“The Most Important Way to Love and Peace Is Justice”: A Conversation with Samar Yazbek

Abstract

16 WLT NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2016 photo : jean luc bertini / pasco and co Q&A WORLDLIT.ORG 17 I n March 2011, after peaceful protests began to emerge across Syria, pushing for government reform, Samar Yazbek witnessed what was a passive, civil uprising become an unthinkable war. Fearing for her safety as a journalist, Yazbek fled to Paris, where she’s lived in exile ever since. She made the perilous crossing into Syria from the Turkish border three times, until 2013, which marked the last time she saw her country. Interviewing the locals in the heart of the most ravaged areas of Syria, Yazbek was compelled to gather the people’s stories, from mothers of martyrs to secular fighters . The voices of these men and women, who are fighting for their freedom and lives every day under the attacks from the regime and radical occupation, would not have been heard without Yazbek’s efforts to collect them. It wasn’t until 2014, after struggling to process the brutality she’d witnessed, that she was able to put it to paper. The result is The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria, which has been called one of the first political classics of the twenty-first century. This interview took place in May 2016 in a café in Paris. I spotted Yazbek, who was waiting outside with a cigarette, under a floppy black hat. After our interview, she asked in Arabic to hear the story of our interpreter, who, like Yazbek, has witnessed the Syrian conflict with her own eyes. Although Yazbek is cautious about spilling too much personal information, in many ways she reflected the women in her book: humble, clear, and open. Stephanie Papa: Could you tell us what your life was like in Syria, before the revolution broke out? Samar Yazbek: Before the uprising began, I was a writer and journalist. I wrote scripts for TV and cinema; I worked for local magazines. I was a women’s rights activist, and still am. Stephan Papa: Your book, The Crossing, is an account of the harrowing experiences you witnessed after three crossings over the border of Turkey into war-torn Syria. Instead of writing a novel upon your return, you felt compelled to recount the true stories you heard. Many of the people you met begged you to recount their suffering and perseverance. One woman asked you, “Do you promise to write down everything I told you?” Are you writing for these people who entrusted you with their stories? Samar Yazbek: The Crossing is a documentation of what people were going through every day, true events that I wrote in the style of a story, not as a journalist. I didn’t write it for the people who told me their stories, because most of them are dead. The people who are still alive can barely afford to eat, so the book is not for them. I’m writing for the whole world to see what the people of Syria experience on a daily basis. I wanted to convey the voices of these victims to the world. It’s the role of the educated Syrian elite—writers, artists— to engage in this situation, to take part in social justice. Stephanie Papa: Your account of the events in Syria shows a side of the conflict that many are widely unaware of. Since March 2011, Assad’s regime has attacked and murdered Syria’s own people. The sky never ceases to shake with bombs. You even interviewed an emir of a jihadist group, who like many other fighters you encountered wanted to kill all Alawites , your family’s sect. Now in 2016, the war rages on, the regime hasn’t relented, and conflict continues between sects and radicals. Syria has endured this brutal state of emergency for five years. What has changed for you since your last crossing? Samar Yazbek: First, I lost faith in the international community. Each country prioritizes its own interest and completely ignores the massive extermination of the Syrian people. They forget humanitarian values and preserve their own interests over the suffering Syrians. What has also changed is that the Syria we used to know doesn’t exist...