The Libyan revolution erupted the year Younis attained his Baccalaureate. He lived its dangers and tragedies, and moved with his mother from one shelter to another to flee battles. His father was besieged in another city, and they could not contact him.
They returned in the calm that followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi and tried to resume their daily lives. But normalcy proved illusory as security deteriorated and fear, chaos, and cleansing spread. The atmosphere made university life impossible, especially as Younis had lost many of his friends during the revolution and after it. Life had become dangerous.
In these conditions, he was compelled to travel alone to Ukraine, his mother’s country, to complete his studies. But Ukraine also witnessed its own revolution, and its economy fell on hard times. Once again, Younis was destined to failure as the university refused to admit him except on conditions he could not fulfill. He returned to Libya, hopeless. As it was impossible to return to Syria for his studies, as he had dreamed, there remained just one option in front of Younis: to travel by sea, in the direction of Europe. It was distressing, not just for him, but for his parents as well, as they would have to part with their only child.
On January 23, 2014, Younis arrived in Nice, France through Italy. He disembarked at the train station broken and sad, as though a foreign and barbaric world had swallowed him up whole. He resisted the urge to cry.
Younis awaited Nasser, a 40-year-old Tunisian who was one of Younis’ father’s students in university, but his pleasure to see him did not last. Nasser’s only assistance was to direct him to the place he could ask for asylum. Apart from that, Younis’ interactions with the man were humiliating and coercive. He spent what little money he had on Nasser and his wife on the pretext that they had shared their despicable home with him. Nasser would take him from one place to another to feed him off donations given by charities and organizations that tend to the poor and to shelters where he spent two and a half months alone, between the homeless and drug dealers. He finally allowed himself to cry, chocking in silence, afraid to show any sign of weakness in an environment where there was no place for the weak and where he was the youngest of all.
Those were the most miserable days for Younis, a pampered, middle class child who was knocked to the bottom by the prevailing circumstances that let him pick up a coin dropped by a passerby instead of calling him back– only to buy bread and cheese. What remained of the umbilical cord between Younis and his parents was cut, and he matured to the point that he appeared older than his age. Younis did not complain or grumble, but hid his hardship from his parents, instead. He did not tell them, for example, of the incident in the mosque where he received a slap from a Chechen man who had suspicions about him, and who tossed him out of the place while Younis’ friends watched and did nothing. His relationship with the mosque he sought for nothing other than some peace of mind,ended; in any case, he was never religious but an open-minded secularist like his family.
Being a minor, Younis was not entitled to financial assistance from the government, though he received some money from his father and moved in with a friend. He could not take advantage of the free language classes until his asylum paperwork was processed, which took around nine months. Still, he was determined to acquire the language and become self-reliant, and he succeeded in doing so in a period of four months at one of the institutes. Younis’ confidence grew. He approached a youth protection agency, where he met Lolita, a social worker, who arranged his stay with an organization that works with youth. She and Nikola (another social worker) became responsible of his case after Younis was granted the right for Asylum.
Younis found himself at a major crossroad and it was Lolita and Nikola’s mission to help him shape his life in France. Yet he struggled between their divergent orientations. While Nikola pressured Younis to find some work, Lolita believed in him and his desire to realize his dream and study cinema. In the end, both of them won as Younis embarked his university studies this last September 7th getting his wild dream closer to reality.
Meeting Younis has had a profound impact on my life. Our friendship consoled me at a time I was dying from longing, defeat, and anger in my diaspora. My love and gratitude for France grew with him, for what it provided for me and my son Ward before him; he made me proud of him. I now believe in the capacities of the Syrians and their love of life, unlike what others imagine.
Every time I came across Younis, I saw Ward within him and I would hope he would maintain his courage, cleverness, and aspiration as an adult. Younis and Ward became the symbol of hope in our dispersion and exile. Whether they return to a home they never knew or not, what matters to me is that they survived the tragedy and they found another country that deserved them and that they deserved.