'Wafa Mustafa is in the Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought degree program at Bard College Berlin. “I’m from Masyaf, a small village in the middle of Syria,” says Wafa. “I moved to the city to study journalism and media. Two months after I went to a protest in support of the revolution I was arrested by the regime. When I was released I went back to my college, but I was told I wasn’t a student there anymore. Then, in July 2013, our dad got arrested in Damascus.”
His arrest meant that the family had to flee immediately to ensure that the regime wouldn’t come after family members and use them to force their father to talk. (Sana happened to be in the United States at the time on what was supposed to be a six-week exchange program; without a home to go back to, she was eventually granted political asylum.) They went to Turkey with virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs. “It was me, my mother, and my youngest sister,” Wafa continues. “One of us had to work because we needed money and we knew nobody and had no help from anyone. For three years I worked in Turkey, first with a radio station and then with a newspaper and then with a website as an editor and a reporter.”
She worked 16 to 17 hours a day. The work helped push down the understandable depression she was experiencing: one of her closest friends had been killed, she was far from home and from the revolution she continued to believe in passionately, her father’s condition and whereabouts remained unknown, and the bureaucracy of applying for asylum was worthy of Kafka. “In Syria I always had the hope that I would continue my studies at some point,” Wafa explains. “But in Turkey it felt like: That’s it. This is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life.”
Karam Alhamad, who is studying for the Economics, Politics, and Social Thought degree at Bard College Berlin, also has a rich—and horrific—store of such firsthand knowledge. And he has shared what he witnessed through photographs and videos. Although he had always been interested in journalism, and even worked for the main newspaper in his hometown of Deir ez-Zor, a city on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, it wasn’t until protests broke out in 2011 that he took up a camera. Over the following four years, he was jailed by the Syrian regime four times, the longest stint being 11 months in 2014, nine and a half of which was in the notorious Branch 235 prison (also known as the Palestine Branch). While there, ever the journalist, he kept track of the number of people who died. The total reached 73 before he was released.
“When I got out I went into a Free Syrian Army area of the city, or so I thought, but I was shocked to find ISIS there,” recalls Alhamad. “That’s why I decided not to stay in Syria. But I couldn’t get a passport. I had a red line under my name. I was wanted by the regime. I still am. So I wasn’t allowed to leave. This led me to (cross illegally) into Turkey.”
Once there, Alhamad found work with the Syrian opposition government and won a Leaders for Democracy Fellowship to study at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. “I applied for a visa from the U.S. Consulate and I got it, but the Turkish police wouldn’t allow me to leave,” Alhamad says. “So I talked to a French journalist I’d worked with and she did a story about the situation. After that I got a call from an assistant to the prime minister of Turkey telling me to go to the airport, that I could go, but officers there didn’t allow me to leave. They refused to talk to the prime minister’s assistant, so he told me to put him on speaker. Finally the officers allowed me to leave by the diplomatic gate.
Though Alhamad is referring to his research and consulting work, his photography and video are also certainly creditworthy. His YouTube page is full of powerful images of what it means to live a life surrounded by violence. To see small children being pulled from a bombed-out building is, of course, terrible. To see the lack of surprise on their faces makes it clear that this is all they have known. That is more terrifying than anything Hollywood could conjure. The videos are difficult to watch. But for Alhamad they can also be a salve. “After what I’ve been through and what Syria has been through, the way I think about the photos, the videos, my experiences, my body—it all makes me stronger, it makes me who I am,” says Alhamad, whose legs still show the scars of the torture he endured in prison. “I took the photos and videos and posted them to show people what’s going on in Syria—the cruelty of the Syrian government since 2011. Those photos touch my heart. Sometimes when I feel disconnected I go back to the photos and videos and I get tears in my eyes, but I need that to stay connected to what’s happening. I understand that for most people it’s a new thing, they have not witnessed such cruelty. But for me it’s an experience that should and must be understood by other people.” '
She worked 16 to 17 hours a day. The work helped push down the understandable depression she was experiencing: one of her closest friends had been killed, she was far from home and from the revolution she continued to believe in passionately, her father’s condition and whereabouts remained unknown, and the bureaucracy of applying for asylum was worthy of Kafka. “In Syria I always had the hope that I would continue my studies at some point,” Wafa explains. “But in Turkey it felt like: That’s it. This is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life.”
Karam Alhamad, who is studying for the Economics, Politics, and Social Thought degree at Bard College Berlin, also has a rich—and horrific—store of such firsthand knowledge. And he has shared what he witnessed through photographs and videos. Although he had always been interested in journalism, and even worked for the main newspaper in his hometown of Deir ez-Zor, a city on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, it wasn’t until protests broke out in 2011 that he took up a camera. Over the following four years, he was jailed by the Syrian regime four times, the longest stint being 11 months in 2014, nine and a half of which was in the notorious Branch 235 prison (also known as the Palestine Branch). While there, ever the journalist, he kept track of the number of people who died. The total reached 73 before he was released.
“When I got out I went into a Free Syrian Army area of the city, or so I thought, but I was shocked to find ISIS there,” recalls Alhamad. “That’s why I decided not to stay in Syria. But I couldn’t get a passport. I had a red line under my name. I was wanted by the regime. I still am. So I wasn’t allowed to leave. This led me to (cross illegally) into Turkey.”
Once there, Alhamad found work with the Syrian opposition government and won a Leaders for Democracy Fellowship to study at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. “I applied for a visa from the U.S. Consulate and I got it, but the Turkish police wouldn’t allow me to leave,” Alhamad says. “So I talked to a French journalist I’d worked with and she did a story about the situation. After that I got a call from an assistant to the prime minister of Turkey telling me to go to the airport, that I could go, but officers there didn’t allow me to leave. They refused to talk to the prime minister’s assistant, so he told me to put him on speaker. Finally the officers allowed me to leave by the diplomatic gate.
Though Alhamad is referring to his research and consulting work, his photography and video are also certainly creditworthy. His YouTube page is full of powerful images of what it means to live a life surrounded by violence. To see small children being pulled from a bombed-out building is, of course, terrible. To see the lack of surprise on their faces makes it clear that this is all they have known. That is more terrifying than anything Hollywood could conjure. The videos are difficult to watch. But for Alhamad they can also be a salve. “After what I’ve been through and what Syria has been through, the way I think about the photos, the videos, my experiences, my body—it all makes me stronger, it makes me who I am,” says Alhamad, whose legs still show the scars of the torture he endured in prison. “I took the photos and videos and posted them to show people what’s going on in Syria—the cruelty of the Syrian government since 2011. Those photos touch my heart. Sometimes when I feel disconnected I go back to the photos and videos and I get tears in my eyes, but I need that to stay connected to what’s happening. I understand that for most people it’s a new thing, they have not witnessed such cruelty. But for me it’s an experience that should and must be understood by other people.” '
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