In July 2012,<\/span> the gates of hell opened up in Damascus, and I learned something about what it means to be a revolutionary. It was not the heroic experience one might expect, but something smaller, sadder, and more human. Living in fear drove lovers and friends apart. It did not free us from our flaws.<\/p>\n That summer was about a year into Syria\u2019s democratic uprising and its violent suppression. Armed militias had begun to battle the national army. I was staying in the studio of my friend Amer, a Christian painter who had quietly resisted the government since long before the uprising.<\/p>\n Every night we heard bombs in the distance and gunshots that sounded like firecrackers. The mountain that overlooks the city\u2014where we used to go for coffee shops, hookah bars, and panoramic views\u2014became a military no\u2011go zone. Protests, once daily, skidded to a halt. People were disappearing. Some left the country intentionally; others simply vanished. Security forces began arresting people en masse and executing some on the spot.<\/p>\n The stories coming out of the city\u2019s hospitals were so horrible that I couldn\u2019t tell whether they were real: injured people chained to hospital beds while doctors, accompanied by security forces, poured rubbing alcohol into their open wounds; doctors burning the genitals of detainees. Many of those injured in the bombings so dreaded such tortures that they chose instead to be treated in living rooms that had been turned into makeshift field hospitals. There, limb amputations became commonplace. Shrapnel was removed from oozing wounds without anesthetic.<\/p>\n And so that July, instead of being filled with water and fruit, Amer\u2019s fridge became a storage cooler for vials of tetanus vaccine. I didn\u2019t know\u2014and I didn\u2019t ask\u2014how he\u2019d obtained the vials. They may have come from those very hospitals, smuggled out by a doctor who engaged in some form of torture just to prove his loyalty and protect his access.<\/p>\n For weeks, my mission was to distribute the vaccine to the neighborhoods where the field hospitals were. I\u2019d take the needles out of the fridge and wrap them in a towel that I\u2019d left in the freezer overnight. On the public minibus, I\u2019d stash my bag under my seat. I knew that I could be searched at any checkpoint. But I also knew that if the bag with the tetanus shots was found, I could simply say that it wasn\u2019t mine, and the person next to me or behind me would be blamed.<\/p>\n My loyalty would not be questioned, because my hometown, listed on my ID, marked me as an Alawite\u2014a member of the religious minority that formed the base of President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s power\u2014and my last name was that of a family close to Assad\u2019s inner sanctum. I had come to Damascus five months earlier, when the stirrings of democratic protest had forced me to confront a truth I had long avoided: A regime I had been taught to view as a protector was instead the source of the oppression I both observed around me and personally felt. I was ready to break free of my father and question everything I had been taught as a daughter and as an Alawite.<\/p>\n Robert F. Worth: The fall of the house of Assad<\/a><\/p>\n I slipped quietly into early protest circles, walking away from the privileges my last name once guaranteed\u2014but I also knew that the protection of my name could backfire. If I were discovered, no punishment would be spared. I knew an Alawite protester who had left the country after being shot in the leg and detained. His captors stomped on his injured leg, and for weeks they told him that his sister was being raped in the cell next door, and that they\u2019d let her go only after he gave them every name he knew. He was sure that he could hear her screams, and eventually gave them a few names. Later, he learned that his sister had never been imprisoned at all. \u201cIf an Alawite gets caught,\u201d he told me later, \u201cthey make sure to make an example of you. Our disloyalty to them is not just political. It is considered a deep betrayal of their trust in us. Our betrayal is equivalent to a thousand betrayals.\u201d<\/p>\n I always deposited the hypodermics at a small shop at the entrance to a neighborhood called Barzeh. The owner was a middle\u2011aged man we referred to as Al Hakeem. \u201cI\u2019m returning this,\u201d I\u2019d say, placing the bag in an ice-cream freezer decorated with a grinning snowman wearing a red scarf. One day, Al Hakeem\u2019s little son was there, hugging his father\u2019s leg and hiding behind it.<\/p>\n \u201cI am doing this for him,\u201d Al Hakeem said. These six words were the only ones he ever said to me. He vanished soon after, and before my heart could ache for the boy, I felt relief that I had managed to stay quiet around Al Hakeem and to give him no indication of who I was.<\/p>\n Two miles separated<\/span> the field hospitals and amputated limbs of Damascus\u2019s outer neighborhoods from Bab Sharqi, the city\u2019s ancient core. On those narrow cobblestone streets, the fragrance of flavored tobacco still wafted from hookah bars; water plashed in fountains, jasmine bloomed, and art galleries became after\u2011hours speakeasies, where the upper class danced and sipped martinis and wine, perhaps wondering what kind of \u201cfreedom\u201d the discontented were demanding for Syria.<\/p>\n One of the bars in Bab Sharqi was a rustic place called Abo Elia, named after its white\u2011haired owner, who spent his evenings preparing meze platters and mixing drinks. My friends and I frequently ended up there. Abo Elia\u2019s drinks were the cheapest in the area, and you could easily get a free one\u2014or five. Abo Elia said he was keeping his bar open despite the conflict as an act of love for his country.<\/p>\n \u201cThe terrorists want normal life to end,\u201d he\u2019d lament as he laid slices of cucumber and carrot onto our plates. \u201cI won\u2019t give them that satisfaction. May God bless our army!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod bless our army!\u201d we\u2019d repeat in unison, clinking our glasses and watching Abo Elia top them up for free. He referred to us as his rifaaq<\/em>, his \u201ccomrades\u201d\u2014but had no idea we were on opposite sides of the conflict.<\/p>\n We\u2019d play along, drinking for hours. The bill was always for a fraction of the alcohol we downed, and we\u2019d leave the bar giggling and buzzed, God\u2011blessing the army and swearing to one another never to tell anyone how we\u2019d compromised our morals and hailed our oppressors, just to get free splashes of vodka with grapefruit juice.<\/p>\n One morning after a night out, I woke up in bed fully clothed. I found my phone under my pillow. The battery was dead. I plugged it in and saw a message from my friend Walaa, who had been at the bar with me the night before, asking me to call her immediately.<\/p>\n I ignored the text. My phone rang. It was Walaa. \u201cSorry, I just woke up,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m outside,\u201d she said. \u201cOpen the door.\u201d Seconds later, she was pushing her way into the house.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you stupid?\u201d she barked, and I was too ashamed to ask what she was talking about.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should stop drinking. You are putting yourself and everyone around you in danger,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Alcohol consumption had been part of my identity as an Alawite since childhood. Drinking, and walking around without a headscarf, were ways of blending in with Christians in past centuries of Ottoman oppression. Arak, the local beverage\u2014a powerful brandy made from figs\u2014is distilled all over the Alawite mountains. Arak featured at every dinner and barbecue throughout my childhood, even at gatherings we held in the shade of pine trees around Alawite shrines, where we feasted on grilled meat from the sheep my Aunt Samia sacrificed as a kafara<\/em> after breaking a promise.<\/p>\n Robert F. Worth: The honeymoon is ending in Syria<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSip a little!\u201d my aunt would say, placing a glass filled with milky-white liquid under my nose. A sip of arak is said to kill the bacteria from the raw meat of kibbeh nayeh<\/em>, or from the unwashed parsley in our tabbouleh. Children down the stuff, most with grimaces, as their parents and older relatives watch and laugh and joke about how a true Alawite child can handle arak. It is in our blood from birth.<\/p>\n Arak was for private family gatherings. For weddings and other public events, whiskey\u2014Black Label in particular\u2014was served as a means of flaunting one\u2019s wealth. A bottle of whiskey was also the most common bribe for army commanders and intelligence officers.<\/p>\n I was 15 when I got drunk for the first time\u2014on Black Label, with the daughters of my father\u2019s cousin Hikmat, who ran the intelligence office in As Suwayda. It didn\u2019t occur to me then that the bottle we drank from might have come from a parent desperate for information about a detained child. The last thing I remember from that night is lying on the couch, my head on one of the girls\u2019 laps, as we made prank phone calls from their no\u2011caller\u2011ID phone line\u2014something available only to people with a security clearance.<\/p>\n Now Walaa\u2019s pale face told me that I\u2019d done something very wrong during the lost hours of the night before. She recounted that the government had been shelling the rebellious neighborhoods on the city\u2019s outskirts, as it often did. The explosions grew so intense that the table shook, and I started crying. Abo Elia told me not to be afraid.<\/p>\n \u201cSyria Alla Hamiha<\/em>,\u201d he said\u2014\u201cSyria is protected by God.\u201d \u201cIf a limb has cancer, we remove the limb to keep the rest of the body alive. This bombing is necessary to rescue the country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou started arguing with him and you wouldn\u2019t shut up! I kept pinching you under the table,\u201d Walaa said. She told me that we could not set foot in Abo Elia\u2019s bar again. I understood then that I was lucky to be waking up at home and not at the police station.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said. \u201cI will never drink again.\u201d<\/p>\n This was a lie, of course. Alcohol was my only reliable source of comfort as things grew ever worse.<\/p>\n By the end<\/span> of that summer, most of the people I\u2019d met at protests had left for Jordan or Lebanon. The rest of us hid in various houses and apartments\u2014moving from place to place, crashing on couches in living rooms where we drank throughout the day and night.<\/p>\n One day, Amer and I met up at a coffee shop with one of his friends who was about to leave Syria. Samar was engaged to a journalist and former detainee who, after his release, received a scholarship for an arts program in Germany. Samar had been offered a similar scholarship there, too. As she described the excruciatingly complicated process of getting her visa, I saw Amer glance at her pack of Marlboros\u2014the expensive cigarette of choice in Syria, where what you smoked was as much a status symbol as your brand of mobile phone or car. He opened the pack without asking and took two cigarettes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s keeping you here?\u201d Samar asked him.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want me to be another exiled artist who writes about Syria from Berlin?\u201d Amer asked in reply.<\/p>\n His remark was pointed, and Samar clearly knew it. Her fianc\u00e9 used to post updates on social media as though he were writing from Damascus, and he was routinely mocked by friends, who asked him how the \u201crevolution in Berlin\u201d was going. Eventually, he stopped posting altogether.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can help more from outside the country than if you stay here,\u201d she said, taking a long drag from her cigarette. \u201cYou can meet with donors and businessmen and send money to people like you who cannot find jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n I gripped my teacup and avoided looking at Amer. For Arab men, no matter how progressive they may be, money is a sensitive topic\u2014as if not having it is somehow akin to being impotent. And Amer hadn\u2019t worked in weeks. He\u2019d resorted to smoking the cheap local cigarettes, which was why he was always taking cigarettes from his friends. I hadn\u2019t dared to ask him how he was paying rent; I assumed that he was getting money from friends or from someone outside the country. To point out that he wasn\u2019t working was a betrayal. I would never do that to him<\/em>, I thought.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are the Syrians who left in the \u201980s, assuming they would be back after just a few months? They are online! Friending us on Facebook just so we can mock them,\u201d Amer said angrily.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing locked inside a house isn\u2019t really helping anyone,\u201d Samar replied, pushing her chair back to stand. \u201cI\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be seeing you in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n She took another cigarette from her pack and placed it on the table for Amer. I could feel his leg violently shaking under the table. Samar slid the strap of her bag over her shoulder and walked out.<\/p>\n Amer picked up the cigarette that Samar had left and stowed it behind his ear. We headed out and strolled silently through the alleys. I distracted myself by inhaling the atmosphere of the old city, trying to detect the scent of jasmine and lemon, but in the peak of summer, the alleys stank of rotting food and of the vapors rising from the Barada River. Anti\u2011government graffiti had vanished here, and on narrow street after narrow street, the walls were lined with glossy posters of the president, as if the revolution had never existed.<\/p>\n Those who had painted anti\u2011government slogans or posted anti\u2011Assad leaflets were by now detained in dungeons, or had joined the rebel militias, if they weren\u2019t living abroad.<\/p>\n \u201cSamar is right,\u201d I whispered to Amer. \u201cYou should leave.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would rather die of hunger here,\u201d he replied without even glancing my way.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy? What are you doing here?\u201d I asked. \u201cOutside you can at least find work. Being away for a few months is better than being dead.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want me to leave and send money back so people here can buy Marlboros and live off my guilt?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAren\u2019t you living off the guilt of other people? You can\u2019t even work!\u201d I froze, knowing I\u2019d crossed a line.<\/p>\n Amer turned toward me and exploded, calling me naive and materialistic. \u201cI don\u2019t expect you to understand, because you will always care about money more than anything else, just like everyone who grows up rich,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Amer knew the material comfort I\u2019d left behind to join the revolution. Now he was using the confidences I\u2019d shared with him to hurt me. Rage unleashed inside me.<\/p>\n I told Amer he was poor because he was a failure. He was afraid of leaving Syria because here, he could blame his lack of work on the government. Abroad, he would have to face the fact that he was not getting a job because he had no talent, and his incompetence would be his alone. Amer\u2019s eyes welled up. His lip quivered.<\/p>\n \u201cAdmit it!\u201d I yelled. \u201cYou will always be a loser living off of other people\u2019s charity.\u201d<\/p>\n The next thing I saw was blinding light. My head swam. Amer had slapped me so hard that I nearly lost my balance. Heat rose from my left cheek and traveled down my neck. People walking by slowed for a second, but no one stopped. They probably assumed that Amer was my husband or my brother, and that I deserved it.<\/p>\n I started to run. I heard Amer panting behind me and shouting, \u201cCoward! Coward! Jbaneh!<\/em>\u201d I\u2019m not sure whether he considered me a coward for admitting that leaving was a good choice, or because I didn\u2019t fight back.<\/p>\n My breath was heavy and wet. My eye burned and wouldn\u2019t open. I hailed a taxi and jumped in.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you okay?\u201d the taxi driver asked, turning to look at me. \u201cDo you need me to stop at a checkpoint and ask them to help you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo!<\/em> I\u2019m fine. Just go!\u201d I gave him a friend\u2019s address.<\/p>\n The next morning, I looked at my phone. Amer hadn\u2019t called. I felt completely alone. My dearest friend, who had always protected me, had left me with a black eye.<\/p>\n Amer was the reason I hadn\u2019t left Damascus, although I was scared for him and for myself. I wanted him to respect me. I wanted to be one of the real ones who stayed until the end, who fought, who was not harassed and intimidated into fleeing.<\/p>\n Only years later would I understand that under pressure\u2014under the fear of death by execution, torture, bombing\u2014people can release the monster they\u2019ve spent most of their lives repressing. I didn\u2019t know then that almost every marriage, every friendship, that I\u2019d seen blooming around us in Damascus during that time would die.<\/p>\n The two couples who went to jail together and married right after they were released. The girl who was so scared that her partner would be taken away by the police that she got pregnant just to preserve something of his smell. The girl whose boyfriend\u2019s family rejected her because she was not Sunni, and who agreed to elope with him because the whole country was revolting against injustice, so why couldn\u2019t they? Even Samar and her partner\u2019s relationship would eventually collapse under the strain of exile and the guilt Amer spoke of. So many love stories. All of them decimated, just like our hopes for what Syria would become.<\/p>\n Later that day, I went to Amer\u2019s to pack my belongings. I found him sitting in an armchair with the lights off. A thin wisp of cigarette smoke hung in the stale air. Avoiding eye contact, I started putting my books, laptop, clothes, and everything else I owned into one bag. When I was done, I stood in front of him, unsure of what to say.<\/p>\n Should I apologize? Yell at him? Pretend that everything was okay? I searched his face for some acknowledgment of what had happened. He was silent and as motionless as the smoke suspended in the air. His glasses were on the table. He bit his thumbnail. The tip of his cigarette glowed orange and was reflected in his eyes as he gazed into space, as if I wasn\u2019t even there.<\/p>\n On the wall was a sign that I\u2019d once risked my life to bring him from a protest, because I knew that Amer would appreciate it. It was my gift to him. Beneath the sign, above the table where Amer threw his keys, was one of the white lilies he had given me months ago on International Women\u2019s Day. He had hung it upside down, and it had blackened over time, but still, there it remained, his gift to me.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can keep the flower. I\u2019m taking the sign,\u201d I said, stepping around Amer\u2019s chair. I read the quote, taken from a Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca play, again as I tore the clear tape from the edges:<\/p>\n What is a human without freedom, Mariana? Tell me.<\/em><\/p>\n How can I love you if I\u2019m not free?<\/em><\/p>\n How can I give you my heart if it is not mine?<\/em><\/p>\n I tucked the sign under my arm, grabbed my bags, and walked out of the studio for the last time.<\/p>\n This article has been adapted from Loubna Mrie\u2019s new book, <\/em>Defiance: A Memoir of Awakening, Rebellion, and Survival in Syria<\/a>.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n By Loubna Mrie<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n \u200bWhen you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In July 2012, the gates of hell opened up in Damascus, and I learned something about what it means to be a revolutionary. It was not the heroic experience one might expect, but something smaller, sadder, and more human. Living in fear drove lovers and friends apart. It did not free us from our flaws. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/When-Revolution-Bloomed-and-Died-in-Damascus.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21650,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21648\/revisions\/21650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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