The war isn’t over, but that time is gone. The conflict, which had already turned regional, has arguably gone global now, with Islamic State launching murderous attacks in Paris and California, and regime backer Russia joining a cacophony of countries bombing parts of Syria.
Numerous rounds of peace talks have so far failed, but as I write an unprecedented ceasefire that came into force on February 27 allowed protesters to return to the streets of opposition-held areas, battered by years of bombardment, to call for the fall of the regime. With millions have been displaced, and thousands of homes and livelihoods destroyed, Syrians are able for the first time to breathe at least, as the internationalized conflict that holds them hostage takes a pause.
But let’s rewind for a minute, and talk about love. Yes, you read that right.
My fiancé Mohammad Ghannam and I had only known each other a few months when we left Beirut together in March 2015. I knew I was taking a risk, but to me it just felt right. I was madly in love with the Palestinian-Syrian journalist. He was everything I ever dreamt of: he had long hair, a beautiful sparkle in his big brown eyes, a fabulous sense of humor, a sensitive soul, and he loved to party.
To him, there were few options but to leave.
He had endured over a year of jail in Syria, including several months of torture, after joining and documenting peaceful anti-regime demonstrations. He was released in June 2013 and he headed straight for Lebanon where he — like over a million other Syrians — believed he could be safe.
«It started well. I had never had the chance to experience Beirut even though it’s just a short drive from Damascus. I had heard a lot about it, that it was colorful, that there is freedom, art, music and good food», Ghannam said in our new home in Paris, as he puffed at a Syrian-made shisha that he bought days before leaving Beirut.
He had a job with the New York Times, his best friends moved to Beirut from Damascus, and together they explored one of the world’s best party scenes. It didn’t take them long to adapt to their new home; there were few cultural barriers and the city that had for decades welcomed wave upon wave of political exiles had this time become a hub for Syrian activists, artists, musicians and journalists.
«We lived great times. I met amazing people who changed me and helped me become the person I am now», he said. «I thought that I would spend a maximum of three years in Lebanon, and that the regime would fall. I believed I would go back to Syria sooner rather than later».
- 'Caterpillar to butterfly' -
But Syria took another path, and Lebanon obliged. And just over a year after he arrived, Ghannam was ordered to leave.
He wasn’t the only one to experience a short-term love affair with Beirut.
It also happened to my friend Mohammad Nour al-Akraa, an activist-turned-reporter from Homs.
He was only 21 when he, like thousands of his friends and neighbors, fled the Baba Amr district as it fell back into regime hands in early 2012.
Akraa arrived in Lebanon in shock, but happy. He had visited the country once before — in 2008. Speaking by phone from his new home in Berlin, he said he had tasted freedom for the first time then.
«I remember the feeling, it was like the air didn’t fit in my lungs», he said.
In Beirut, he too became a journalist for an international publication. He made friends with people from all over the world. He grew from a shy little boy into a young, confident man about town. Or as he put it, much more beautifully: «In Syria I was a caterpillar. In Beirut I became a butterfly».
It took around three years, and a lot of twists and turns, for the Lebanese government to start making it very hard for Syrian refugees to stay. By then, it was official: Lebanon was home to world’s highest refugee population per capita.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees lived in abject misery, with barely any aid trickling down to their makeshift camps dotted across the country. Children worked in potato farms for $7 a day, and left without an education. People lived in flimsy tents and withstood snowy weather in the winter and drought in the summer.
But alongside the tragedy also came a flow of young people to Beirut, with a flood of creative energy and willingness to help. In the Lebanese capital meanwhile they partied, met people from all over the world, and discussed openly — perhaps for the first time — religion and atheism, sectarianism and politics.
Syrian musicians played with Lebanese artists, giving rise to an explosion of creativity that had us all dancing together one weekend after the next.
Couples fell in love and some tied the knot at wedding parties where guests chanted songs and revolutionary slogans that had last been heard in Aleppo or Homs. Others broke up as the pressures of exile became all too much to bear.
In the heat of summer 2014, I started hearing from more and more people that they had no choice but to leave.
Ghannam and Akraa, their backs against the wall, were among them.
«I tried to get a residence and work permit from the authorities, but they refused», Ghannam said, adding that as a Palestinian he was told by Lebanese authorities that he was not allowed to work as a journalist in the country.
As the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon swelled, the Lebanese government tightened restrictions, making it increasingly hard for people to obtain permission to work legally. «I felt my life was over», he said, explaining that other host countries such as Turkey, Egypt or Jordan would also refuse him entry for the same reason, the fact that he was of Palestinian background.
- From dream to nightmare -
Akraa too tried hard to renew his residence permit, to no avail. «Many people won’t understand this when they hear me, but truthfully it was harder for me to leave Beirut than Homs», he said.
And in the months that preceded their departure, the two lived fearful of any man in uniform. They were wary not just of detention, but also forcible return.
Their dream had become a nightmare that was infused with feelings of rejection and claustrophobia, arguably worsened by the emotional wounds they carried from the events they witnessed and suffered in Syria.
The hardship would last until their visas — their tickets to the future — came through.
It was March 1, 2015 — a date I’ll never forget — when Ghannam and I took the plane to Paris together. For me this new adventure with the love of my life felt like an incredible gift from Beirut, the city I love and hate so deeply, and which my parents had grown up in and left during its own civil war.
A few months later, Akraa went to Germany. We stay in touch. He says it’s too early to speak of feelings of exile. He has been reunited with other Syrian friends who also reached Germany, and he laughs as he says that «the shisha in Berlin is cheaper than in Beirut».
Fast forward to late summer 2015, the peak of the migrant crisis. Every day, thousands of people were reaching Greece and Italy’s shores in unseaworthy boats. Most of them were Syrian, followed by Iraqis, Afghans and nationals of other countries mired in insecurity and poverty.
AFP sent me on two missions I won’t ever forget. First I spent two weeks on the Greek island of Kos and then I travelled up the so-called Balkan migrant route, in the trail of an Iraqi couple and their three-month-old baby Adam as they made their way up to Western Europe.
Many of the people I met during those missions had similar stories to Ghannam and Akraa — though they had had the good fortune of travelling to Europe by plane.
Many of the refugees had suffered and witnessed horrific violence and persecution, not just in Syria but also in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Syrians among them had fled all sides of the war: rebels, jihadists, government troops, Kurdish forces. War is insane, my mother taught me. Her words rang truer than ever as I saw whole families sleep on the beach front in flimsy tents, waiting for permission to keep going.
In Europe, many people have welcomed the migrants, instinctively understanding that if they risked their lives and overran border after border to get here, they must have had good reason to flee. But many others have turned the cold shoulder, putting to the test the soul of the continent.
Despite the monumental difficulties of adapting — again — to a new country, Ghannam and Akraa remain hopeful.
They both have good jobs, and they’re making admirable progress with the language.
As for me, I am very happy in my new life with my future husband in Paris, but I do often think of Beirut. Lucky for me, I can visit whenever I want. Many Syrians who loved the city deeply aren’t allowed in any more.
«We lost Beirut», says Akraa, bittersweet nostalgia making his voice crack.
«Beirut lost us», Ghannam says, defiant.