(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Jonathan Littell:
Syrian Notebooks. Inside the Homs Uprising.
Translated from French to English by Charlotte Mandell. Verso Books, 2015
The rebellion in Syria began 15. March 2011, and evolved into civil war from March 2012. What started as peaceful demonstrations against the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad in March 2011 quickly turned into violent uprisings and revolution. The reason for the difficult conditions in Syria was a military coup in 1963. The rebellion against the current regime was due to corruption, inflation and unemployment, as well as the lack of an effective constitution.
Against this backdrop, Jonathan Littell, the author of International Novel Success, traveled The benevolent ones, to Syria in 2012, and he has now published his diaries from there.
Wealth of rebel groups. Bashar al-Assad has sat in the presidential chair since the year 2000, and his board eventually became a dictatorship. The rebellion against the regime began in the form of demonstrations in the streets of the southern city of Homs. But since the beginning, the war has only increased in strength and scope, and now includes all the largest countries in Europe, as well as the United States and Russia. Today, there are hundreds of strong rebel groups in Syria – two of the best known are ISIS and "spinoffproduct »Jabhat al-Nusra. On the other hand, there is the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an alliance of many different rebel groups, which is supported by several Arab countries.
From dream to nightmare. Littell writes about the revolution, which can apply to revolutions in general: "It starts, as always, with a dream, a dream of youth, liberty and collective joy; The description fits most rebellions: It begins with demonstrations of injustice and power, but ends in blood, war and chaos.
When Littell and his photographer Mani arrived in Homs in mid-January 2012, the revolution had already been going on for just over a year. The FSA, as the author describes it, was still characterized by being a defense group against the Syrian dictatorship, not an attack group. But that was the beginning.
A document. «I have already described, in the epilogue I wrote a few months after my stay in Homs, the events that followed: The armies' total destruction and occupation of the 'Free Neighborhood' of Baba'Amr, and the beginning of the bitter siege of the opposition neighborhoods in the center. ” We get to address the author when he writes, "This is not a work of literature, but a document."
As many will remember, the French reporter and journalist Gilles Jaquier was killed in 2011, most likely by the Assad board. The idea behind it was probably to scare foreign journalists from entering the country. While the Assad regime, in turn, blames on the Free Syrian Army.
One operates with the term shaid for people like Gilles Jaquier, that is, victims of the Assad regime's brutality. Every year, "The day of loyalty to Gilles Jaquier" is celebrated on Facebook. His death has become a shining example of martyr death for the Syrian people.
Close to. Littell and his company come into close contact with both military personnel, hospital personnel and ordinary civilians. The book gives a close look at what Bashar al-Assad has actually done about misery in the country. As we enter the text, the two war journalists are in the city of Al-Qusayr on the Lebanon-Syria border, not many miles from Damascus. In order to get to Homs, they must pass through Baba'Amr, an area in southwest Syria completely controlled by the FSA, in other words a central point of conflict. This poses a danger to foreign journalists – and therefore the smuggler will pick them up by the highway on Syria's border and take them directly to Al-Bayada.
Diary. On Wednesday 18 January, Littell and Mani are in the Al-Qusayr district, ready to go to bed in the cold night. They see military groups that are part of the opposition dancing on the hills outside the city with their Kalashnikovs. The next day, they are on the border between Al-Qusayr and Baba'Amr. They see the highway between Damascus and Homs in front of them, and set off on foot across the border. They arrive at a military border post at risk of being shot, and therefore stay off the main road. In the middle of the day, they arrive at the part of Baba'Amr called Haquara. Most of the inhabitants have left the city, fleeing military groups controlled by the Assad regime; only 10 of the 000 inhabitants are left. On Friday, January 120, Littell and his photographer are in the center of Baba'Amr. They see demonstrations in the streets, among ethnic groups protected by the FSA. In front of a mosque, they observe military and civilian personnel equipped with flags and drums, and their singing and dancing is experienced as beautiful and joyful. People move in long, wavy lines, shoulder to shoulder.
In front of a mosque they observe military and civilian personnel, equipped with flags and drums, and their singing and dancing is experienced as beautiful and pleasing. People dance in long, wavy lines, shoulder to shoulder.
Witness atrocities. Littell climbs to the roof and joins a man filming the revolution and then posts everything on YouTube. The point, of course, is to call on the West's interest, hoping to bring NATO into the conflict. The demonstrations are referred to as "a soft ceremony". Littell watches videos of broken tanks, and a movie of a convoy of military vehicles burning. He sees wounded soldiers from the night's attack the next day, secret prisons, dead people in the streets. On the same day, Littell and Mani arrive at an underground clinic after a series of shooting episodes. The military government has banned journalists from being on the scene – but through the right contacts they still manage to get in. The superior of the hospital, Abu Abda, says that being in Baba'Amr is very dangerous. Nor is it harmless for foreign journalists to visit such public places: You can be arrested for six months, banned from working, fined. Or killed, as a doctor recently.
The day after Littell and his photographer leave the area, many bombs fall on the district they have just stayed in.
On the pulse. One might wonder what is the point of publishing diaries from an area where political and military developments have gone so fast that the year 2012 seems like an eternity since. They appear rather fragmentary; In contrast, the book is equipped with a preface that gives a good explanation of what the author intended, namely that the West should not cooperate with the Syrian government.
Syrian Notebooks is a valuable document. It is literary in the best sense: close-in, truthful, well-written – and therefore suitable for anyone interested in reading anything other than non-fiction created far from the events in question. Those who would rather know the reality of the body.
henning.ness@getmail.no
