Wake Me Up

I saw my mom crying for the third time in my life yesterday.

She was fourteen years old when the 1982 Hama massacre took place in front of her eyes. Tanks casually drove by like cars through the streets, running over any moving object without hesitation. She silently watched in fear as tyrants robbed her neighbors of their young lives. Trapped inside her home for one month straight, her entire life was put on hold. My grandparents lived in a house on a corner that had an excellent view of multiple streets, so the soldiers decided to barge into their home and claim it as their own. They kicked my grandparents, mother, and three of her siblings into one of the smallest rooms in the house, and roamed the rest of the house as they wished. They ate their food, used their bathrooms, and slept on their couches. My mother and her sisters had to be guarded by their father whenever they left to the bathroom, fearing that they would be raped if left alone with those immoral soldiers. They could not even feel safe under the roof of their own home.

My mother told me the story of how one day she peered past the window curtain to look at the tank on the street. She watched it slowly turn in her direction and shoot. I cannot even imagine the fear that must have suddenly shot through her body at that moment. This was daily life for the Hama residents for the entire month of February.

Then one day the regime decided to gather all of the men in the entire city. No one knows what happened to them; they never returned.

I have seen with my eyes the re-built entryway to my grandmother’s home that was knocked over by the tanks. I have heard the stories of uncles and cousins who were forced to stand along walls and then were shot to death. I have watched my mom shiver every time she hears a war scene in a movie or video game.

Buried under time, these horrific memories are slowly creeping up again. History repeats itself, and a massacre is occurring once again in Syria. However, this time the massacre is being ordered by Bashar Al-Assad, the son of the murderous Hafez Al-Assad. The Assads refuse to give up their forty-year rule over the country. Bashar will do whatever it takes, killing 40,000 innocent civilians like his father if necessary, in order to stay in control.

The Syrian people are now back on the streets peacefully protesting for their freedom. However, this means that the nightmare has returned. Tanks are now roaming streets that I remember walking through, crushing entire families without hesitation. Sixty, ninety, one hundred; have we become immune to the number of deaths each day? The stories coming out of the country are horrifying. Unrecognizable bodies of fathers, sons, or daughters, returned on doorsteps blue and black with bruises. Those who are brave enough to deliver food to cities are shot dead on their routes. Doctors watching people die in their hands, unable to help them because of the lack of medical supplies. Disturbing pictures my cousin sends me of bullets she has found in her high school classroom. YouTube videos of my nineteen-year old cousin helplessly passed out on the ground, bleeding from his head.

Why is the world still quiet? I feel like this is a nightmare, and I am just waiting for someone to wake me up. The news on the television always hits harder when you have a personal connection to it.

I hate feeling so helpless.

Please God protect Syria. Please God protect Hama. Please God protect my family. Please God end this all, and eliminate the treacherous Assad family from the Syrian government for good.

- Iman