Recovered archive. Dates, ages, roles and announcements reflect the original publication; they are not current updates.
This contribution by Dianthus is a striking, truthful and sad re-examination of the narrative describing the new Syria. It proposes a new glossary for anyone wishing to understand what is happening there.
These “new words” describe a lost generation, young people without a future, and the complete disconnect between governments, donors and the media on one side, and the daily resilience people must practise in every aspect of life on the other.
Written with irony and despair, it describes machinery that, deliberately or inadvertently, seeks to tame Syrian civil society and people, making them accept the absurdity of life without freedom, services or opportunities. International organisations operating in Syria do not escape Dianthus’s critical gaze, which exposes the dismal usefulness of their “capacity-building” programmes.
“In this article, I write about everything we do not wish to read, and name everything we do not wish to acknowledge, to create a deeper understanding of the reality we young Syrians live today.”
Dianthus is the pseudonym of a young Syrian, part activist and part writer, living in a regime-held area.
Everyone knows Arabic is one of the world’s most complex languages. To preserve its coherent structure, new words have rarely been admitted to its dictionary. Colloquial Arabic, however, keeps pace with change, naming new situations and products by adapting words as pronounced in other languages or relating them to similar meanings.
Take “allawi”, an adjective for anything modern, revolutionary and different. Many find it irritating because it derives from the word “Allah”. Yet for years it was a favourite among Syrian young people: “What an allawi party!” If I had to translate it, the English equivalent would be “dope”.
New words have also emerged for Syria’s new reality. “Habd”, a familiar Egyptian word meaning exaggeration and lying when telling a story, means shells in Syrian dialect. Another is “dabj”, which sounds like something a three-year-old invented for a loud noise but means different kinds of attacks. It is inconvenient to distinguish artillery strikes, “habd”, from air strikes, “qasf”. Syrians therefore use “dabj” for all ground and aerial bombardment, sparing themselves fear of threats from any side in the conflict. “Qasf” seems to accuse the Syrian regime; “habd” points towards armed groups. “Dabj” is thus a peaceful choice for everyone, referring to attacks without implying who caused them.
These words spread rapidly and without controversy because they were necessary to describe Syrians’ terrifying circumstances. But what about the terrifying situations nobody wants to describe? Do those have names?
In this article I will write about everything we do not want to read, and name everything whose existence we do not want to admit.
My aim is not to upset you, dear reader, but to sound a first wake-up call to humanitarian organisations working in Syria and build deeper understanding of our reality as today’s young people. Perhaps this can begin a new friendship with Syrians abroad and foreigners and offer more precise tools for describing our lives.
Waithood — a blend of “wait” and “adulthood”
Literally translated into Arabic, this English word would mean an “age of waiting”.
Wikipedia defines it as a period of stagnation in the lives of unemployed university graduates in developing countries, particularly the Middle East, North Africa and India, whose skills are not yet widely needed or applicable. It describes a kind of prolonged adolescence, a bewildering time when many young people spend their best years waiting, their difficulties producing debilitating helplessness and dependence.
You would be surprised how few career options currently exist. Apart from state jobs paying fifty cents a day, there are non-profit organisations. But their changing priorities in Syria — relief, livelihoods, empowerment programmes and so on, according to Syrian circumstances and global trends — send young people chasing the current, jumping from one job to another and leaving with only superficial experience, often unrelated to their university degree.
“If I had started this job straight after secondary school, I would do it just as well as I do now.”
That was my friend’s comment on the connection between her agricultural engineering degree and her current non-profit job.
Living through this stage myself, I could not describe it for years. I seem to have worked for seven years, yet even now I know I have no single specific skill to work with. Everything I have done feels like bubbles that will disappear as soon as I leave Syria.
Retraining the already qualified
You will notice the irony in the name. It is intentional! I do not pretend to agree with organisations’ programmes in Syria, and I do not think their excessive use of “empowerment” has anything to do with empowerment.
Every day we hear of another leadership-building programme. There are so many that I have sorted them into groups.
Hypnosis
These programmes work for adolescents or people from social groups that have suffered less than others. They offer leadership training full of colourful sticky notes, positivity and fun, discussing self-expression, citizenship and development. None of this is bad, but the programmes address no real problem. They carefully avoid every taboo, providing neither real knowledge nor skills development in any area, while giving participants a naïve view of things.
How does it end? Everyone smiles for the camera against a colourful background. For years afterwards, they repeat how important the Sustainable Development Goals are without knowing how to take a single step towards them, until frustration finally sets in.
I have always compared the Sustainable Development Goals to Power Rangers, the American programme we watched in the 1990s: colourful, funny and ridiculous. Even children do not believe things will end like that.
Brainwashing
Congratulations! You have attended so many hypnosis programmes, or worked for a relief organisation so long, that your brain has been thoroughly washed and you genuinely believe something useful is being offered!
“Everything under the heading ‘Syria’ automatically disappears when you apply for a job abroad!”
So said my friend, who had worked as an officer for an organisation in Syria before going to Britain for a master’s degree, only to find herself working as an intern after graduation.
I do not know whether the reason is our bad reputation or the limited usefulness of what we do inside Syria. The only certainty is that our efforts carry little weight abroad.
Thinking about it, I imagine how different our lives would be if the UN Development Programme built a new power station instead of endless interactive theatre programmes, campaigns against violence against women and similar activities. However impressive on camera, according to those implementing them they have achieved nothing to date: not a single centre for abused women, juvenile rehabilitation facility, orphanage or real helping hand.
An introduction to spying
This is my name for the more sophisticated programmes, which speak more boldly about reality and encourage young people to speak and criticise rather than merely receive information. Ultimately, however, they carry considerable danger and secrecy. Their agendas are often unknown, and young people are drawn towards objectives most do not understand. They also worship diversity: each programme is supposed to assemble a diverse sample of society, with at least one person from each group. This raises questions about collecting data and obtaining inside information on Syria.
Sippenhaft or Sippenhaftung — liability of relatives, or collective punishment
Allow me to borrow this German term. It means that a family or clan shares responsibility for a crime or act committed by one member.
It derives from medieval Germanic law, usually involving fines and compensation. Nazi Germany adopted it to justify punishing relatives or a spouse for a family member’s crime, often through imprisonment and execution.
Old as it is, the term has returned with the Syrian regime’s latest laws authorising state seizure of parents’ and siblings’ property if someone avoiding compulsory military service fails to pay the fee normally exempting him.
The law allows the state to collect the payment forcibly from the young man’s relatives, whether he is inside Syria or abroad.
One word saves you lines of explanation about the systematic theft of recent years in Syria, where our government no longer even seeks a legal formula to justify its actions.
Dark comedy
Dark comedy, or black humour, treats taboo, serious or painful subjects: making fun of tragedy or joking about people’s misfortunes.
The term is familiar to many. Here, however, I want to discuss why we should not use it.
Why? Because using dark comedy is simply a lack of empathy.
Recently, social media posts supposedly condemning Syria’s poor conditions have instead shown insulting disrespect.
A Syrian teacher living in the Gulf posted that a teacher’s salary back home would buy him a plate of middling sweets. A Syrian doctor in Germany wrote that Syrian doctors’ salaries would buy him poor-quality socks and two masks.
Despite good intentions, posts like these cause frustration, especially when Syrian doctors and teachers face disease, poverty and ignorance as well as coronavirus. Instead of appreciation, they find their salaries mocked.
Perhaps we cannot blame our people for dark humour. They grew up watching Yasser al-Azmeh’s series and Spotlight, which constantly mocked Syria’s tight governmental and intelligence grip, portraying pre-crisis reality with bitter humour.
Strangely, the stars of those series were among the first to side with the regime when the Syrian revolution broke out. Is that not true dark comedy?
An emotional ceasefire
You will not find this term on Google, but we need to invent it! It neatly describes what many young people experience today. Amid every kind of collapse, from exchange rates to mental health, carrying on without succumbing to madness or medication seems almost impossible.
Every day, what remains of your reason cries out: “Please see a psychiatrist.” But another queue outside a psychiatrist’s clinic, added to the queues for bread, tea and sugar, is hardly appealing. Frankly, we have had enough of sitting and lamenting for hours with nothing to show for it.
Amid all this, many have made a pact with themselves: “I will deal with my psychological problems tomorrow, when things improve.” Here, we cannot afford the luxury of breaking down.
Conclusion
Although I devised these terms to describe the exceptional conditions Syrians endure, I hope they disappear along with all these unfortunate circumstances and worthless programmes. Until then, I hope this article has illuminated Syria’s bitter reality and helped people outside it understand.
