Profoundly disturbed by events

The past few days I've felt profoundly disturbed by the bloodshed in Syria. I mean it's been bugging me for a while but today I have so many emotions. I'm not sure why I'm this disturbed. News of regimes that brutally treat their people isn't something new. My husband has been telling me about Syria and his fears for years.  It's not like I didn't know.

I'm against torture as a general principle, but when you torture children as young as 13, throw in jail teenagers for expressing a dissenting point of view, and not tell their parents? The worlds youngest prisoner of conscience by all accounts is held in Syria. Then it's the shelling of school buses by tanks, it happened more then once, compounded by the security forces preventing ambulances and help to get to the children.  It's hard to get all those images out of my head.

I don't have to see video's. Just the account of witnesses is enough to leave these images in my head. I'm a girl who loves crime shows, murder mysteries. I watch all forms of CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Law & Order, Bones, Without a Trace,  Forensic Files, Cold case [Both the series, and the show made of real solved cold cases] etc. I can watch them and sleep.

But the events in Syria have been affecting me more then from anywhere else.  It's the widespread torture I think that bugs me the most right after the killing. I'm sure most of the 1,200 killed were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and not any form of criminal or armed person. Just a regular Ahmad Syrian, who wants a free Syria. Not someone part of an armed gang or the Muslim brotherhood or a Salafist or anything else. Let's not get me started again about the children. I was so angry a few days ago when I ranted, I was almost rabid.

I'm profoundly disturbed partially because  in all my interaction with Syrians, be it people who have immigrated to Canada , or people who I met in my short visit to Syria,  I've found them to be a wonderful people.  Very warm, welcoming  and hospitable people. That their own government and/or brothers treat  them this way is appalling, revolting, disgusting, infuriating, inhumane, I'm having a hard time to find words, I'm so angry, sad, upset, enraged, the emotions keep going and cycling.

I've blogged before about my Mom-in-law's friends in Homs. They took me sight seeing in Homs, and treated me to a wonderful feast in their home.  They insisted that if I ever visit Syria again I must stop in and visit them again.  Then in Damascus, other then the guy who took money for non-locals to enter the Umayed mosque who was grumpy, everyone else I interacted with, be they clerks, or waiters, or what have you in the service industry, it was service with a smile. Friendly and personable people in the Souk.

Then there's our two drivers, brothers who drove us between Damascus and Amman. They were sweet. The one who dropped us of in Amman, realized I'd left my passport in his cab and contacted our driver in Amman to arrange a meeting point for me to retrieve it before I even had a chance to notice it was gone!

Honesty like that is hard to come by in this day and age.  While it shouldn't need to be mentioned, I'll mention it anyways. Of the people I interacted with in Syria, he appeared to be the most devout Muslim.  He was one of the few people who greeted us with As-Salāmu `Alaykum  [Peace be upon you.] while I  travelled in Syria. 

There was also the lady at  the border on the Syrian side, where I had to get papers stamped to be able to leave Syria and cross into Jordan, who wanted to take a survey on how I'd liked my stay in Syria. I was very grateful to her, as this was a step that I could not do with my husband or our driver since they had to get their papers stamped at the other end of the building, and my spoken Arabic is extremely limited,  but my written Arabic is nil.

While she interviewed me, she also herded me to the right counters, to get the right papers, helped me fill them out and by the time hubby came to find me we were just chatting. I mean she didn't need to help me out. She wasn't working for the same agency as the border crossing. She was very nice and friendly. I mostly had nice things to say about my stay. The only negative thing I had to say is that I was surprised by the level of poverty in some areas of Syria.

Syria by far in my opinion has more poverty, then Lebanon, Jordan or the UAE, the middle eastern countries I've traveled to.  Though there is poverty in Lebanon and Jordan and the UAE it doesn't appear as bad or as pervasive.  Sometimes I think even the homeless in Montreal have it better then some of the poor in the Middle East.

Of course no trip to Syria is complete without a bit of intervention  by authorities. When we crossed into Syria from Lebanon, at the Arida crossing, hubby had to pay $10 to a Mukhabarat because he has a Canadian wife.  He was just grateful it was $10 and not hours of questioning so he gave it very little thought and paid.

Coming back through Syria at the Jordan-Syrian border crossing, we ended paying the border guard more then the set price for entering. As a Canadian I have to pay a small fee to enter Syria.  The price was clearly marked on the sign. However he thought both hubby and I were foreigners and when he realized hubby had a Lebanese passport he decided to charge me 1 1/2 times the indicated price.  Hubby had told me not to question anything so I asked him how much much I should give the guy and paid what he asked so we could quickly get on our way.

I guess both border crossings show two things about Syria. One the ones in charge often make their own rules, two, people doing the grunt work are often so poor that the bribes they collect is what helps them make ends meet. I didn't get greed from the guy who charged me more, I got desperation. 

All this to say that knowing that Syrians are shooting each other to keep each other oppressed is disturbing. Fact that they aren't limiting their attacks to adults is doubly disturbing. Hopefully the signs of the crumbling regime means Syrians will be free from oppression sooner then later. Fact that they shut down the internet Friday all day shows the regime has gotten desperate and it's hold to power is tentative at best.

Here's a link to a humans right report about the crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian security forces against the people of Daraa. This is just a peek at what is profoundly disturbing me.

Furthermore today, it's been the kidnapping of the Syrian blogger, Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari by some form of Syrian security force, around 6pm Damascus time while she was walking on the street about to meet up with other people. I have also found this to be very disturbing as well.

I realize I don't know Amina from Adam, but somehow reading her blog [I have read every single post she has ever written] I feel she's a friend. I've grown attached to her. I'm not alone, my husband feels the same way.  I will be troubled until I hear she is free. I will pray and light candles and tell as many people as I can about her disappearance, it is as much as I can do from my cozy home in Montreal.