بواسطة Nour Samaha | ديسمبر 12, 2017 | Cost of War, غير مصنف
“TWELVE-YEAR-OLD MUSTAFA GRINNED as he bit into an apple, munching away excitedly. Only a month ago, he sunk his teeth into a piece of fresh fruit for the first time in three years. Mustafa, along with his family, survived a siege.
Mustafa’s mother, Sara, her face gaunt like that of her teenage daughter, described how they made it. “We would have to buy tomato paste by the gram,” said Sara, whose family name The Intercept is withholding for security reasons. “Our daily food consisted of rice or lentils. Get meat, fruit, or vegetables out of your head, they didn’t exist. Forget the fridge, there was never any power to keep it running. Forget everything.” Pointing to Mustafa, she asked, “Look at him. Does he look like a normal 12-year-old? Look at the girls. Do they look healthy?”All the children in Deir al-Zour appear small for their ages.
Mustafa looked like a child of eight or nine years old. All the children in Deir al-Zour appear small for their ages. Sara’s daughters had dark circles under their eyes, their skin tinged yellow, and their cheeks ever so slightly sunken in.
Since the end of 2014, the residents of the city of Deir al-Zour in Syria had been all but cut off from the outside, besieged by the Islamic State as it attempted to consolidate its power base across northern Syria and Iraq. Water, fuel, electricity, and channels for communication slowly disappeared. Basic food products like tea, sugar, meat, and fresh produce became unaffordable luxuries, held hostage by a handful looking to profit off the siege.
After months of intense battles, the Syrian army and its allies broke the Islamic State siege on Deir al-Zour in early September. It took another three days for Syrian forces to reach the main entrance of the city; the Islamic State had surrounded the nearby military post with thousands of landmines.
The city is the capital of a region of the same name. Deir al-Zour Governorate, too, was mostly freed from the Islamic State’s grip following months of heavy fighting by both the Syrian government and its allies on one side of the region and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces on the other. Today, control of the province is split along the Euphrates River: The government and its allies control the territory south of the river, while the Syrian Democratic Forces and its allies control the territory north of the river.
Sections of the road to reach the city of Deir al-Zour still remained under Islamic State control for a few weeks after the siege ended. Traveling by air remained the only way to access the city. By mid-October, however, according to Syrian military officials, the road leading directly to Deir al-Zour was cleared of standing threats. Aid trucks, civilians, and, finally, journalists were finally able to travel by land to the city.
Deir al-Zour is a shell of what it used to be. Once a bustling city home to around 700,000 people, now the city’s roads are pockmarked by years of shelling; its buildings lie crumbling, caught between destruction and abandonment; and the city still wants for basic services, such as electricity and communication lines. Mobile phone reception is sporadic at best, and most houses are running full-time on generators or large battery packs. A World Bank report released in July 2017 estimated that Deir al-Zour province suffered the highest housing destruction as a result of the war.
Residents who stayed behind, approximately 100,000 by January 2017, as the blockade drew on endured a double siege: One siege by the Islamic State, which prevented people or supplies from entering or exiting; and the other inside city limits, perpetrated by those who saw in the misery an opportunity to turn a profit.
Today, they are war-weary, undernourished, and frustrated. While some neighborhoods are pushing to return to normal, there is an underlying concern that, just as the city had been overlooked during the siege, its residents will quickly be forgotten about as the cries of liberation and victory fade away.
SITUATED BETWEEN THE two former Islamic State capitals, Raqqa and Mosul, the city of Deir al-Zour, on the banks of the Euphrates River, was a flashpoint in the conflict, yet its residents were overlooked by all the warring parties. As a result, residents suffered at the hands of local war profiteers inside the city while also fending off attacks, infiltrations, and onslaughts from the Islamic State, which sought Deir al-Zour to consolidate its control over the surrounding area.
At the outset of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, Deir al-Zour was a hotbed of opposition activity, and was attacked by the Syrian army. By 2013, rebels from the Nusra Front and other groups held the city, jostling for control with other rebel factions and fighting off government offensives. By 2014, the Islamic State took over much of the surrounding area and laid siege to the city — until its defeat this fall.
The road to Deir al-Zour, a nine-hour drive from Damascus through a vast expanse of unfriendly desert, reveals how much still needs to be done before civilians can return to any sort of normalcy following the Syrian government’s recapturing of territory from both the Islamic State and the Syrian opposition. Palmyra, the last major town before Deir al-Zour that was recaptured from the Islamic State — for the second time — in March 2017, is still in ruins. Only a handful of civilians remain. Instead, pro-government militiamen — from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, to the Afghan Fatemiyoun group, to local Syrian forces — dot the streets, with each faction commandeering its own residence from what buildings still stand, while Russian troops guard the ancient ruins.
Most of the vehicles traveling beyond Palmyra have a military purpose. The Russians are here, along with Syrian regular forces and pro-government paramilitary groups. Pickup trucks with Syrian, Afghan, and Lebanese fighters pass by, their flags flapping in the wind. One particular checkpoint on the main thoroughfare connecting the province of Homs to northeastern Syria — the cities of Deir al-Zour, Al Mayadeen, and Abu Kamal — is manned by a Syrian soldier, a Russian soldier, and an Afghan fighter. At the entrance of the recently recaptured town of Sukhnah stands a massive billboard with the words “Death to America and Israel” plastered across it, with Fatemiyoun flags at its edges.
As the road approaches Deir al-Zour, the landscape is scattered with small clusters of flat, one-story houses, now abandoned and derelict. Just beyond the main Syrian army checkpoint, an arch with large pieces of its mosaic tile design missing welcomes visitors to Deir al-Zour. According to local residents and Syrian military, landmines still dot the vast expanse of desert stretching out around the city entrance, making it unsafe to travel by foot. After another Syrian army checkpoint, a large statue of a jug welcomes visitors, but no one stops here — Islamic State snipers still lurk in the distance.
As the city turns to residential blocks, Syrian army checkpoints dot the streets. Jeeps with young men in military fatigues — a mix of Syrian army and local pro-government forces — can be seen driving through the connecting neighborhoods. They are keeping close watch over what is left of Deir al-Zour; in the western outskirts of the city, entire neighborhoods are completely destroyed, the enormous scars of the Islamic State’s presence and the subsequent battles that forced them out.
ON A RECENT night, the market on Wadi Street inside Deir al-Zour was full. The city was pitch-black, except for the flicker of battery-powered bulbs. Explosions could still be heard in the near distance above the din of generators but were not threatening enough to stop people from socializing. Before they were routed, shelling from the Islamic State drove people to take cover, for fear of becoming one of the thousands of civilians killed in 2017 during the battle for the city. Now, smoke-filled coffee shops bustle with young men puffing hookah, gathered around the few TV sets currently operational in the city. Others pause by the market stalls, inspecting the fresh produce, now more readily available.
Loud whispers of the “tujjar” — the Arabic word for traders or anyone who demands money in exchange for something, including services — float between shoppers in the souk, as residents, vegetable sellers, and even children talk of how they were, as one shopkeeper described it, “under siege on the outside and the inside.”
The tujjar tended to be locals, either from the city or the countryside, who capitalized on the Islamic State siege. They sold everything from bread, wheat, rice, bulgur, and canned food, to aid, diesel, wheat, oil, government passes, and spaces on planes or helicopters to be airlifted out. The tujjar hailed from many different backgrounds. Some were from local gangs who had been absorbed into the different branches of the National Defense Forces, a pro-government militia; others, like Hossam Qaterji, were high-powered businessmen who organized aid drops and allegedly negotiated trade deals over wheat with the Islamic State.
Sara described how the tujjar lined their pockets. “The aid drops we got were collected by the tujjar, divided into two, of which half was put into warehouses to expire” — in order to inflate prices — “and the other half would be sold at exorbitant prices to the residents in the souks,” she explained. They “are also responsible for our suffering.”
Once the sun set, gangs would often loot the neighborhoods and houses of those who had fled. According to one resident, his neighbor found his entire kitchen, including the fridge, for sale off the back of a pickup in a nearby city.
“Just watch now, the pickup trucks coming back from Al Mayadeen, full of goods looted from the homes there,” said Abu Mohammad, who asked his proper name not be used because of security risks. “These gangs did the same here, inside our city.”
“Everything was for sale in Deir al-Zour,” explained Mohammed Saleh Alftayeh, an expert on the Syrian military and politics, who is from Deir al-Zour. “Everyone had something that others needed.”
In order for a government employee to be able to leave the city, for instance, he would have to get official permission, which came at a price. Once the government employee left, he would have to pay his way through checkpoints on the outskirts of the city to allow him to travel by land or pay even more to be allowed to use helicopters or a cargo plane. And the fees increased as the siege went on.
In February 2015, the fee to get airlifted out was around 25,000 SYP (around $100 at the time) per person, according to a number of residents both inside and outside the city, including those who left via airlift. In the fall of 2015, when Islamic State forces crept too close to the airport, airlifts by cargo plane stopped entirely. With only smaller planes — and therefore fewer seats — making the flight out, prices skyrocketed. By October 2015, the fee had increased tenfold: A family of three would have to pay 700,000 SYP — and, even then, a waitlist remained, full of people waiting to escape.
Those who could not afford to be airlifted risked their lives by attempting to cross by land through Islamic State territory.
WITH MOST OF Deir al-Zour liberated from the Islamic State siege, attention has now turned to reconstruction and returning civilians. But based on how little attention was paid to Deir al-Zour during the siege, some residents feel the city’s reconstruction needs will again be overlooked.
“I doubt it will be a focus for the government in terms of reconstruction,” said Alftayeh, the military and political analyst. He pointed to the government’s retaking of the war-torn city of Aleppo in December 2016. “It has been almost a year now for Aleppo, and there is no organized, government-led reconstruction,” Alftayeh said. “As long as there is no international funding, I doubt there will be serious reconstruction in Deir al-Zour, where the scale of destruction is huge.”
Residents are expected to come back to the city, yet two months after the siege was broken, only a slow trickle have returned. “There will be a flow back, partly because the section that was under the control of the government during the past years is in better condition that other parts, and it can accommodate significant numbers,” said Alftayeh, “and partly because the government wants internally displaced people to return to their original cities, Deir al-Zour included.”
In late September, the government issued a decree stating all public sector employees must return to their original workplaces within a month; in the case of Deir al-Zour, the deadline was extended to the end of the year.
Some humanitarian organizations are eager to see public sector workers return home, including to Deir al-Zour. “Public sector workers tend to fall into the poorest class bracket, and they are the ones who provide the basic services to any community for it to work properly again,” said one official working with an international organization across Syria, who asked for anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media, “so we are keen to see them return.”
Those who stayed behind and weathered the siege in Deir al-Zour, however, are less optimistic about the future. Haifaa, another resident in Qusour who was forced to stay behind while her husband left to seek medical treatment for their child in Damascus, said, “It will be another 10 years before anything can get back to normal here.””
[This article was originally published by The Intercept.]
بواسطة Haid Haid | ديسمبر 10, 2017 | غير مصنف
“More than 35 members of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a coalition of rebel groups led by the rebranded al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham – have been assassinated in Idlib since September. While assassinations in Syria are common, the unprecedented rate and scale of these targeted attacks and their impact on the group’s capacity indicates a significant shift in the way its opponents are dealing with it.
It is extremely difficult to get a clear picture of the exact number of assassination attempts targeting HTS, due to the lack of systematic data collection and the secretive circumstances in which some of these attempts took place. However, a quick scan of public local media reports from the past three months shows that most of the attacks targeted high profile members. Eliminating HTS’s foreign Sharia scholars and leaders – mostly Saudis, Jordanians and Tunisians – comes at the top of the priority list, indicating that the assassinations are meant to weaken its leadership. Among the most prominent targets are Abu Talha al-Ordini, Abu Abdulrahman al-Mohajer, Abu Sulaiman al-Maghribi, Abu Yahya al-Tunisi, Suraqa al-Maki and Abu Mohammad al-Sharii. Local military leaders come as a second priority, namely Abu Elias al-Baniasi, Mustafa al-Zahri, Saied Nasrallah and Hassan Bakour.
Despite HTS’s efforts to become a rooted movement, it is still largely a network built around individuals with charisma and expertise. Therefore, the assumption is that eliminating those targets will destroy the network around them. As such, targeting HTS’s foreign scholars, who are mostly veteran fighters with long experience as jihadists, will weaken the group’s credibility and limit its ability to recruit. Likewise, the military leaders who are targeted are generally known to be effective and experienced and thus difficult to replace.
The assassination operations against HTS have significantly increased since last September, which coincided with preparations for the Turkish-led intervention in Idlib. Much of the speculation about a potential Turkish intervention in Idlib had portrayed it as an anti-HTS operation, leading to the assumption that Turkey is behind the attacks. The advocates of this theory argue that Turkey’s plan is to slowly weaken HTS rather than out-fight it in a military confrontation that would be costly and may even harden its base.
Central to this plan is exacerbating HTS’s internal divisions between the pragmatists and the hardliners. The latter, who are considered the main threat, can then be eliminated through a Turkish-led covert assassination campaign. But this theory assumes that Turkey, which entered Syria in coordination with HTS, would jeopardize its main objective in Syria – keeping the Syrian Kurds in check – in order to do this.
Alternatively, the pragmatic model adopted by HTS’s leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani – which led to divisions within the group – is used as evidence that the attacks are an inside job. The rift was widened by Jolani’s decision to sever the group’s external ties to al-Qaeda in order to establish Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) in July 2016. The tension reached another level when its leader dissolved JFS a few months later to create HTS, despite internal objection from hardliners.
Likewise, Johani’s decision to negotiate with Turkey and allow it to launch its Idlib operation resulted in an internal crisis of confidence with his leadership. Accepting cooperation with the (secular) Turkish government is seen by the Salafist-jihadist community to which HTS belongs as a clear violation of that ideological school’s teachings.
Many HTS members expressed, in several conversations with me, their dissatisfaction with the group’s new line of thinking. In a recent interview, Hasan al-Daghim, a well-informed Syrian researcher and religious scholar focusing on Islamist movements, argued that HTS’s pragmatic wing will try to get rid of the hardliners to allow the new model to function. This statement is echoed by other observers, who believe that the assassinations started after the defection of two prominent HTS figures, Abdullah al-Muhaysini and Muslah al-Alyani, as a preemptive move to prevent further divisions and defections. But how can this sophisticated operation stay secret when many of the group’s sensitive private conversations were leaked?
There are unconfirmed reports about the involvement of foreign actors and governments in the assassinations through local proxies. With ISIS rapidly declining, international attention has turned more heavily toward the threat posed by HTS in Idlib. But instead of conventional military operations similar to the anti-ISIS campaign, a different approach is perhaps being used to eliminate HTS’s persons of interest without disturbing the conflict’s delicate dynamics.
The types of assassination attacks indicate that a small number of people are involved in executing them. The majority of assassinations are either done through planting explosive devices under the cars of the targets or by ambushing and shooting them. As such it is easy for certain governments to hire local mercenaries to kill high-value targets such their fellow citizens who joined HTS or other individuals who are perceived as a threat. Local sources have confirmed that many locals, whether proxies or bounty hunters, are already involved in such activities. But they also highlighted that the regime and ISIS may also be behind some of the assassinations.
The vast number of people with both an interest in assassinating HTS leaders and the means to do so adds to the difficulty of verifying who is responsible for what. But it is safe to say that such targeted attacks will continue as long as the group is perceived internationally as one of the biggest threats in Syria.
Haid Haid, November 2017″
[This article was originally published by Chatham House.]
بواسطة Kheder Khaddour | ديسمبر 10, 2017 | Cost of War, غير مصنف
“In the midst of Syria’s wartime devastation, the regime saw a path to its own revival.
November 2017 marks the effective end of Syria’s armed conflict and the beginning of movement toward a political settlement. In all likelihood this will allow the Assad regime to retain much authority. Instead of forcing the regime to compromise, the mechanisms of war and destruction, including the anti-Islamic State campaign, allowed it to block any political transition, destroy the prewar order, and create a new one in which it could survive.
Syria’s destruction has its genesis in the Assad regime’s loss of control over much of the country in summer 2012. At that time, it had become clear that the regime could not simply push its opponents off the streets and silence dissent. Within months the momentum of war had picked up as rebel factions took control of pockets of territory, the regime withdrew from Kurdish-populated areas, and gradually the conflict took on a multilayered dimension involving local, regional, and international actors, provoking massive damage in the country.
The regime’s barrel bombings of opposition areas systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods of Syria’s most populous cities. Fighting displaced over half of the country’s population, and a wide array of forces contributed to the destruction, each in pursuit of its own objectives. Jihadi movements gained ground, and in summer 2014 the Islamic State established a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq, provoking foreign military intervention from a U.S.-led coalition, accompanied by heavy bombing campaigns. Starting in 2015, Russian bombing helped the regime retake opposition areas. A year later it was Turkey’s turn, as it deployed troops in northern Syria in support of opposition factions and to block the advance of the People’s Protection Units affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Most participants in Syria’s war have thrived in its destruction, but many also ended up being destroyed themselves. The Islamic State is the latest and most notable example of this phenomenon. The only party to the destruction that managed to hang on was the regime, in spite of its limited military capacities.
The war offered the regime a means of navigating a transition from a prewar order to a new one. By annihilating the environment in which its opponents could operate, the war left the regime with no counterpart with whom it needed to negotiate. In fact, destruction served as a buffer against negotiations, enabling the regime to remain in place.
Seen from this angle, Syria’s physical destruction had less a military aim than being a central factor in the political struggle to win the war. The regime survived the destruction of the physical and social makeup of Syria and thereby won leverage to steer the reconstruction effort, control the return of populations, place them in positions of dependency with regard to the state, channel funding through new, loyal intermediaries between Damascus and Syrian cities, and empower new business figures. It also obliged the international community to deal with the regime in order to resolve the massive refugee crisis.
But rather than demonstrating the regime’s genius in orchestrating the conflict, the enormous scale of the damage necessary for it to retain its hold over power only proved the regime’s weakness. As it could not adapt to meet the demands of its citizens, the regime took advantage of the instruments of war to alter the surrounding environment. Faced with its own limitations, it could find no means to win except to destroy the prewar Syrian order. Aleppo, Homs, Deir Ezzor, Darayya, and most likely Raqqa, all seriously damaged, were either recaptured by the regime or are likely to be, allowing it to take the lead in their reconstruction. The ruins of war had the paradoxical effect of bolstering the regime’s potential to regain control of what, in 2012, it could not defend militarily.
Aleppo is perhaps the best example. It is a city that the regime lost and could claim back only once many of its quarters, in particular those in its eastern half, were obliterated (destruction to which not only the regime contributed, but also other political actors, opposition groups included). Because the business class had abandoned the city, the regime forged new relationships there through a fresh network of business figures.
The debate over Syria’s reconstruction frequently begins from the standpoint of returning Syria’s physical and social fabric to its prewar state. However, reconstruction is not a mere technical question. Indeed, the very sites that need to be rebuilt, versus those that remained intact throughout seven years of fighting, were a product of decisions by actors about what to destroy. Regardless of how reconstruction funding flows into Syria, a new order has been in the making since the collapse of the prewar order and there will probably be no returning to the economic or social arrangements that existed prior to 2011.
Destruction and reconstruction are not necessarily neatly complementary, with one smoothly following from the other. Instead, the cycle of destruction and construction replaced a deadlocked political transition in Syria, developing in the context of a war that none of the sides were winning. In many cases this cycle was integrated into the political objectives of the regime, creating a fertile environment in which the regime could survive, despite its shortcomings.”
[This article was originally published by Carnegie Middle East Center.]
بواسطة Hussam Jefee-Bahloul | نوفمبر 30, 2017 | Roundtables, غير مصنف
“تعرّفتُ على (غيرهارد) فوراً من مجموعة الصور“، تقول (جادڤيكا) وهي تدلي بشهادتها أمام الرائد (آرثر كيث مانت). “هو الرقم 3. رأيته في الردهة قبل أن أُجبَرَ على الدخول إلى غرفة العمليات، و رأيته بعدها مرتين مع الأطباء عند تغيير ضماد رجلي اليمنى.” تكمل قائلة: “ذلك الصباح، كانوا قد أخذونا إلى مكان العمليات ولم نكن نعرف السبب. كان السؤال الوحيد الذي يدور في أذهاننا هو: ما الذي سيحصل لنا الآن؟ جعلونا نستحم و نبدل ثيابنا إلى ثياب مستشفى. حاولتُ أن أقاوم، أن أركل، و لكن ممرضتين قامتا بتقييدي أرضاً. لا أذكر ما الذي جرى بعدها، و لكن سرعان ما أصابتني الحمى في الأيام الثلاثة التالية. كانوا قد أجروا عملا جراحيا على رجلي اليمنى. كنت مضمدة من القدم إلى الركبة اليمنى. لم تكن تلك المرة الوحيدة التي يقومون فيها بِبَضْعِ رجلي اليمنى. قاموا بعملية ثانية بعد عدة أسابيع“.
في شهادة رسمية بتاريخ 12 آب عام 1946 تحدثت (جادڤيكا كامينسكا) عن تفاصيل العمليات الجراحية التي أُجبرت عليها من قبل النازيين، هي ومجموعة من المعتقلات الشابات في رافنسبروك. قصة جادڤيكا تبدأ باعتقالها في 24 سبتمبر 1941، حتى وصولها إلى رافنسبروك حيث بقيت خمس سنوات قبل خروجها من المعسكر في نيسان 1946. في الشهادة تفاصيل مرعبة عن عمليات استئصال تجريبية لعضلات وعظام وأنسجة عصبية من المعتقلات الإناث السليمات جسدياً. في الشهادة لطخات دم من جرح بطول 10 سنتيمتر وعرض 5 سنتيمتر تمَّ بأمر من الغستابو. من يقرأ الشهادة لن يعرف الكثير من التفاصيل. و لكن صورة الانتهاك وتفاصيله جليّة بشكل يصبح أمامها السؤال عن التفاصيل الجانبية أمرا غير ذي أهمية. فمن هو (غيرهارد) مثلاً، غير شخصية ربما شاركت في انتهاك الكثيرات و قسرهنّ. شبح لشخص يختصر منظومة أخلاقية محددة.
التهتُّك
بقلم حبر عريض علّم الجرّاح مكان انتهاكه على الجلد. وعندما لامس المبضع سطح الجلد المتألق الرطب انساب عبر الأنسجة، طبقة طبقة وابتعدت نقاط الحبر المرسومة على الجلد عن بعضها البعض. انكمشت أطراف الجرح وابتعدت. تقطبت الدماء في جهتين كانتا من قبل على خط التحام. انتزاع اللحم وسّع المسافة بين هذه الأقطاب. مثل جسد جادڤيكا، شقّت الحرب العالمية الثانية أنسجة المجتمعات. تجمّعت عناصر الطيف المتجاورة سابقا، في معسكرين. صار “الاستئصال” الفكري والجسدي عادة. ولكن كيف يمكن لأي مجتمع أن يتبنّى فكرة ضد–المجتمع كهذه، أي فكرة أن يصير المجتمع متجانساً؟
إنّ “التجانس” القسري حاضر ضمن الجماعات السورية اليوم، وهو يعكس غياب هوية تمتد تفرّدها من الطيف المركّب، المعقد، والمتنوع تشريحياً. السنوات السبع الماضية وما حملته من تغيير في الهوية السورية، أرخت، ولا شك، بظلالها على مفهوم الأنا ومفهوم الوطن عند السوري وتأثيرها سيستمر لعقود. لدى مراجعة ما كتبه (آرثر كلاينمان) و دعاه بـ “المعاناة الجمعّية” خاصة في ما يتعلّق باستجابة المجتمعات للفظائع والكوارث والحروب، تُرهِقُني كمية الشغل الذي نحتاجه لنحلل “معاناتنا الجمعية” هذه، ونؤسس لمقاربتها. وحتى لو تراجع تواتر العنف الجسدي مستقبلاً، فهذا لن يعني بالضرورة أن مظاهر العنف أو الإنشقاق أو الصراع على القوة، المتبدّي على شكل صراع بين منظومتين من القيم الأخلاقية (أو أكثر)، سيكون في تراجع.
بالعودة إلى (جادڤيكا)، قد يتساءل البعض عن فائدة استعراضنا لقصص مماثلة؟ فما علاقة معاناة عمرها عقود مع عالمنا اليوم؟ وما جدوى إسقاطتها على سوريتنا؟ الجواب بسيط: ربما لا شيء، وربما كل شيء. لعلّ ما سيسمح لنا اليوم ومستقبلاً بالتفكُّر في حالتنا هو تلك المسافة الفاصلة بين “ذاك الذي يمسّنا مباشرة” و“ذاك الذي لا يمسّنا.” ما أقصده هنا هو الهامش السرّي الموجود في المخيلة والذي تفتحُ له قصة (جادڤيكا) أو قصص وشهادات مماثلة. فالانتهاك هو نفسه. والقهر هو نفسه. الخراب هو ذاته، برتابته، ويوميّته. بعناده و قسوته. لم يتغيّر شيء اليوم إلا نحن، البشر.
الخسارة
تختم (جادڤيكا) شهادتها القانونية المسجّلة في أرشيف جامعة هارڤارد بالقول:” رجلي الآن شفيت، ولكنها سريعاً ما تصاب بالضعف. في الأشهر الثلاثة الماضية انتابني الكثير من نوبات الحمى التي يعتقد أنها ناتجة عن تكرر الإنتانات.” بعيدا عن الجسدي إلى النفسي، لم أجد شهادات ومتابعات لحالة (جادڤيكا) خاصة، ولم أعثر على ما يدل على نوع الحياة التي عاشتها بعد خروجها من معسكر الاعتقال النازي. كيف تعايشت مع خساراتها؟ كيف كان شكل حياتها، عائلتها، ما شكل غرفة معيشتها، ومن تجمّع حول سرير موتها؟
في الحديث عن “الخسارة“، لا يسعني إلا أن أسترسل في أفكاري من (جادڤيكا) إلى شكسبير و “تاجره“، الذي طالب برطل من لحم (أنتونيو) –كفيل بطل المسرحيّة– شرطاً جزائياً في حال عدم رد القرض المالي الذي استلفه (باسانيو) منه، و لم يستطع أن يَرُدَّهُ في الوقت المناسب. ينتهي المطاف بالغريمين في المحكمة حيث تُدحَضُ القضية بحجة داهية؛ حيث أنه من غير الممكن اقتطاع رطل من اللحم من دون خرق واضح للعقد. ذلك لاستحالة اقتطاع اللحم من دون “إراقة قطرة واحدة من الدم“، و من دون “انتهاك” هذا الإنسان. رطل اللحم ذاك يضفر ويفك التخوم بين اللغة والمنطق. فالخسارة لم تكن يوماً “مجرد” رطل من اللحم. الخسارة هنا تتجاوز معناها المادي. أي أنّها ليست مجرد أعداد قتلى، ونازحين أو لاجئين، أو أطنان اسمنت مكدّس، أو تشريح لشظايا في الأطراف. خسارة (أنتونيو) –الموشكة– في تاجر البندقية، كخسارة (جادڤيكا)، و إذا سمحتم لي، كخسارة السوري اليوم، تتجاوز حدود الجسدي إلى ما هو أكثر ضبابية و أقل تحديداً. إلى بعد ميتافزيقي آخر. إذاّ، ما الذي ينتهك بشريتنا، وما الذي يترتب على خسارة النفس، أو المعنى؟ ما الذي يخصص لقيمة الإنسان؟ هو ربما نفسه الذي تكتب عنه (سيلفيا بلاث) ، وهي تتأمّل معصمها وشرايينها غير المنتهكة بعد، و سكينها في اليد، وتفكّر في ماهو أبعد من شرايينها ودمها، في ما يتجاوز جسدها الفيزيائي إلى جوهرها الإنساني، في ما هو “أعمق، أكثر سريّة، و عصيّ على الوصول.”
بين الصوت و الصمت
إن الكلام عن “حلّ” للنفس السورية غير مفيد و يؤدي إلى تشتيت الانتباه عن ما هو مهم اليوم أكثر من أي وقت مضى. الكلام عن حلول؛ يقضي بوجودها، و يحفز عملية البحث عنها، و صرف الطاقة في تحرّيها وتجريبها، والانتكاس عند فشلها. هل حقاً ثمّة حلول للخسران؟ ما حلّ (جادڤيكا) لخسرانها طبقات اللحم والعضل؟ ما حلها لفقدانها إنسانيتها؟ بعد سنوات من الفقد لا مكان لحلّ إلا محاولة إعطاء الوقت لفهم ما حصل ويحصل. السوري اليوم ثكلان ووحيد بالمعنى المعنوي. فقد ما هو أكثر من لحم. تعرّض لزلزال –بالمعنى الرمزي– انهارت تحت وطأته الحدود بين الفردي والمجتعي. حيث لا يجدي أن نضع خسارتنا (كسوريين) في أخبية معدّة مسبقة. هذا خباء المادي، وهذا خباء المعنوي. هذا للمجتمعي، وذاك للفكري، إلخ. تضرب الخسارة هنا عبر كل هذه الأبعاد وتتجاوزها في تجربة البشر. ربما من المفيد أن نستوعب هذه الخسارة أولاً، أن نحللها، و أن نأخذ وقتنا في الحزن قبل أن نعيد التفكير بما يترتب علينا في المستقبل. عملية التعافي من خسارة كهذه ستكلّفنا الكثير من الوقت و الجهد. و لكنّنا محكومون بها. في عملية التعافي هذه يمكن لنا ككتّاب وشعراء وروائيين أن نساعد من خلال الانفتاح على مأزق الناس و جرحهم، والنزول عن منصة النخبوية المتوارثة. يمكننا التفكير بالأدب و الفن كوسيلة ( والاعتراف بعدم وحدانيتها) لتسيير وتنشيط التعافي. يمكن النظر إلى تأثير الشعراء، والكتاب، والفلاسفة في المجتمعات الأوروبية بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، أو في المجتمعات الإفريقية والآسيوية واللاتينية بعد تجربة الاستعمار، كنموذج، فكتابتنا لن تكون وحيدة في مكتبة الشقاء. كَتَبَ والتر سلاتوف: “ربما من غير المبالغ فيه القول أنّ أكثر موضوعات الفنّ شيوعاً هو المعاناة والألم، بشكل أو بآخر.” التحدّي الكامن أمامنا هو كيفية التعامل مع أشكال التعبير المختلفة. فهل “ينبغي” علينا الكتابة؟ هل نجبر الضحيّة على الكلام؟ هل نفرض “الصوت” كحل وحيد، أوحد، متوحد في ذاته؟ أليس هناك حدود للصوت؟ أليس هناك بدائل؟
عادة ما نفهم “الصوت” وخصائصه عندما نضعه جنبا إلى جنب مع “الصمت“. ديفيد موريس كَتَبَ عن تجاوز المعاناة لحدود اللغة. فاللغة عاطلة، وخاصة عندما يقف الأمر على إيصال تجربة المعاناة. غالباً ما يكون الصمت أبلغ تعبير عن قسوة الحياة. “المعاناة بكماء بالمعنى الرمزي” يقول ديفيد موريس “أي يصبحُ الصمتُ رمزاً لشيء غير قابل للكشف. الصمتُ يكشف عن تجربة، أكثر من مجرد مزعجة أو مقيتة، بل عصيّة على الفهم“. و أنا أتساءل إذا ما كانت المعاناة لا تسكن بالضرورة في الصوت أو الصمت فحسب، و إنما في المسافة الفاصلة بينهما. بين المكتوب و المخفي، بين المحكي و المسكوت عنه. هناك، في هذا الحيّز يمكن للصمت أن يفعل مثل المحكيّ فيما يتعلّق بالتعافي. لعلّ الوقت هو الذي عجّل شفاء (جادڤيكا) الروحي. الوقت و وجود من استمع إليها تروي قصّتها، حتى ولو خلف الجدران المصمتة لمكتب وحدة التحقيقات عن جرائم الحرب. بلا أضواء الفلاشات و لا ميكروفونات الصحف. ربما هذا ما يحتاجه السوري اليوم. من يستمع له وهو يروي قصته، أو يترك له المسافة وهو يصمت عنها.
هوامش
