A defaced statue of Hafez al-Assad with heels attached to it (Credit: Photo Myriam Boulos)
That night in August 1989, he was not even two days old when the Syrian army, then under the orders of Hafez al-Assad, shelled the Ashrafieh neighborhood where he had just been born.He was not even two days old when, in the blink of an eye, the room where he slept, the room his parents had dreamt of giving him for nine months, turned into a whirlwind of dust and shattered windows.He was not even two days old when his mother jumped out of bed without a second thought and ran barefoot across the glass-strewn floor toward his crib, trying to find him amid the apocalypse. She held him close, making sure he was still breathing. At the same time every year, she told him that she wetted his “tiny nose with a piece of absorbent cotton soaked in water” so he would not die of asphyxiation.He was not even two days old when his mother carried him...
That night in August 1989, he was not even two days old when the Syrian army, then under the orders of Hafez al-Assad, shelled the Ashrafieh neighborhood where he had just been born.He was not even two days old when, in the blink of an eye, the room where he slept, the room his parents had dreamt of giving him for nine months, turned into a whirlwind of dust and shattered windows.He was not even two days old when his mother jumped out of bed without a second thought and ran barefoot across the glass-strewn floor toward his crib, trying to find him amid the apocalypse. She held him close, making sure he was still breathing. At the same time every year, she told him that she wetted his “tiny nose with a piece of absorbent cotton soaked in water” so he would not die of asphyxiation.He was not even two days old when his mother carried...
