It's 15 March - the anniversary of the Syrian uprising. I realized the other day that, somewhere along the way, I lost all my photos from 2011-13. Like from that blazing summer day on Tahrir when they first unfurled the massive Syrian independence flag. Feels like false memories.
A friend visited Rabaa recently. All cleared, no remembrance. Eventually, the collective conscience will move on, leaving a million individual memories strewn about to fight for themselves. A few years on, those who hold on to them will look ever stranger, even to their children.
It's one of the reasons I support the IIIM and other truth-seeking mechanisms. Not to endlessly rehash the past, but to allow those who lived through it to find if not justice or closure, then at least validation. There's something cathartic in enshrining memory into history.
If history won't bend towards justice then the least we can do is pick up the shards of our attempts to make it yield. This happened to you and to those you love. We believe you.
