Some notes for those incapacitated with the understanding holding space and nuance, and those attempting to tone police. Especially those absent from the Syria scene and have decided to pipe up now. 🧵 1. Referring to the liberation of our cities is to be contextualised within the backdrop of regime hold. The Assad regime had been in control of Aleppo, parts of Idlib since the fall of Aleppo in 2016. Pushing the Assad regime completely out, i.e. the Assad regime no longer has control over the city, is liberation from the Assad regime, as per values of the 2011 revolution. You can disagree with this term, you can refer to it as a takeover, incursion - whatever you want. I call it liberation, this is my view, as a Syrian - and it is a significant view. This does not mean it's total liberation, or the ultimate liberation we aspire to - but a step in that direction.

🧵 Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the Hama Massacre, where an estimated 40,000 Syrians were killed over the course of 27 days by the Hafez Assad regime in the city of Hama, Syria.

To this day, justice hasn't been delivered. An estimated 17,000 disappeared after the massacre, their whereabouts unknown to this day. Reports state 100,000 civilians 'expelled', denoting the many who either became displaced or fled outside the country.

Of the 40,000 killed - entire families were singled and wiped out.

I'm really extremely tired of white people and non-Syrians who have never been subjected to an ounce of what Syrians have been subjected to in Turkey, schooling us on things, so here goes a thread to help you identity you obnoxious splaining: 1. Syrians are not a monolith. We are a diverse people with diverse views on everything ranging from politics & religious leanings to how one pronounces the name of a fruit. Syrians know this. We know we are so extremely because we are humans. Please try to internalise this too.

Note to analysts, pundits — whoever will be writing a load of hogwash today about the revolution and Arab Spring dying — you’ve absolutely 101% been (and continue to be) absent from the scene of actual revolutionary work if you believe so. The revolutions have sprung civil societies into action; so much of which are thriving despite and in spite of the authoritarian regimes threatening our existence. Syrian civil society organisations have kept almost every non-regime held area in Syria alive for the last 12 years.

Bashar Assad massacred a million of us. He killed my uncle, my aunt, my cousins — he gassed my other aunt, and rendered half my family refugees scattered across the globe. His father tortured my father in prison, broke his back and attempted his assassination in foreign land. Assad the father killed my uncle and tortured my pregnant aunt until she miscarried. And Assad the son destroyed the homes of everyone remaining.

Today we remember the Darayya massacre which lasted a week. On 20 Aug 2012, the Assad regime started with blockading the city, cutting off electricity/water and shelling it, committing several massacres, the worst of which took place on 25 Aug. Entire families were killed. Field executions took place both inside and in the courtyard of Abu Suleiman al-Darani mosque, where civilians were lined up and killed en masse. Official reports document 500 killed, but eyewitnesses estimate over 700 Syrian civilians murdered in the space of the few days.

Hadn’t faced religious arrogance as I had yesterday when many non-Syrians were messaging to tell that me that my criticism of people visiting Damascus was ‘nationalist’ and ‘not fair’, as ‘no one can deny Muslims access to their Islamic heritage — which isn’t owned by Syrians’. The manipulation of religion to assume you can access a land where the native people of the land are being tortured/massacred, and speaking inaccurately about the sanctions imposed and how they hurt ‘normal’ Syrians whilst ignoring Syrians critiquing the move is abhorrent.

non-Syrians visiting Damascus to showcase the ‘history’ of the city isn’t cute, whilst bombs still fall over Idlib, hundreds of thousands are forcibly disappeared and our martyrs are barely buried. it’s horrific and normalises the mass murderer we keep trying to bring to justice. i’m so tired of this phenomena and so incredibly angry at people so close to home who feign wokeness and then fail to deliver entirely, either failing or adamantly refusing to see the harm they pose for their own interest.

the simultaneous sadness, loneliness, guilt and hope i feel as a Syrian on this day, every year, is manifested in the constant sharing of posts about us, our revolution, our crisis, our everything. perhaps through it hoping to repair something damaged somewhere over the 11 years. i take issue with much of the coverage on Syria on the anniversary, which often fall in one of two categories: the humanitarian crisis category, which gives no context to the situation other than ‘war’, and the ‘revolution to civil war’ category, which is usually very ahistorical

So US foreign policy (or non-policy) on Syria aside, these takes are incredibly harmful in their assumptions that 1) the ‘Syria’ they intend is a sovereign state, 2) the wholly orientalising implication that the US is ‘dropping bombs insert name or ME country, again.’

https://twitter.com/katearonoff/status/1365132152422223876

When ideologues who know null about US presence in Syria, refer to ‘Syria’, they’re often referring in an ‘anti-war’ context which doesn’t acknowledge barbarism of regime against its people, regime’s invitation of foreign armies to kill its own people and context of US presence.