By Stephen Glain, July 2005.
Two months after the publication of this feature, my family and I were forced into exile with my family. The article itself was not the problem, at issue were the activities and statements to which the article referred. The entire article can be read at this link. These are the paragraphs that related to me: Continue reading “Smithsonian Magazine: Syria at a Crossroads”
This is the study that I have prepared during my first stint as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution (July-December 2004). Though completed, the study was never published by Brookings, it was simply too whimsical to pass as a policy paper, and although I had permission to publish it elsewhere while acknowledging that it was prepared at Brookings, I got too caught up with the activities of the Tharwa Project and my the interrogations I faced upon my return to Syrian to follow up on this. Continue reading “Brother/Sister, Where Art Thou?”
But my family was with me, walking right there beside me, Khawla, Oula and Mouhannad, they were there too looking and feeling as different as I do. I am definitely not alone anymore and I do have something now that I can and do belong to.
My son, Mouhannad, blames me for my dissident (or should I say dissonant?) activities, because they tend to endanger me (and as such us), and for what?, he asks. Most people here wouldn’t even like me (or us) or what I (we) represent.
He’s right, of course.
But what choices do I really have? Do I shake my head in a sign of sorrow and let a sad smile paints itself on my face and murmur some apologetic words regarding the foolishness of the human race? I am not that old yet. I don’t know if I will ever be that old.
Staying here, my wife says, you most probably won’t live to be that old.
She’s right, of course.
Pouting Ola is right too.
Everyone’s right these days. Perhaps even me.
But it is probably about time for me to be right differently. There are other ways of doing the right thing, and other places.
Indeed.
