MARCH 2021
These days, conventional wisdom holds that the conflict in Syria has been decided. The war is over. Bashar al-Assad and his regime won with the help of Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah; the opposition, the Kurds, and ISIS were defeated. Sure, some nasty things did happen, but it’s time to move on and rebuild the country.
Turns out, conventional wisdom is not particularly wise. This war is not over. The killings have not stopped. The chemical gassings, the cluster bombs, the executions, the torture, the human trafficking, the annihilation of entire villages—they all continue. For millions of trapped Syrians, the nightmare never ends. For others, however, this war has been a godsend. A small group of privileged men connected to the regime through family or business have amassed unimaginable fortunes as they control the war economy, trading everything—food, medicine, fuel, heating oil, drugs, weapons, prisoners, young girls—and looting the destroyed cities for scrap metal, copper, steel, and anything of value. Like in all wars, the only ones left are a few extremely rich individuals and many extremely poor people. Everyone in between has been wiped out. Yes, the war economy is alive and well, and this war will last as long as that remains the case.
Most conversations about the war—policy debates, comments to news reports, pleas for help or intervention—tend to trigger those same disinterested, bored reactions: Can we please talk about something else? There’s nothing we can do, and besides, that’s just the way things are in the Middle East. Savages killing savages. Why is that our problem? And what about Yemen? Libya? Afghanistan? Chechnya? Congo? Why keep talking about Syria?
Usually I walk away from these discussions. But once in a while I persist, and in those moments I invariably hear those two dreadful words: Who cares?
Let’s see if I can take a stab at answering that question.
Umm Majed, whose husband was tortured to death—she cares. Said, whose wife, four children, parents, and mother-in-law were killed in a cluster bomb—he cares. Manal, whose father and brother were executed and whose decapitated torsos were returned to her only after the payment of a huge bribe—she cares. Rima, whose husband and two children were burned to death when they were trapped in their car after it hit a land mine—she cares. Mohammed, whose wife and daughter were raped and then executed—he cares. Aisha, whose husband committed suicide in prison after being told that his wife had been raped and shot—she cares. Omar and Laila, who were told to pick up the mutilated bodies of their twin sons in a dumpster behind the police station—they care. Hana, whose husband’s testicles were stuffed into his mouth after he was executed—she cares. Hussein and Amira, whose fourteen-year-old son’s heart stopped beating after twelve hours of continuous pounding and whipping—they care. Umm Farook, whose husband was taken in the middle of the night in October 2012 and who has been showing up at the police headquarters every morning and evening to ask about him, just to be laughed away by the guards—she cares. Nabil, whose parents were shot before his eyes and whose sister was taken and shipped to a brothel in Dubai—he cares. Owiss and Nana, whose twelve-year-old son was captured spraying free syria on a wall in the schoolyard and was beaten to death in the police van—they care. Abdullah, whose wife was caught giving water to a wounded protester and who swallowed acid after being raped for twenty straight days in prison—he cares. Abeer, whose infant twins died in her arms gasping for air after a chemical gas attack—she cares. Mimo (Mohammed), whose wife and six children died in a building that collapsed after a bomb raid—he cares. Ibrahim and Jamila, whose only child was killed by a stray bullet as she sat by the window—they care. Fatima, whose daughter died of an overdose when the packet of drugs she was forced to swallow in a transport for a drug gang tore in her stomach—she cares. Aliya and Rashid, whose daughter killed herself by jumping out a window in Dubai after three weeks of sex slavery—they care. Abu Sultan and Nadia, who could not recognize their sons’ faces when their bodies were returned to their home—they care. Zahra, whose teenage son was picked up on his way to school and beaten so badly that half his face was missing and his chest was caved in—she cares. Umm Ali, whose husband and two sons were lined up together with twenty other villagers, forced to dig their own graves, and shredded by machine-gun fire—she cares. Mubarak and Yara, whose infant twins froze to death in their arms after their home was pulverized in a mortar attack—they care. Maher, whose seventy-year-old mother was forced to kneel before her executioner and beg for mercy, just to be casually shot in the back of the head—he cares. Amira and Suhail, whose two-year-old daughter died of an ear infection because their city was under siege and had run out of antibiotics—they care. Haya, who has been waiting for her husband and three sons to return ever since they disappeared without a trace in January 2013—she cares.
That’s who cares.