The aircraft was descending from Syrian skies toward Damascus, yet I was drifting in a space stripped of clarity, direction or grounding. My feelings, so tangled and unwieldy, moved between anxiety, worry, fear and restlessness, but also, at least as powerfully, toward curiosity, excitement and hope. There was a warmth, too, the kind that reaches the heart when one approaches an unfamiliar geography; and even if it seems contradictory, I carried within me what Baruch Spinoza describes as “a joy caused by an external reason.” Among this whirlwind of emotions, one certainty managed to surface: the feelings gathered in the negative department would remain dominant across the stretch of land from Damascus to Deir ez-Zor (Dêrazor), ruling on the throne where the postponed emotions of another kind had no choice but to wait. But after Deir ez-Zor, the positive ones would push the others aside, spreading across the edges of my heart like a floral Aleppo dress.
This awareness may not pour cold water on my heart, which, inside the plane whose wheels are about to touch the ground, has turned into a rhythm-struck maniac, but at least I can foresee this much. And I also know this: none of the emotional turbulence ruling my heart and soul by the force of its own nature comes from my imagination. Every sensation is clear, comprehensible, explainable with its causes, and rests on entirely objective ground. Every fear, every anxiety has well-known reasons, and the sea of bones belonging to more than a million people, right down there, beneath those shattered buildings, in corridors crushed by concrete slabs, on the bare surface of that scorched desert, spread openly across valleys and hills without even a hand’s width of earth to cover them, stands as its proof.
As we approach the customs counters to have our passports stamped and thus enter Syria, I want to observe the expression and demeanor of each officer, decide how they regard the people standing before them, and then choose my queue accordingly. But there is little opportunity to carry out this carefully calculated plan: the officer at the newly emptied counter immediately gestures to me with his finger and calls me over, saying in Turkish, “this way.” He tells me he lived in Mersin for two years, worked in a bakery, and according to him “loves Turks and their language very much.” Even so, the Turkish he speaks consists of a few words that sound as though they are stumbling out with a broken head, a bruised face, dripping with blood… Still, it does not matter. I am in no position to turn up my nose at someone who receives me warmly simply because I am a “Turk” arriving from Turkey.
*
As we drive deeper into Damascus with the friends who have come from Qamishlo to meet us, we pass row after row of ruined buildings. It is almost impossible to find a single structure within sight that has not been marked by bullets. The motorcycles weaving past us from every direction pull my mind back to videos from the war years. How do these machines even keep moving in this condition, I wonder. And the cars… some with their hoods permanently open, others with wires dangling from their sides, mufflers that erupt in small explosions from time to time, yet no one but me seems to find any of this strange.
As we leave the airport, I assume we are already headed toward Rojava. Instead, we move through the tightening streets of Damascus and turn into a dead-end alley. It is a hotel. We will be spending the night here.
– “Why are we not continuing on our way?”
– “It is getting late.”
– “What do you mean? It is only five.”
– “Darkness will fall soon, and taking this road in the dark is dangerous.”
Yes, you are right… During this short taxi ride I relaxed so much that I almost forgot this place endured one of the most violent wars of the century for nearly fifteen years. How quickly I managed to forget those videos of cars riddled with bullets at random, or of people gathered in groups and shot in the head without a single question asked.
Even though we are told that we should avoid going downstairs or stepping outside the hotel where we are spending the night, one of us, Azad, a journalist after all, insists on going out to eat. Those who know this culture even slightly know that humility runs through its bloodstream; so Raman, the friend responsible for receiving us, cannot refuse Azad. We step out into the street, planning to walk only a short distance, find the nearest restaurant, have our meal and return. But it does not end there. Once we breathe the air of the street, once we walk through the chaotic atmosphere of the avenues, a sense of ease begins to spread through all of us, relief, perhaps even growing confidence. We reach a main boulevard, crossing from one side to the other, where state institutions from the previous regime still stand. The Cinema and Theatre building looms tall, occupying both sides of an intersection, directly across from the Central Bank. Yet the entrance to this cultural complex has been blocked by a massive steel barrier that surrounds the entire junction.
Huge luxury hotels rise behind partially lit garden walls, with music drifting down from rooftop terraces, this must be the main gathering place of Syria’s bourgeoisie. And indeed it is. Staff members, clearly accustomed to their work, greet well-dressed men stepping out of luxury jeeps alongside heavily made-up women. But as we make our way back toward the hotel, turning off the boulevard, we return once more to chaos, destruction and poverty. Between two streets, we cross between two different eras, two different societies two different civilizations.
*
We prepare to leave early in the morning. Outside, an Arab driver is waiting for us. He does not speak Kurdish, and none of us speak Arabic. According to our guide Raman, there are “small-scale clashes” near Raqqa, which means the shorter route is closed; we will have to go through Deir ez-Zor instead. That adds two more hours to the usual travel time, giving us roughly seven and a half hours on the road.
Never mind… it is still early in the day, and under normal circumstances we should be able to reach Qamishlo by early afternoon. But every road has its own “list of excuses.” Had we traveled through Raqqa, we would have rehearsed one set of explanations; on this route, we must memorize another, answers to be repeated at Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) checkpoints. From the outskirts of Damascus all the way to Palmyra, we will tell the Asayish checkpoints that we are “going to Palmyra.” After Palmyra, all the way to the Deir ez-Zor gate, where a bridge hangs over the Euphrates like a ruined tomb, we will say we are “visiting Deir ez-Zor.” Fine. Our Arab driver is confident he can handle all of this on his own. The man’s self-assurance is overflowing. Perhaps if one of us had been the one to survive this war instead of him, we too might think, “I escaped ISIS alive what is telling a few lies to HTS police compared to that? Child’s play.”
We set off… and this Damascus makes yesterday’s Damascus seem merciful by comparison. Bullet marks are the least of it; entire buildings along the road have been reduced to skeletons. I saw the destruction in Maraş, Adıyaman and Hatay, I worked in that hell and even there I did not witness devastation on this scale. Layers of concrete blocks piled on top of one another, buildings held up by a few slanted columns as if by accident; everything else: trees, buildings, bridges, overpass towers, anything that was meant to remain standing, has either bent toward the earth or collapsed entirely. Once we leave Damascus and enter what they call the “Damascus Countryside,” the drive toward the ancient city of Palmyra feels almost normal, perhaps because there is nothing left here that could be destroyed. No trees, no buildings, only checkpoints set kilometers apart, with small huts built for the officers, some concealed behind mounds of earth raised just high enough to serve as cover.
After some distance from Damascus, we stop in a small settlement in front of a makeshift hut. “Cofi?” the driver asks, circling his thumb and index finger in the air as though stirring sugar into tea. We brighten at the gesture. After each of us drinks a bitter coffee, we continue on our way. Saytare follows saytare, checkpoint after checkpoint, where, every now and then, policemen ask the driver to open the trunk; he opens it, and we move on. Our driver, meanwhile, spends the entire journey switching between WhatsApp voice notes, phone calls, text messages, and whenever he finds the slightest moment, scrolling through Instagram videos. Paradoxical as it may seem, his ease gives us an extraordinary sense of confidence. Clearly, there is nothing to be worried about; everything is in order, and this is simply the way things work here…
When we reach the ancient city of Palmyra, we realize, from the vehicles pulling up beside us, that we are traveling in a small convoy alongside three carloads of festival guests. Palmyra, this ancient settlement, this marvel of art and architecture, a city placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980, stands largely in ruins. I remember watching, in horror at the time, the videos of how ISIS destroyed it, how the tombs, the shrines, the vaults, the arches, and that breathtaking architecture were shattered under sledgehammers. Even though it now resembles a wasteland, you can feel, in every fragment, the civilizational weight this city once carried. You can almost imagine how each stone had been shaped with the design of a temple in mind. Aside from a local man leading his camel by the stirrup into the city square, and a young boy selling bracelets of brightly colored stones, there is no one, no structure, no order… Only a place abandoned to its fate.
*
The most extraordinary photograph of this journey is the city of Deir ez-Zor. Even before entering it, you sense immediately that this place resembles neither Damascus nor Palmyra. To speak of destruction feels redundant; this city is an act of resistance, a testament to sheer willpower, a place that manages to remain half-standing on its knees. If one building is intact, the structure beside it has served as its shield and now stands as a mere skeleton. The final threshold of this city is a river. The Euphrates… a river that seems to split the country in two, religious fanaticism on one side, the values of democracy on the other. A mother who has fed life from one breast and death from the other…
At the last checkpoint before reaching the river, no one is detained. Perhaps they believe there is nothing left here to control. We cross to the other side on a makeshift bridge, planks laid across enormous half-plastic pipes. We have not yet stepped off the bridge, but the moment it becomes clear that we have left the territory controlled by HTS, we learn that Raman, the friend responsible for receiving us, has called our driver. He puts the phone on speaker, and we hear a voice say into the microphone: “Hûn bi xêr hatin Kurdistanê.” (Welcome to Kurdistan.) We are in Kurdistan now. We are, at last, on free soil.
Source: Yeni Özgur Politika