Assad’s ‘forever’ rule is over

Assad’s ‘forever’ rule is over

Kareem Shaheen writes:

The last time I set foot on Syrian soil was in 2017, when I went to the town of Khan Sheikhun to report on a chemical attack carried out by the now-deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad. I remember sitting next to a man named Abdul Hamid al-Youssef, who had buried his wife and two infant children a day earlier. They had choked on poison gas while he rushed to help the wounded, fainting and waking up in a nearby hospital.

One of those attending their memorial service told him a story from one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. On Judgment Day, all people will have to cross a bridge called “al-Sirat” that stretches over hell and leads to paradise. Evil people will stumble and fall while, for the good, that bridge will widen into an avenue to cross at their leisure. But for those who lose their children young and persevere, their little ones will be reincarnated as winged angels who fly them across the bridge.

Al-Youssef emerged from his grief-induced stupor: “And my wife will be there too? And their cousins?”

As I stood afterward in front of the cinnamon-colored earth of the hastily made family graveyard, I thought back to that story. I felt almost ashamed that I had spoken to him of his grief, because I knew in my heart of hearts that he was never going to experience justice in this world. He would have to wait until the afterlife. That was the true succor of that story. Only in death, and only if there is a God, would justice be served. Too many unknowns. I hadn’t the heart to contemplate it. I wrote the essay and moved on, as I had done countless times, after speaking to refugees, victims of barrel bomb attacks, victims of the Islamic State group, victims of one of the most brutal totalitarian police states ever conceived by humanity.

Now, though? Now? The very prospect that justice is conceivable, that the arc of the moral universe endures, that there is a light that was always there at the end of the tunnel, if only you squinted amid the enveloping dark? I cannot quite conceive of the words. [Continue reading…]

Print this post
Comments are closed.