Raed and Razan, and on building functional citizens.
In another State, they would have killed us.
Kenan, a guy who juggles many projects for Syrian American Council National, tells me things at the last second. Two weeks ago, he let me know that Raed Fares and Razan Ghazzawi would be stopping in Dallas on a speaking tour called “Voices of Hope” in a week. Great, I thought, I’ll drive up to hear them. There’s no time to organize something for Houston.
A week before their arrival, he threw an idea out at me: could we organize an event in Houston? I took that idea and tossed it around at a few other people in Houston, and in three days Syrian American Council — Houston and Maram Foundation had organized a local event at the Kendall Public Library complete with donuts. We had a mixed group of about 25 — 30 people attend, and Channel 39 came to cover the event. Afterwards, we had a fundraising dinner for them at restaurant, where Houstonians were able to talk about the future of Syrian-American community organizing and the importance of advocacy and outreach. Creating spaces to have such discussions is so important and powerful that other governments will kill you if you do it within their borders (ahem, Bashar al Assad, Kim Jong-Un).
The Story of a Village called Kafranbel
I first met Raed Fares in March, when he welcomed my group into Kafranbel, Idlib, Syria. He is the author and scribe of the famous Kafranbel banners, which are written in either Arabic or English, and which speak to Syrians and the International Community alike. Most of the banners have to do with denouncing state-sponsored terrorism and religious extremism, and point out the cognitive dissonance in the International politics playing Syria. Kafranbel, like many other areas of Syria, demand the creation of a secular, pluralistic democratic state.
Kafranbel is a small village that most people — even Syrians — had never heard of before the Syrian Revolution. Now, many call it the moral compass of Syria. Kafranbel began holding weekly peaceful protests in March 2011, and few months later they were occupied by Syrian Army. During the following months, the Syrian Army acted like a foreign invading army. They burned houses, detained and killed civilians to control the population. Activists were pushed into the surrounding orchards to organize from outside the village.
After a while, the Syrian Army retreated from Kafranbel and the rest of Northern Syria, making these areas “Liberated Syria” (the Syrian Army still drops bombs from the skies, however). From then on, Kafranbel focused on building their community and protecting their voice. I don’t know many grassroots civilian groups that value their voice to the extent found in Kafranbel: they have a created a large international following for their consistency, eloquence, and commitment to non-violence.
Raed is more interested in development, less so in relief packages (to be clear: relief packages are necessary and needed for many areas of Syria). He and his community have developed a paid telephone service, media center, and human rights bureau. The telephone service allowed residents to communicate for the first time since lines were cut off, and employed locals. The media center created a human rights magazine called Mantra, an FM radio show called Fresh, and prioritized photographing and proliferating content from the weekly protests. The Human Rights bureau records daily statistics of damaged houses, shelling, deaths, etc…
Being Syrian Today is Weird.
Shortly after Raed had delivered his talk in Houston, news broke out that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, an Al Qaeda affiliate referred to as DAESH in Arabic) had ransacked his media office and detained his colleagues, including a guy I knew. This was very difficult news to process. Later that day, the colleagues were released, but ISIS has since continued to ransack media equipment and has currently taken an editor named Mohammad Salloum.
Being Syrian is weird: one second you are laughing, telling jokes. The next second you learn that ISIS has taken your friend away. Then it’s time for dinner. It’s a series of highs and shocks that make your brain numb, making some more afraid while desensitizing others to fear.
Meeting @RedRazan
I have known of Razan for over a year through her blog RazanGhazzawi.org , and was able to meet her in person this past weekend. It was a very big deal for me personally, and I’m still amused that it happened so suddenly over Winter Break. We got to touch on topics like feminism, anti-racism, identity complexes, intersectionality, and capacity building. She told me not to edit my blog posts, so here I am taking her advice to heart. During the Houston talk, she received the following question:
Audience Question: Will you guarantee the religious freedom for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Atheists, and Muslims in your revolution?
Razan : You cannot ask me as a Syrian Muslim if I will guarantee that right because I never had the power to guarantee that. By asking me if I will guarantee this means you have given me the power to concede your safety. These are inherent rights. It is your right to be safe in your country. Syrians are fighting and dying to guarantee what the Assad regime could not— a democratic human-rights-respecting safe Syria.
(The audience erupted into applause for that.)
Both Raed and Razan spoke about “building citizens to function in the state”, an idea that is relevant to Syria and every other country on Earth. A functional citizen knows their own power as a potential organizer, feels compelled to keep track of politics, and hold their government accountable. A functional citizen also sees the intersection of politics, and works to cultivate their own voice while standing in solidarity for the rights and safety of others. States are like machines: neither operate with 100% efficiency, and it will always be our struggle as people to cultivate more functional citizens to keep the state in check.
