A Woman in the Crossfire Read Online Free Page A

has been deployed at the Kafr Sousseh roundabout, patrols the Syrian people know all too well. Foreigners would never imagine there could be so many cars in the squares. They prevent me from entering: the road is closed. We pass through the square and turn down a side street. Elsewhere the situation seems calm; there are places far removed from what is going on, especially wealthy neighbourhoods. I get out of the taxi and head towards the mosque, but it is hard to get close. Motorcycles. Shouting and chanting. High-ranking security officers. Crowds holding flags and pictures of the president. I ask what’s going on. Everyone says there is a deadly silence inside and advises me to get out of there. There are no other women present, and one of them scornfully asks me, “What are you doing here?” I turn my back on him as the chanting rises up alongside the flags and the pictures. Security forces surround the mosque; it truly is under siege. I don’t know if I can get inside; the only way would be to infiltrate those who are holding pictures and flags.
    It’s not easy to find yourself among men in civilian clothes who appear all of a sudden and beat up a young man, throw him to the ground and take away his phone. Some of them climb up onto the buildings overlooking the mosque. I overhear them say they want to make sure nobody is filming, but I can’t confirm anything except the fact that the whole place is surrounded by security forces, police and military officers – and by the flag and picture carriers who are really no different than security forces, alternating between beating up demonstrators and holding their pictures of the president. People outside the mosque are talking about negotiations under way inside between an imam and the security forces so that everyone can come out peacefully, without violence or bloodshed. I would later discover that when the young demonstrators finally came out of the mosque they were taken straight to prison.
    My heart shudders. I can hear it beating like someone addressing me, warning me of danger. My heart is a better guide than my head. I spot an angry-eyed man with a picture of the president walking towards me. I dash for the car. The man follows me, pointing menacingly. I ask the driver to step on it. The man rejoins the flag-bearers.
    â€œSister,” the driver asks, “why are you getting involved in all this? They don’t treat women any better than men!”
    I keep silent. My eyes cloud over. The image of the besieged place terrifies me. What is going to happen? I hear news of killing in Douma, news that my friends have been detained, news of injured people and hospitals overcrowding with demonstrators after the army opened fire on them. Lots of news comes from all directions. I ask the driver to take me to see the situation in Douma, but he nearly jumps out of his seat, shouting, “My God, you can’t go there!”
    I am armed with nothing but my conscience. It doesn’t matter to me whether the coming period brings moderate Islam and all they say comes with it. The faces of the murderers don’t matter to me, and neither does all the talk nor all the lies. All that matters now to me is to break my demonic silence, as people speak only the language of blood. What matters to me is that with my own two eyes I have seen unarmed, peaceful people getting beaten up and locked away and killed for no other reason than that they were demonstrating. I have seen the children of my people fall one by one like unripe peaches from a tree.
    The driver turns into a guardian and a preacher, saying, “The road to Douma’s closed. It’s forbidden to enter.”
    â€œIs Douma under siege as well?”
    â€œDon’t talk like that, sister. What have I got to do with all of this?”
    â€œSo who told you, then?”
    â€œThe army’s there, there’s gunfire,” he says.
    â€œWhat do you think, uncle? What’s