******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ********************
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*****************************************************************
(On September 2nd, 2012, I was one of a handful of American socialists
who went to Washington to join a rally in support of the Syrian
revolution. As you would note from my report on the rally
(https://louisproyect.org/2012/09/06/report-on-september-2nd-rally-for-syrian-revolution/),
the keynote speaker was a Palestinian professor from U. of Cal. Berkeley
who was a leader of the BDS movement that the Israeli lobby was trying
to get fired, not John McCain. My video includes an interview with a
young woman who was a key organizer. When I asked her what would happen
if she had tried to organize a meeting that was critical of Assad at her
university in Syria, she said that she would have been arrested and then
tortured. While reading "Burning Country", I discovered that you didn't
even have to be opposed to the regime to be tortured. What you read
below is from Robin Yassin-Kassab's blog and essentially what ended up
in "Burning Country".)
http://qunfuz.com/2013/09/14/azizs-story/
When I met Aziz Asaad, an activist from Selemiyyeh, across the Turkish
border in Antakya, I asked him why the community was so revolutionary,
why it hadn’t been scared into fencesitting or even grudging support for
Assad by the Islamist element of the opposition. His answer: “We read a
lot. We’ve always read books.”
Why did Selemiyyeh rise? For the same basic reason as the rest of Syria
– in reaction against the terrible decades-long oppression of the Assad
regime. Here, as illustration, is Aziz’s personal story.
When he was 19 he was a student of Information Systems Engineering, as
eager as any of his townsmen to earn academic qualifications. He was
also a young man with a passion for aeroplanes. When he met an Iraqi
ex-pilot he was spurred to research and write a long article on the role
of air power in the Iran-Iraq war. He managed to publish the article in
“Avions”, a specialist magazine in France.
That was his mistake. He thinks something in the article must have upset
the Iranians, Assad’s closest allies. He was arrested and tried for the
crimes of “seeking to undermine national unity, and the disclosure of
military information.” He was sentenced to two and a half years’
imprisonment. After the first year, and after paying a thousand-dollar
bribe, his parents were able to pay him a two-minute visit. During this
agonisingly brief encounter they were insulted by the guards, but at
least they knew their son was alive.
Aziz spent four months of his detention in solitary confinement, in the
dark. Mercifully, he forgot his sense of smell. Sight was irrelevant.
The cell was 90 cm wide and 180 cm long. It included a toilet and a tap.
The terrible humidity caused mould to grow on his skin. He caught
scabies from his filthy blanket. Sores filled with puss developed all
over his body. Unable to see, he explored these with his fingers.
How did he survive? By exercising his memory. He remembered his parents,
his brothers and sisters, his aunts and uncles, and he laughed and
cried. He was tormented by guilt for hurts he’d inflicted on his loved
ones, and moved to tears by their remembered kindnesses.
But imagination didn’t always help. One day (we can’t specify morning or
evening, because he had no way of distinguishing), Aziz awoke in great
pain. He touched his right shoulder. An insect emerged from the skin
there. He grasped the thing and judged it a cockroach, but it seemed
larger than a cockroach. For a timeless stretch after that he was
gripped by panic. He threw himself against the walls. He imagined his
face being eaten. When despairing calm returned, he considered suicide,
but could think of no way to commit the act: he could find nothing
sharp, nothing to make into a rope. These were the worst moments of his
life.
Some days later he was taken from the cell for yet another
interrogation. Because the interrogating officer couldn’t stand the
smell, he ordered hot water and Aziz was able to wash. In the light for
the first time, he had visual proof of his sores. The swellings,
particularly those in the abdomen and thighs, held the shapes of
subcutaneous worms.
At some point after that he was called again from the cell. Alcohol was
thrown on his body. It stung terribly, but he knew it would help to
cleanse his wounds. Then the guard brought out a lighter and set fire to
Aziz. Aziz ran. Aziz screamed.
This torture did in fact get rid of the parasites. Eventually Aziz was
moved to a shared cell, anointed with disinfectant in the mornings, and
placed two hours daily in the sun. Until his physical wounds had healed.
Some die. In September 2008 Aziz saw a young Christian man perish under
torture in the Faiha branch of the Political Security.
But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
“I bore it,” he says. “I told myself to be patient, that I would get out
and assert my rights some day or another. And the beautiful thing is, I
didn’t have to be patient for so long. Less than a year after my release
the revolution began.”
_________________________________________________________
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
