5 June

By: Rita Mahmood, Syrian artist and activist.

June 2025

I eat red grapes alone on one of the Mediterranean beaches. Not in Latakia, nor Jableh, nor Banias. But on a Spanish beach that, centuries ago, was a passageway Arabian horses, and now looks like nothing from my memory.

These grapes are not like the grapes on the vines at my grandfather’s house, nor is the sand here like the sand of the coast where I grew up, not even the wave that touches my feet is like the waves in Banias where we used to run from the sun at noon.

I came to escape the pressures of Paris, the crowds, the narrow walls, the endless news. The beach is beautiful, long, calm, the sun fills the sky, and the beautiful women with effortless, unwearied bodies shelter under umbrellas.

I light a cigarette and reluctantly unlock my phone. I had promised myself three days without it—no news, no anxiety. But my resolve falters. Nothing urgent, I tell myself. No news worth knowing. No reason for Facebook; it carries only sorrow. Better to try Instagram—perhaps something beautiful will appear. 

But beauty did not come. What came was shocking news; only two lines, in two small newspapers: “A security operation in one of the villages of Jableh.”

I read, I examine, I search for the name—is it our village? No, but it is only ten kilometres from my father’s and uncle’s houses. There are arrests, there are houses burned, there is a fatality.

I called my father, he did not answer. Later he messages me: ‘the signal is weak.’ He is not the dead one—I breathed!I asked him: what is happening? We had spoken yesterday; he was cooking spaghetti, he said he would go with my uncle to play cards at his cousin’s. We talked about Eid, about Mahmoud who graduated, and he asked me to buy him a gift on his behalf.

Today he tells me there is a curfew and reassures me that our village is far from the main road, no one has entered it yet.Today is the day before Eid. I ask him to write to me whenever he can. I search for details, for a name, for a witness, for a story. No one speaks, no one sees, no one writes…

What hurts me most is the burning of houses. Why are houses burned? How do familiar walls turn to ash?

I think of a person I can call. Friends pass through my mind like shadows. No one… My throat feels dry, I want to cry, I resist.I don’t know what I need. I can’t imagine a good scenario. I don’t want to think of another massacre.

I wished that my father and my uncle had stayed in Damascus, which was relatively safe. But who remained for them there? My brother and I are here in Europe, and my uncle lost his wife, the woman who was the voice of warmth in the house…. Work is rare, routine is deadly. I have no arguments to convince them to return, and I don’t want to use a massacre as a reason for their return.

On my phone is an archive of photos and numbers of the heroes of  the revolution. One of them was a photographer in the north, who lived through the siege, documented the bombing and blood and smoke. Today he became a world-famous photographer, won awards, became a celebrity. His eye that once told stories has been put out. Now he works with the Syrian State news agency (SANA) and boasts of his connections inside the new government. He laughs as he offers me to arrange a “guarantor” if I want to return… I did not laugh.

Another friend, a photographer from Ghouta, was displaced, and became a faint voice searching for “de-escalation.”

In the middle of this defeat, there are those who remained. Whose eyes were not put out, and whose memory was not eaten away. Friends and loved ones still in the crucible, objecting, resisting, waiting. Some of them are waiting for the absent justice, and others are waiting for their loved ones to emerge from the darkness of detention. Others were former detainees, carrying their pain like a banner, and waiting for a day when the oppressor will be judged.

But what hurts me most are the comrades of the revolution who see in what happens today a victory. How can what is happening now represent the revolution for dignity? Does this satisfy those who departed carrying the hope of freedom and justice? I am afraid to shout this question, so I settle for writing it.

I feel as if I have returned to 2011, when I used to explain the goals of the revolution to those around me without using the word “revolution.” I hid it like a secret, slipped it into conversations, planted it in comparisons.

I knew a young man who supported the regime. A teenager in high school, dreaming of prestige and cars and fame, like those who shine under the shadow of power. I was patient with him, I spoke to him about the cleaning women in hospitals, about my father the surgeon’s salary compared to mine, about cotton and wheat and tobacco, and Assad’s unjust laws, about Hamsho and Makhlouf, and about the massacre of Hama. One day, he looked at me and said:

why are you not in opposition? After all that you told me, you should be with the revolution. Then, I no longer hid anything, I brought out all I had hidden: the flag of the revolution, the songs of Al-Sarout, the photos of the demonstrations.

When I think today about those with whom we used to dream, and I see some of them celebrating what we used to fear, I feel that my voice is trapped again. But I do not want to hide anything anymore. I do not want to explain, to convince anyone, or to compromise. I do not want to reassure myself with a lie, nor comfort them by sugarcoating reality.

I return to the red grapes, I try to eat one, but my throat refuses it. I squeeze the grapes between my fingers as my heart is squeezed. The juice clings to my skin, as memories cling—stains that cannot be washed away.

I remember an evening when we gathered before the fall of the regime. We were many, carrying different visions, but we were trying to understand. We sat for hours discussing armed resistance, we went deep into examples, brought up backgrounds. In the end, we all agreed: no armed faction represents us. No one speaks in our name when holding a gun. With the Free Syrian Army keeping a place in all hearts.

And at another dinner, a few days before the fall of the regime, the discussions revolved around the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. Our voices rose, opinions clashed. A Syrian opposition girl was among us; she refused his death. She said: “What he did to the people of Syria is unforgivable, but he is still a symbol of resistance.” Everyone shouted at her, we defended the blood, the truth, the memory. And today, I search for them, those who could not forgive the criminal. Today I do not find them.

I ask one of my friends for an opinion about this article, but he does not agree with me. He once said to me: “The situation has changed, and if we are not with them, then we are with the other side.” I swallowed my tears with difficulty. His words were like a slap. I felt something inside me break, that I lost a common language I used to hold onto. I no longer know what remains of us, and of the revolution. I control my anxiety and remind myself that he does not mean what he says.

This does not mean that we have parted ways, perhaps it is only a simple grudge I carry in my heart. Luckily, the three I mentioned only needed some time to return to their senses and realise for themselves that justice is still absent, and that what is happening does not represent them nor what they wish and dream of.

I remember when we—my family and I, like many families—used to say that we joined the revolution to support the weak, those who had no voice, those whose circumstances were different, those who were wronged, humiliated, detained, even if we ourselves were fine. It was not fair that only some people were fine.

What I want today may seem like a dream, but it is the truth I do not give up. It is my logic, even if it seems naïve. I want Syria open to all, to all its children. I want us to be equal, without discrimination, without victory at the expense of another. I want to return, but not alone. I want justice to precede me, and freedom to include everyone. I want fairness for the absent, and punishment for those who committed crimes, and doors open for opportunities not for humiliation. I want houses not invaded by fire, but covered with jasmine petals, and Damascene roses… not ash, not remnants of bullets. The absence of justice produces only injustice and leaves only vengeance that does not rest.

I remember a phrase said by a former detainee, I heard him muttering it a few days ago: “If I could, I would take revenge on all the Alawites.” Should I blame him? No. I understand him, maybe more than he expects. I understand the fire burning inside him, I understand his pain, and his torturer who lives safely only kilometres away, while he carries the marks of torture on his body every morning.

The desire for revenge is not a disease, but a result.

What happened and what is happening is not his fault; it is the fault of those who wanted power, not freedom, who wanted the palace, and forgot that the houses they see from their gilded windows belong to the families of the oppressed. The absence of justice produces nothing but more injustice, and leaves only vengeance lurking in the dark.

I remember the voice of a woman survivor from Assad’s prisons, she was speaking with a sharpness that belonged only to someone who had seen hell: “I do not forgive, and if I saw the one who tortured me, I would kill him.” I stopped for a long time at her words. How can I blame someone who lived through all that, who was tortured until her features changed. But I fear for her, not from her. I fear that she may kill someone who did not torture her, thinking that it would put out her pain. Because if she does, she will not become an executioner, but she will be left alone in a new abyss, without name, without direction.

Why do we throw her into this fate? Why do we burden the victim with vengeance that has not been achieved? Why do we let her suffer, instead of leading her towards justice?Isn’t it better for us to put her torturer on trial in public, so she can stand before him and say: “I am no longer a victim, and you will never see me weak again”?

Before the eighth of December, we used to say: if we catch Assad, we will not kill him. We said he must taste the bitterness of prison, and drink from the same cup, but even that would not be enough, killing would not be a punishment, but a relief for him. We understood—with an astonishing collective awareness—that the trial is not to save the criminal, but to give his victims closure. To return to them some dignity, some right, some light.

I know that some wounds are beyond comparison, and cannot be fully told, but if we have anything left, it is to tell. And this is my testimony, as I lived it, not as a victim, but as someone who stood with the victims, and still does.

I stand today before those who lost houses, loved ones, and maybe lost themselves along the way. I do not claim that I went through what they went through, but I carry inside me the echo of those losses, and I strive, with words, not to betray them. Damascus disappears from my horizon, as the face of justice disappears, and I fear that both of them may never return.

If the revolution at its core was a search for dignity, then it does not befit it to end without preserving dignity for all its people… even for those who have not yet seen it.

By: Rita Mahmood, Syrian artist and activist.