with Arab and international approval. The image of Syrians in the minds of Lebanese has changed, from occupier to revolutionary, fleeing violence, displaced, refugee, ally, enemy, etc.
Every day we see aspects of the new relationship between Syrians and Lebanese become clearer, erasing what came before. Despite the painful incidents that took place with Syrian refugees, it was as if the old image of Syrians was destroyed in the minds of Lebanese.
Yes, four decades have passed since that day in school when I was a young boy. The image has yet to be erased from my memory, along with that of refugee tents being burned, or refugees being demeaned in these camps, or on the borders. It won’t be erased from the memories of Syrians and refugees in particular, and this time the identity of the «enemy» is clear.
The image is very clear, contrary to the past. It marks a proper beginning to the establishment of natural relations between Syrians and Lebanese, after the war is over and a new, democratic Syria is born; these ties will be clearer in the future. The map of allies will change and everyone will begin to examine our history once again as a necessary step to ridding ourselves of feelings of regret.
I’m not being trite when I talk about the history of the last 40 years. However, there is a kind of hope that always gives me the strength to express myself and acknowledge that we have divided up a common history full of pain and tears. We should make a concerted effort to divide up the future in order to purify our common memory, and not remain silent about what has happened. We as individuals, or as peoples in the region, did not choose this past. When we possess our future, which has been stolen from us over the last half-century, we should have the courage to acknowledge to define our lives once again. We have a common destiny and what has taken place in the past, recently and not so recently, can’t be erased by geography.
Yes, it’s not easy to change the collective feelings of people but in the Syrian-Lebanese case, we should believe that it’s not impossible. We can’t close the doors in the face of the coming change, which won’t forgive those involved in killing Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians, and everyone who exploited humanitarian issues – such as that of the Syrian refugees – for narrow political ends.
Lebanese defend Syrians in Lebanon whoever they are, because they are simply defending their children’s future. They are well aware of the identity of those who turned Syria and Lebanon into wastelands, monopolized the definition of patriotism, history and geography, and turned the countries into garbage dumps.
The only certainty I know is that the principal of an elementary school will not stand up to justify the domination of another people, whatever it’s called, after the collapse of the rhetoric of hypocrisy that has cost us so much blood and pain. We won’t allow any principal in the future to once again make accusations against me – we won’t permit any rhetoric that considers refugees to be enemies, urging that their tents should be burned, that they be demeaned and killed, and subjected to the exploitation of their miserable conditions.
Yes, the lines of the old images, full of blood and hypocrisy, will be erased. In the new image, I feel truly wonderful that I, as a Syrian-Lebanese, won’t face accusations again.
* Syrian novelist and scriptwriter, hid work includes «No knives in this city's kitchens» and «In Praise of Hatred» and the TV series «Relative silence»