Reports | 25 05 2020
By: Ali Mulhem
It was launched from the Caspian Sea. It crossed entire countries and seas. It found no better location to land other than the land already turned into a laboratory for experiments of death and murder. It is no other than a Russian missile that began to introduce yet another innovative form of death into Syria.
There is nothing new in Syria but death. It is the innovation and creativity of death alone that Syrians are experiencing day in and day out. Ever since the first bullet was fired by a Syrian hand of Syria to settled in the body of another Syrian, death has been strongly, deftly, innovatively, and indescribably present. There are no news in newspapers and international news agencies—save for the sinking, choking, slaughter, and the bombing of a handful of Syrians in the Aegean Sea, Raqqa, or in a popular Suq [market] in Douma.
One rifles through newspapers and jumps from news channel to news channel. One grows tired of their continuous ability to promote newer means of death. Oh, how able they are to seduce you into watching yet more sordid images of death and destruction. For four and a half years now, Syria has been the news preoccupying the entire world. There no longer is any talk or preoccupation—except with Syria and Syrians. Everyone is out to give their try. They all meddle, thrusting their middle fingers into the “broth—for the vague hope that it may perhaps cook well and not burn.
Nowadays, a new fad has been added to the interminable discussions and analyses: It is the Russians. There they come, providing the season’s biggest bang in this extra-length Syrian feature film. The same old story starts, again: Essays… Photos… analyses… interpretations… International agencies, fashion agencies—even the weather bulletin! All one can hear about now is of [Russian President, Vladimir] Putin; of Russian fighter planes bombing again to introduce yet another new form of death—one different than the one experienced only days ago by a young adult in Raqqa. He had been slaughtered at the hands of "Daesh" on the incredible count of having lit a cigarette! What do the Russians want from Syria? What will come out of this unprecedented direct intervention? All of these seem to be questions posed to no avail. Does a person besieged in Rastan really need to know the difference between death by a barrel thrown from an Assad fighter plane, versus one thrown from a Russian fighter?!
There is nothing new in Syria for four and a half years now—Nothing save for death that takes different permutations and reaches new figures. There is nothing new—save for murder, detention, and destruction. Nothing new except that every hour since 2011, 50 new Syrian families escape their homes to sleep out in the open. Nothing new except the fact that more than 5 million children in Syrian cities and villages have now grown, knowing nothing else but war, recurrent death by [explosive] barrels, et al. Nothing new except for the fact that more than half of Syria's population now lives on one dollar a day—an existence closer to death than to living. Nothing new except for the fact that the average new Syrian life expectancy has been reduced to about half the normal limit in neighboring countries.
There is nothing new in Syria—except maybe the fact the Vanguards of Amazon fighting tribes has not [yet!] been sent to this experimentation lab; Syria’s Arab ‘brothers’ sufficed, sending all their psychopathic wayward sons—Tunisians, Saudis, Iraqis, and others. They came to resolve their long-standing sectarian Shiite-versus-Sunni crises here.
It has been four and a half years already, with all-and-sundry claiming their ability to find a solution to "the Syrian crisis…” Indeed, Syria has become a crisis not to neighboring countries alone—but for the entire world. Yet the more they try, the more convoluted the crisis becomes. Is it not hight time now that everyone understood, that what they should do in Syria is nothing at all?!
Syrians need neither the Russians, nor the Afghans, the Americans, the Turks, or even Arabs to experience death and its variations. What they do need, on the other hand, is for these various parties to get out of their land—maybe this way, they might return to the normal death they had experienced at their own hands. At least, it would be more effective than the host of incessant experiments they had been subjected to every day.
Get out of our land. Leave us grapple with, and resolve with our own hands, our own “crisis.” Better the death you know.
* Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Rozana.