A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(11)
Shokri shook his head. “It’s my job to protect you and your sisters. Leave the demonstrations to the men of this city.” He began insisting that Hanaa keep everyone home while he was off at work. But Doaa was defiant. She cried and sulked, refusing to eat or speak for days. She felt useless stuck inside the house.
Several times when Doaa was feeling particularly restless, she snuck out to join a demonstration. Shokri was furious when he discovered that she was missing, but he could do little. Eventually he gave up on trying to keep her in the house away from danger. Doaa’s stubborn will simply outmatched his own.
The protests became part of daily life in the neighborhood. Men, women, and children came together to participate or watch. Doaa often bumped into cousins and school friends, and whenever she saw her closest friends, Amal and another friend who was also named Doaa, she would grab their hands and they would sing, chant, and march together in unison.
On March 30, 2011, President Assad gave a speech to parliament, addressing for the first time the unrest swallowing his country. As he walked into the chamber, members of parliament stood, enthusiastically clapping and chanting in a loud chorus, “God, Syria, and Bashar.” As Doaa watched the coverage of the speech that night on the evening news, she held out hope that he was about to give in to the protesters’ demands. Instead, while he admitted the deaths in Daraa had happened, he referred to them as isolated cases and a “mistake.” Every citizen, he noted, has complaints, and his government was working to resolve them. But now, he warned, “conspirators” were at work pushing an “Israeli agenda” that was influencing those who had taken to the streets in good faith. He called those behind this conspiracy “foreign agents,” labeled the demonstrators “terrorists,” and claimed that the Arab satellite television channels were part of the scheme that was “creating chaos under the pretext of reform.” He did announce that he might consider some changes to the system, but only after the country had returned to stability and the economy had improved. He claimed that the videos and photos the media were broadcasting to their audiences—showing government forces subduing civilians—were fake, and he pledged that he would not give in to the demands of those he considered terrorists. The prime minister, looking on, chanted, “God, Syria, and Bashar,” in agreement.
Doaa was confused as she watched the broadcast. When Assad was talking about “terrorists,” was he referring to her friends, family, and neighbors? We are not terrorists! she thought adamantly. But when it came to the shooting of unarmed demonstrators in Daraa, all Assad would say was that “mistakes” had been made and that “not all the demonstrators were conspirators.” He wouldn’t condemn the acts of brutal repression that were carried out by the security forces. At that moment Doaa realized that the struggle was just beginning and her country was coming apart.
After the parliament speech, unrest continued to spread across Syria, with protests erupting in the cities of Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, Douma, and Latakia. For a time, it seemed as if the tide was turning in favor of the opposition, as people throughout Syria turned against the government. Emboldened, the protesters vowed they would keep marching until their demands were met. Then, to their surprise, on April 21, just two months after the graffiti incident, President Assad announced on state TV that he would abolish the emergency law that had been in place since 1963.
For the opposition movement, this concession was too little and too late. The abolition of the law was no longer enough; people now had their sights set on regime change. But they soon realized that President Assad was working on a transformation of his own—to fortify his power by replacing the old system he’d inherited from his father with a new one under the pretense of fighting terrorism. Assad changed the laws so that anyone whose actions could be seen as damaging to the status of the nation or insulting to the ruling party or its leaders, or anyone who participated in demonstrations or bore arms, could now be charged with aiding and abetting “terrorists.”
In response to these announcements, the protests swelled. The following day, in what became known as the Great Friday, demonstrations took place simultaneously in over twenty cities and towns across the country. Once again, security forces used tear gas and live ammunition to subdue protesters.
On the streets of Daraa, the standoffs between protesters and government soldiers were becoming increasingly violent, but this didn’t deter Doaa, who went out anyway. One evening, just as a protest that Doaa, Nawara, Ayat, and Saja had taken part in was winding down, security forces suddenly appeared and advanced on the crowd with their guns raised. Everyone knew what would happen next—tear gas and beatings, possibly even death. People panicked and began screaming and running in different directions. Doaa lost track of her sisters in the mêlée. But as people scattered in all directions, Doaa could hear someone yelling after her—one of the organizers.
“Hide the loudspeaker and the tabla [drum],” he shouted, shoving them in her direction. “If they catch us with them, they’ll arrest us!” Anyone caught with protest paraphernalia would be associated with the demonstration and could therefore be classified either as aiding terrorists or terrorists themselves.
Without hesitation, Doaa grabbed the drum and loudspeaker and shoved them under her abaya. These days, Shokri demanded that if the girls insisted on going out in the streets, they had to wear an abaya, a long black garment that covered them from head to foot. Women wearing them attracted less attention and it also allowed them to blend in with other women in the street, offering a layer of protection to Doaa and her sisters. At first, Doaa resisted—she hated the hot, shapeless garment that hid her identity. However, on that night she was grateful for the cover. Cloaking the drum and loudspeaker under the abaya could allow her to get them to a safe location. Her home was just two streets away, so she turned and ran in its direction.