Eye on Syria: Past, Present and Future Part 2

 

 Omar al-Shogre:

 ‘We have the guy who was operating the machine to open the graves, and he also is with us here today.’

 The Bulldozer Driver:

 ‘I was tasked by the régime for one year to prepare the graves of innocent people, and I did that, it wasn’t optional, I couldn’t do anything about it, I would have died if I didn’t do it. Every single day we used to bury over 400 people on a daily basis, so over one year, I had to witness, and open the grave with my bulldozer, for over a hundred thousand people, myself with the people that are involved, who are recruited by the régime. And that is proof, unfortunately, it is still happening today.

 The régime is still running its detention centres, which are more like torture chambers. And people are being arrested on a daily basis, people are being killed on a daily basis, and here comes our responsibility.

 I want you to understand that the régime is not going to stop its brutality, and your involvement is very necessary. Those people that are being killed on a daily basis are humans. Humans that deserve your attention. Humans that look like you. Regardless of where you’re from, they look just like you. They have lives, they have stories, they have families.

 And therefore I will stand before you today, telling you that you need to be involved, you need to care, you need to talk to politicians, you need to make actions, you need to have consistency, so that we at some point can reach not only freedom, but justice for the Syrian people and the Syrian victims.’

 Omar al-Shogre:

 ‘It is very sad that we have to discover more of Caesar, more of Gravedigger; but Syria is full of Caesars and Gravediggers. And Omars, and we will suffer for years. And it’s enough to suffer for one hour, under the régime, to start a revolution.

 A lot of people ask that question, maybe it is better if you didn’t start anything. No, that’s not true. You life is not more important than that person who has been arrested since 1982, being tortured on a daily basis. Why would he be there? He is innocent. For one person, for one individual, we should start a revolution. Because this is not about the one individual, this is about the life of a human being. If the régime doesn’t have respect for one life of a human being, the régime should never exist.

 How much do we sacrifice to get freedom from that régime? Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Because if the régime is able to dehumanise one person, they will dehumanise the rest. If they can kill one person without your opposition, they can kill the rest.



 Back to the darkness, the worse it gets, the more likely you are to find hope in there. I know that the régime’s trying to sell a narrative where there is no change, no life. Oh, Russia is with me, China is with me, the US is with nothing, it wants to do nothing. That’s the narrative of the Syrian régime. Don’t spread that. There are enough people that care. We just need to organise our forces, come together, try to find creative ways of helping.

 That creative way, I like to say, is by doing something you like doing. I used to say, I hate writing. So I don’t write an article to bring awareness about Syria. Guess why? Because I hate writing, you wouldn’t like my article, it would suck. It could be so bad. But there’s something I love doing, that I can usefully do. I love public speaking, so I can deliver twenty speeches a day, not being tired. I know that the revolution in Syria won’t end today. Even if the régime falls tomorrow, we will still need to work a lot. And I keep still using the things that I love the most, which is public speaking in this case. And I wouldn’t get tired of it. I can be consistent, and I can bring awareness of what’s happening for a very long time.

 And I want you to think about the thing that you enjoy doing. What is your power? And what cause do you care about? It could be Syria, for others it could be Afghanistan. It could be you here in your community in London. Think about the thing that you’re most talented in doing. And what’s the cause you care about. And how do you combine that. How can you organise something you love doing? That thing, is what’s going to help you survive, what’s going to help you receive that trust from those that surround you.

 For me, it was in that tiny cell, that it all started. I started to learn things that were useful, I started to enjoy teaching people things. And there, I used that on a daily basis to save lives. In your scenario, it could be something else. It could be math, it could be physics. It could be games, it could be art. It could be anything, anything you do in your life, could be useful work. And if you can’t find a way with your thoughts, ask ChatGPT. How can I use my talents to bring awareness about Syria? You would be surprised how many ways you would find, from ChatGPT, Google, any AI or non-AI platforms; there are many ways of doing something.

 Most importantly, the worst thing you can do, is not doing anything. The worst thing you can do is think, huh, there’s nothing that can be done. You will be helping the régime killing more people. If you haven’t seen the Caesar photos, you should go by the exhibition.



 The régime is killing people on a daily basis. Those people have stories. Those people had love stories like mine. And they ended up, maybe married to the girl they love. The girl I love, when I get out of prison, she called me. I would have loved that call, for a few minutes. Before she started talking about her engagement party. It is the anniversary of our story of love, and now they are just dead. We don’t want that to happen to other people. If you don’t want it for you and your beloved ones, you shouldn’t accept it for other people.

 And not accepting it is not just a thought. It’s not just a word you say. An action you take. We want you today, before you leave this room, to think about an action. Come, discuss it with us in person. There’s another panel coming after me, and I’ll be outside, waiting for you. All of you. Come and shake our hands, and ask us a couple of questions. We would like you engaged, involved. Thank-you very much.’

 Dr. Mohammad al-Hadj Ali:

 ‘We started this story twelve years ago, exactly with any man like Omar al-Shogre. When we lived our life, and were thinking about our future. And we were thinking of building Syria again, in the next decade, in a better shape.

 And this was when we were looking at other countries as well. But in fact, the picture was not that rosy when the Arab Spring started, and then Syrian people dared to go to the streets. Just thinking about a better future for everyone in that country. And that was the biggest crime we did, in a country being dictated over decades.

 This is what we did actually, in 2011. Just dreaming was a big problem, in a country that had been dictated over decades by the same family. Our people dared there, to think about just expansion of human rights, improving their rights, and thinking about employment, opportunities, and freedom as well. Just a little word, freedom, written on walls by schoolchildren, the whole story started.



 From peaceful demonstrations, that have always been proscribed in Syria, to a full-scale war launched by whom? By the government, on its own civilians, its own people. As Omar said, when he saw the soldiers, this is the army, this is our army. These are the police officers who are meant to be protecting us, working for us, and working for security, of this country, and its own people.

 In fact, the story, it’s completely different. These forces, and that army, is to protect a family, and to protect a ruler, and to protect a dictatorship. And it’s never been meant, to protect their own people.

 I had to hear, unfortunately, two witnesses, and eyewitnesses. And when I looked at the figures today, I just tried to refresh the figures in my mind again, about those who have been refugees, or forced to be displaced, or those who have been detained, or those who have been lost.

 In my beloved country, it’s shocking. Because the estimation is always higher than what’s been documented, or what you can see by Google. We talk about more than 50% of the population of my country, now they are refugees, or internally displaced. More than seven million people internally displaced, inside Syria. More than six million people in the neighbouring countries, and more and more in diaspora.

 So these are the figures of refugees. If we look at the figures of those who are detained, we talk about more than half a million people lost their lives there, just because they talk about freedom, and they protested.



 But the reality, if one day all the facts come in, from bulldozer drivers, not driver, and gravediggers, we’ll listen to more shocking figures. We believe that the figure is higher and higher, than what has been documented there. So we talk about a high figure of those who have been detained. I want to talk about the 140,000 people being detained. In reality the figure is much more higher.

 When we talk about figures over twelve years, the country now, it’s being unfortunately under four regions, with four different authorities. I would like to talk about always one united Syria. And our perspective is for all united Syria, for all our population. So we talk about the half of the population refugees, internally displaced; and we talk about, by some estimations, nearly one million people being killed, and announced dead, and talk about hundreds of thousands of people being detained.’

Eye on Syria: Past, Present and Future Part 1

 Omar al-Shogre:

 ‘I was madly in love. I could do nothing but think about her. I could do nothing but imagine. I could do nothing, but every thought was around how she is, how she looks, what she does. All of that, all the time, non-stop.

 But I was that very shy guy. I would never dare to look at her in the eye, I would never dare to tell a girl that I love her. But I was tired of that. Especially because she was sat in the seat in front of me for two years in a row. So I can’t breathe without seeing her. All the time, six hours a day, in the classroom. And I was very challenging. But I was so shy.

 I would find tricks. I would come to the exam without a pen. So the teacher would give us the paper to write the answers, and I said I didn’t have a pen. So she turns around, to give me a pen. And I would write the answers with hers, and I would keep the pen in my hand. And I wouldn’t give it back. So she would come to me, and say, “Hey, can you give me the pen?” So I could see her, looking me in the eyes.

 But every time she would come to me, I wouldn’t know what to do, hide behind my finger. I was so nervous, so shy a guy, as a little boy. At some point I decided, this cannot go on. I need to have a revolution in my life. I need to dare; to do something that is so important to me.

 So I decided, to take a pen, and paper, and write the first letter of love, in my life. And I take it, and I think, and I think, for hours and hours, what should the first letter say? Is it a poem, is it a painting, what should it be?

 So with the paper, and pen, I came with the most brilliant idea. I wrote the first letter of my name, O, and the first letter of her name, H, and a heart in the middle. And I filled it with red. And I folded it, and put it in my pocket, next to my heart. And I go to school, and during the break, I sneak into the room, and put it on her chair.

 And then, when everyone comes back from the break, I go to the corner of the room. I don’t want to be too close when she falls in love. I stand here, and I see her coming in with her friends. You need to understand how beautiful she is, how funny she is, how strong, so many things. And the way she walks, like a queen. Like she doesn’t care, her shoulders to the back, saying hey it’s me. She walks, and with every step, my heart is just beating faster.

 And she comes in, and she sees that note. She takes the note, and she opens it up, and she reads it. Doesn’t take a long time to read it. She holds it in both hands. She’s imagining how much she should love me. And she is walking, and walking, with the note in one hand, and next to the door, there is a trash can. My heart was put in a trash can.

 I can’t stand sitting behind her all these hours after that moment. It’s only the first trick. I go home, and I’m so upset, so angry. I don’t know what to do. I walk to the door, my mum calls on me; no, I’m studying. I sit in the corner, I want to cry, I’d rather not do anything else. And in the darkest moment, hope comes. How would she know it’s me? You know, there are seven Omars in the classroom. How would she know it’s me. So I decided, to have that brilliant idea. I take the pen, and the paper, and write her a letter. O, H, and a heart in the middle, and put some glitter on it, and my perfume.

 And I drop it, she comes in, and she takes the note. She’ll know it’s me, it’s my perfume. It’s very cheap, I always use it. She’ll know it’s me. She opens it up, holding the note in both hands, Walks, My heart is about to pop with that attention. No, it goes in the trash, That monster, she never cared.

 I go home. I’m so sad. I don’t know what to do. That was the most important thing that was happening in my life. What, you think school was important? No! The only reason school was important was because of her. There was nothing else relevant, importantly relevant, in my life; except that love, that good feeling I had. And in the darkest moments, hope comes along.

 What girl would want in her purse, a note that’s so guy perfumed, that she’s going to smell like it now? Of course she doesn’t want that in her purse. So I come up with a brilliant idea to write her a letter. So I put O, H, a heart in the middle. I colour it red, put glitter on. I go to my mum, can I use your perfume? I go to my sister, can I use your perfume? M other sister, can I get your perfume? My third sister, I have four sisters, my aunt, my neighbour, any female perfume; and I perfumed it so much, and take it the day after.

 This is it, I’m going to make it. I put it there, she’s coming in from the break, and I have had my heart broken so many times, that I see images playing faster than the reality. I see her picking it up, walking to the trash and throwing it, faster than the reality. And she comes in, takes the note, and she opens the note. And this note smells so much of perfume, it can kill the whole classroom.

 She opens the note, the glitter’s dropping, and she is walking. My heartbeat is racing, oh so bad, and she’s walking next to the door. She gets to the door, she puts it in her pocket, and she walks out. And I knew she was in love, severely in love. She could do nothing without me any more. And I could not be happy. I could not sit. I would raise my hand to any question the teacher asked. I just wanted to be visible. I’d go home, “Mom, can I clean, wash dishes?” I’d do anything. I was so excited.

 That excitement ended a few days later. When I was off to the first protest, for the first time in my life. I see the police standing, in front of a crowd of people, with their guns, aiming in the faces. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Are they going to shoot, or not? Those are the police the military, of my country, they are my people.

 And in the middle of your thoughts, your questioning; Boom! Boom! And they start shooting people. People die. For the first time in my life, I see people dying, blood. Not random people, people I didn’t know, my friend was dying. Before calling on me to run away, Omar run away, but I didn’t run away, I froze in my place. I didn’t know what to do.

 And they took me to prison from there. And they tortured me. And they tried to break me, not only physically, but mentally. To disconnect you from humanity. They see you in pain, but to make sure you are in mental pain, they would force me to torture my favourite person in the world, my cousin. They forced him to torture me, so we would lose our humanity. To lose our love for anything.

 But in that dark cell, I would sit; and although it was terrible, it was sad, it was dark, it was annoying, it was hateful, I was starved; I would have a lot of good moments to think about something beautiful. One month, two months, three months, I was holding images in my head, like a school time, like going to school every day. I would try to remember our home town, I would remember her, sitting behind her, the first time she opened a letter. The first time she threw it in the trash. All these things that were painful, it was beautiful, because it was outside.

 And half a year later I couldn’t see her any more. I couldn’t reconstruct her image in my head any more. I was starved, I was in pain. The only thing I see are people dying. I never seen anyone get out. And I start to lose memories; not only her, but my family. And you start to disconnect from any life outside the prison cell.



 That was fantastic. Because, sitting in a cell, even though its painful and terrible, and sitting in a pose like this is so tiring; you are not surrounded by walls, you are surrounded by other prisoners, a human wall. Those prisoners, none of them are criminals. Those people are well-educated, the top people of your country. They were arrested for that reason, because they are so good, the régime needs to get rid of them.

 Next to me sits a prisoner, who was a doctor. The other side, a psychologist. In front of me, he’s a lawyer. There’s an engineer. What do you think the doctor’s talking to me about? How to survive physically. What does the psychologist talk to me about? How to survive mentally. What do you think the lawyer talks about? Human rights. How we construct a mechanism so we don’t kill each other because it’s starvation, steal each other’s food.

 So everyone was using what they had done in their life, to build a system, so we could survive. Teach the people round them something useful. So instead of being that little boy, seventeen years old in prison, I had no function in life, except for that love I had; suddenly I’m sitting in the darkest place you could ever imagine, and sometimes when it’s the darkest, that’s when it’s easiest to have hope.

 So I would learn everything they teach me. Those people will die, because when a doctor’s sixty years old, and they break his arm or leg, he will die. He won’t heal, because he’s being tortured every day. I could heal faster, and they will teach me everything, because they wanted their legacy to stay alive. They invested in me all the time, because I could physically survive much longer because I was much younger. I heal faster. And the doctor would teach me, and make sure the other prisoner whose arm is broken, I could help them. And the one who is mentally suffering, I have learned so many techniques; I have processed my trauma on a daily basis, I have talked about it. I have managed to find ways to succeed my trauma with a reward. For me, pain was a state with something good I would receive after it, so it would minimise the impact, the pain, that comes out of it, of the torture. And I could teach that to other people.

 That gave me a function, in my life, for the first time. Something useful to do, something important, I was saving lives. When you save life, do you think you feel good about that or not? I was saving so many lives on a daily basis. I was loving my life. I wasn’t loving torture, of course not. But I was used to it, two years later, being tortured on a daily basis, what do you think? You get used to it. Your body is capable of getting used to pain. You can try it yourself, hit your hand fifty times. It hurts the first thirty times. But then you get numb to it. Physically and mentally, over time. So I get numb from that perspective, and I invest in time, because people have decided to invest in me.

 And that’s the power of caring about each other. You cannot survive on your own. In prison, you don’t survive because you are strong. You don’t at all. You survive because you have people around you to protect you when you are at your weakest. Someone to fight for your food when you can’t fight for your own food. Someone to feed you when you feel like you can’t eat. Someone to kick you when you do the wrong thing. That is the only reason you will survive.

 That doesn’t only apply to prison. That applies everywhere. If you don’t have a community of people around you you trust, you have nothing. You wouldn’t survive to have a good life. So that’s the most important thing we’re going to have. And that’s what we try to create for everyone coming out of Syria. Everyone who’s trying to be a witness, everyone who’s trying to bring awareness of suffering. Everyone who’s suffering, coming out trying to share their story. We decided, the Syrian Emergency Task Force, to protect them. To make them trust us. They’re in a safe place, they can share their story, in a way that fits them, their profile, their experiences.

 Not everyone can come publicly the way I do. There’s a risk you take, and some people can not take risks the way I can. If Syria, we’ve had multiple people come out with a lot of evidence, strong evidence. We’ve had evidence of mass graves in Syria. Caesar you’ve already heard of, but also we have the Gravedigger, who was part of the mechanism the régime built to massacre hundreds of thousands of people. And today we have him with us. I want him to say some words in my ear, to say to you, because you’re not allowed to hear his voice for safety reasons.’



 The Gravedigger:

 ‘I was tasked and forced to work for the régime for eight years, opening mass graves, and burying innocent people that had been killed under torture, under starvation, and shot outside in the street for protesting by the Syrian régime; and this eight years, if you listen to the courts who worked out these cases, there are over a million people who have been buried, and that’s just the simple estimates of the brutality of this régime.

 And for eight years, I was not allowed to have a vacation. Because of my family, I could not have a break even for a single day. And every time they brought a truck of dead bodies, a fridge of dead bodies, the régime would give me a list. The list would have the name, the number of dead bodies, the branches, the prisons they were coming from, and the numbers were usually higher than the official numbers. So they would give you 250 on the paper, sometimes it would be 400 people.

 Just like the ones who were alive who were treated with the most brutality, the Syrian régime has even treated the dead body, the corpse, with that brutality. You’re not allowed to show any mercy with those dead bodies when you bring them, you have to throw them in that big hole that you made. Because they wanted to remove any connection between this dead body, and their story, and their life.

 The régime has been an expert in forced disappearance. Including children, who are three months or three years old. And during my time there, I was responsible for burying the bodies of kids who were just a few months old.

 They used to bring children to that location of the mass graves. The children had torture marks, just like the adults. In addition, some of them, their skeleton would be destroyed just by jumping on it with the military shoes of the soldiers.

 I started in 2011, and managed to escape in 2018, and still the régime is creating these crimes.’