"You can't imagine what we've seen."
I had a small dust-up with Vanessa Beeley in her comment section last week. It threw me back into Syria, once the world's biggest TV nightmare, still fucked but now forgotten.
I've never let Syria go. I've continued watching documentaries, my heart shredded like a worm in a lettuce. It's not the same as being on the ground, and Syria doesn't have much lettuce, but empathy's all I've got from my hole in South Africa.
Well, not quite, 'cause I've got this substack and you.
BE INSYRIATED
The Ukraine War vomited me out of silence. It's more significant geopolitically. I realised that at the beginning, and time has proven that true. Why else would everyone be staring at the BRICS Summit right now.
But that doesn't mean that places such as Syria should be ignored. It's as important as events in Iran, Niger, Yemen and Pakistan. It may be, after Ukraine, the second-most important destabilistion event. Just look at the players involved - Turkey, Russia, ISIS, 'Kurdistan', the USA, the Syrian Government, and a host of incomprehensible others.
It's too complicated a mess for me to figure out beyond ISIS sucks, and the USA should fuck away from Syria's oil fields. No matter which country makes the documentary, fair or biased, I'm a tear magnet to citizens trying to survive in a seemingly impossible situation.
Last week, I recommended '9 Days in Raqqa', a documentary about a young, brave woman whose trying to raise her city from the ashes.
Now it's the turn of a free, short documentary that was posted earlier this month. It’s called ‘Syria: Raqqa after the War’.
RAQQA AFTER THE WAR
Minesweepers seek ISIS traps. ISIS bribes locals with life over death. The military faces 200 attacks in one year.
2 prisons are raided, hundreds of Jihadists escape. 12,000 prisoners remain. That’s not counting the 50,000 in the "mini-Caliphate" tent camp called Al-Hawl.
An ostracised, poverty-stricken ISIS widow with kids says: "We don't live, we just eat enough not to die."
In the next 'chapter', I will share 'Earthquake Aleppo', the excellent suggestion from Beeley. Thereafter, a list of articles by cleverer people offering the chance at your own opinion.