This is a conversation with Wafa Mustafa, a Berlin-based Syrian journalist.

We spoke about her father, Ali Mustafa, who was forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime on July 2nd 2013. Wafa highlights the fact that those who are forcibly disappeared are often depoliticized and coated in ‘humanitarian’ language. We spoke about how she participated in the 2011 uprising and how her activism actually started from sooner. We also spoke about her journey from Syria to Turkey and then Berlin, about dealing with and talking about depression, and about her next projects.

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Music by Tarabeat.

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Additional links

• The documentary mentioned is ‘Erased, Ascent of the Invisible’ by Ghassan Halwani. I wrote about it which you can read here.
• Her appearance on the Branch 251 podcast, which I recommend.
• The Syria Campaign – Why refugees can’t return to Syria
• Die Bärliner – Wafa Mustafa: The Story Behind The Name
• GWI – Boell: Wafa Mustafa: Wer steckt hinter diesem Namen?
• The National: How one woman’s missing father inspired her to fight for justice for Syria
• Huffington Post: The Day I Lost My Father, My Country And My Home

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Transcript via Antidote Zine:

If they are alive, then we want them free. If they are not, we want justice for them. But first of all, we all deserve to know the fate of our loved ones.

Wafa Mustafa: My name is Wafa Mustafa; I am a Syrian journalist and activist, and I live in Berlin. I just graduated, after twelve years. 

Elia J. Ayoub: Conratulations, first of all.

I first heard about you on Twitter, through the photos you’ve been posting of yourself in Koblenz, Germany, where the world’s first criminal trial dealing with atrocities committed the Syrian regime is being held. In the photos you’ve been posting, you’re usually holding photos of your father, or sometimes of other Syrians who have been forcibly disappeared. I recognize some of the faces, although not all of them.

Let’s start with your father, if that’s okay. Your father has been in Assad’s prisons for seven years now; just recently you commemorated the seventh year. For those who don’t know, can you tell us a bit about him and what happened?

WM: On the second of July, my dad completed seven years and one day, but today he completes 2,573 days. I don’t think “arrested” is the right word, but he was forcibly disappeared on the second of July, 2013. He was at our home in Damascus while the other part of the family lived in Masyaf, our hometown, which is in the middle of Syria. 

Before that, we used to live together, me and my dad, for a few months. He moved from Masyaf to Damascus because it was less pressure for him; Masyaf is quite a small town, and he was arrested twice before that. It was difficult for him. So a few months before he got arrested for the third time, he decided to move to Damascus; it’s a little bit more relaxing. 

On that day, I wasn’t home, I was in Masyaf. He and my mom weren’t meeting for a while, and then he suggested, in a very romantic gesture—my dad finds it hard to express his feelings, but he called my mom and said, Why don’t you come and we spend some time together? Everyone was quite scared of traveling, because everyone was being kidnapped, everyone was being arrested from checkpoints. So my mom didn’t really like to travel a lot, but it was just the right moment so she did.

She prepared a lot of stuff—his favorite food, clothes—and then she went there. And if I am to describe exactly what happened: I was asleep in Masyaf, and my mom called, and said, Can you call your dad? And I just knew. I called him, and he didn’t respond. 

Usually I tell the story from my mom’s perspective, but this time I’m telling it from my perspective. 

Anyway, I kept calling him, and he never responded. And you know, we don’t really say stuff on the phone in Syria, but my mom was that desperate, and she said, I’m calling him and he’s not responding,and the neighbor said that a group of armed men attacked the house; she heard noises and voices and stuff, and then she saw him on the stairs with this group of men—and also with another man who turned out to be my dad’s best friend. He’s the same person who, a year later, his family was told that he was killed under torture.

My mom actually waited for a few hours there; she was too scared to go upstairs. She waited for my aunt to come. And then they went there, and everything was broken; she couldn’t recognize anything. And that’s it. From her perspective, she called him fifteen minutes before she arrived, and she said, I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes, and he told her, I cleaned the house, everything is perfect and I’m waiting for you, and that was it.

EA: Horrible. Is your mom with you in Germany now?

WM: No, unfortunately. My mom and my youngest sister are in Canada now, and I have a younger sister in the US.

EA: One detail that I remember you mentioned on the Branch 251 podcast is that your father had told you to immediately leave the country in case this happened. Just a few days later, you and your family were already on your way to Turkey, with pretty much nothing on you. Did I get the timeline correct? This was in July 2013?

WM: Yes. My dad told me this from the very beginning of the revolution, and every family member told their families that they should do so. Because it is the situation in Syria: if anyone gets arrested, then the rest of the family will definitely get arrested, to put pressure on this person—and especially women. And we don’t have any boys in the family, so it is even more sensitive. Also, I’d been arrested before, so we have a record; it was more dangerous for us.

When my dad told me this for the first time, I almost laughed. This tells you something: every time we talked about detention with my dad, every time someone got detained, you would never imagine that this would happen to you, or to your family. Every time we talked about it, I was very sad for them and stuff, very scared—but it didn’t come to my mind at any point. Even when I said sometimes, Okay, so my dad might get arrested, or I might get arrested, I said it for the sake of saying it. I didn’t actually imagine. 

Sometimes I still—when I was in Koblenz in the middle of all these photos, when I saw my dad’s photo I was shocked for a second: But why is my dad…? It’s not something that we accept. Obviously I’m trying, not to accept, but to somehow find a way to deal with it. But every morning I wake up, and: Wait a second, where am I? Why do I have a photo…? I had never had a photo of my dad nearby my bed, so every time I wake up now, I’m like, Wait, what? Why do I have a photo of my dad here?

All families, everyone has they’re own way of dealing with it, or to feel towards stuff. But I’m sure that it’s never easy, it’s never something that you accept or believe—even after fifty years, a hundred years.

EA: If I’m not mistaken, the photo you would be holding is a photo where you were with him.

WM: This is a very sad thing. My dad is not a fan of being in photos, being photographed. And I was the same, somehow. And I realized this after he disappeared: I realized that this was the only photo of me and him after I grew up. I have no other photos. Sometimes when I post the same photos again, it breaks my heart. Because I don’t have other photos.

EA: We mentioned the trial in Koblenz. Can you talk about what the trial represents, what it is about? 

Also, if I’m not mistaken, you are part of Families for Freedom. What is that group about?

WM: The trial is—in Germany now, two former officials from al-Khatib branch in Syria, which is one of the many branches ruled by the intelligence in Syria…it’s very desperate that many branches are called “death branches,” but everyone is desperate to show the world how bad the situation is. But al-Khatib was very famous for its bad reputation. So these two persons, who fled to Germany years ago, are now being prosecuted and accused of cases of killing under torture, of detaining people and depriving them of their freedom, and even cases of sexual assault.

It started towards the end of April. I’d been following the news; even before it started I knew about it, because it started in Berlin. So I am here and I am trying to follow the news. I’ve been following this, and when it started officially, it was a very confusing moment. It is very emotional for us, for everyone as Syrians, to see, to know that some criminals are being prosecuted. This is the first layer, which made us very emotional, and quite—not happy; I don’t really use the word “happy,” but maybe satisfied at some level.

In the beginning I was just trying to process the news and everything, and I wasn’t sure how I was feeling. But at one point, I said, I want to go there, but I don’t just want to attend the sessions as someone who wants to witness this moment. I also want to take my dad with me. Because he’s the one who deserves to witness this moment.

Then, as I am part of Families for Freedom, a women-led movement whose relatives and loved ones are all disappeared (by Assad, by ISIS, or by groups following the opposition, unfortunately)—what we do as a group of women is, we go everywhere and we don’t only tell our stories (this is something I’m very proud of), we actually resist being presented as or acting as victims. At some level we are victims, obviously, but we don’t act according to that, because this means that at some point we’ll just accept to do the least we can. We’re trying to do our best. 

We’re active on many levels. We’re active on a political level: we meet politicians and decisionmakers; we talk to them; we have clear demands and visions. We also do events to raise awareness regarding the nature of detention in Syria. We approach the public in many different ways. We also have our own approach to support and bring families of detainees together, to make this movement stronger.

So as a member of Families for Freedom, I suggested to the group that I want to go there, and take my dad’s photo, and the photos we have of detainees whose families sent us them last year. Because of COVID-19, other members of the group couldn’t join in, but suggested we make it like this: I go alone. When we were going there, I didn’t have anything in mind. On the way I was just thinking, Okay, I believe that people who deserve most to witness this moment are these detainees. That was the point.

My first day there, I spent like six, seven hours sitting in front of the courthouse, and in my mind, everything developed there, sitting there, talking to people, seeing people, seeing the photos of these detainees all together. Eventually I realized why I was going there: first, to say, Yes, this is a very important, very crucial moment in the very long, exhausting, difficult way towards justice in Syria. This is the first step. I would like to recognize that, but also I would like to emphasize that this is not justice.

Somehow it is, when people are so desperate—the trial was somehow presented as: That’s it, this is the moment of justice, which is quite dangerous. Because this means that it will make us somehow relax and feel like, Yes, we’ve achieved something. It is obviously an achievement for all those Syrians, all those witnesses and survivors who stepped forward and said, Yes, we want to talk about it; we want to prosecute these people. But it is just the first step.

The most important aspect of the trial, I believe, is that it emphasizes once again that what we should all do is work together to release detainees. I’ve repeated this many times. It’s not acceptable that I wait for my dad—no actually, I wait for the regime to tell me that my dad is dead, and then I go to a German or a French court and prosecute the Assad regime? I don’t accept this. This is not what we want. 

If they are alive, then we want them free. If they are not, we want justice for them. But first of all, we all deserve to know the fate of our loved ones.

A lot happened there; now I have a huge memory about Koblenz and everything that happened there. To be honest, the most overwhelming part was the families of detainees. I could never imagine that it will mean that much to the families of people who appeared in the photos. I cannot even describe it. I spent days just trying to respond to people sending me photos of me holding their loved ones’ photos and saying Thank you for doing this. This is something I cannot even describe.

People also approached me to say, Why didn’t you take my loved one’s photo? It was a lot, to be honest, and it is still a lot. This is why the third time I went there, we went with more people and also with more photos. Through the page of Families for Freedom, we asked people to send us their loved ones’ photos if they want, and that we want to hold them again in Koblenz. And in four days, we got sixty more photos.

I couldn’t imagine that. How desperate are people, to be that happy only because they saw their detained and disappeared loved ones’ photos in front of a courthouse? I guess it says a lot.

EA: How many days did you stay in Koblenz?

WM: I went three times, on different dates. The first time, I spent two days. Every time I go there, we go in front of the court at around seven, seven-thirty in the morning until three, four, sometimes we stay until five. It depends on when the session ends. The first time we went, it was crazy warm; the next time it was raining, there were storms. In my mind, the scene of Koblenz is very dense and overwhelming.

EA: I’m from Lebanon, so I know some people who still have loved ones who are “officially” forcibly disappeared from the war—we’re talking about a very long time, since the seventies and eighties. A few years ago, in 2014, I was invited by an NGO to meet a family in Shatila whose two sons were forcibly disappeared in the south—the details are a bit a hazy in mind. I was asked because I was blogging, and the NGO wanted people to blog about it to raise awareness. 

What I remember from that meeting, that moment (it must have been two hours in total), is the mother; I still remember the father being very paralyzed, he wasn’t talking. We can describe it as PTSD, probably. The mother was the one talking to me, and she kept on giving me the photo, repeatedly. I remember this breaking my heart, because obviously I couldn’t do anything about it; I was just blogging. But that was the closest thing to recognition that she had. 

There is an equivalent group in Lebanon to Families for Freedom, but it’s very different, because it’s no longer seen as an “ongoing problem.” That’s a huge problem in Lebanon, and that’s why I want to link it. You probably know this, but in Lebanon, when the war ended in 1990, it ended under very bad conditions, in the sense that all of the warlords came together. It was under Hafez al-Assad’s control, essentially, that it happened; they came together and basically decided to stop the war, with the Taif agreement—but that came with an amnesty.

The amnesty was for the majority of all the crimes committed during the war, with the exception of crimes committed against religious or political leaders. All the other crimes, which is the vast majority of the crimes, were exempted from prosecution. This is how the nineties were in Lebanon. What this translated into is that the families, the people who still have loved ones, relatives, friends who are  “officially” missing, almafqudeen—there’s no legal recourse for them to do anything, because the crime is no longer legally a crime.

My fear has always been that this is what the powers-that-be will try to do with Syria. That’s why I’m very grateful that you and Families for Freedom, and of course many others, are not accepting this “compromise.” I would even say that today, even though it’s 2020, it’s still a threat; if they do these “peace negotiations,” this is something they might agree on at some point, and this is something we must be very careful about and resist. Exactly like you said: not accepting anything other than justice and to know what happened—and if we do know what happened, to have repercussions and accountability.

Because the lack of accountability is the main story of the war in Lebanon, and unfortunately, on a much wide scale, in Syria as well.

WM: I totally agree. There are attempts to deal with detention and enforced disappearance in Syria—we just heard that now they are like “hostages;” this is something that has been said during peace negotiations! They are using the fact that people are so desperate, people are so tired, that they might accept anything. Okay, we’ll release them because they are hostages. This is very dangerous. I understand why a lot of us might not realize how dangerous it is, and what that means, but now this is actually being promoted in Syria!

Just two weeks ago, the Civil Defense in Syria launched a campaign called “Not Hostages,” to say that this is not acceptable.Those are detainees—they’re not even “prisoners.” The terms…sadly we’ve developed this knowledge—I wish we’d developed it in different circumstances, but we’ve developed the knowledge of the difference between these terms: when they say “prisoners,” what that means, and when they say “hostages,” what that means.

The fight in Syria, the battle, is also over narratives. Terms are very crucial in that.

EA: Can you tell us the difference between the words, for those who don’t know?

WM: In my very humble knowledge, it is related mostly to the reason for which people are detained, arrested, or imprisoned. I hope that lawyers and experts will correct me if I’m wrong, but if you just say “prisoners” and not “political prisoners,” it suggests they are not imprisoned for political reasons. What I understand from the context of Syria is that this suggests their families might have access to them and might know their fate and where they are, their whereabouts.

But we use the term “detained” or “enforced/forcibly disappeared” when someone is arrested for reasons related to the revolution, or for political reasons, and they are definitely not arrested by an order from an actual authority, a judge or whatever. These are things committed by the intelligence; they are not actually a formal entity. It is all committed by them, and it also means that the families are deprived of the right to know—even before talking about the right to know where they are, we are deprived to know that they were actually taken by this entity or that branch.

Sometimes I say that my dad has been forcibly disappeared, and people say, So you call him? I know it’s complicated, and the nature of detention is different from one place to another, but I try to say I don’t even know who kidnapped him and why, or if he’s still alive or not. This applies for enforced disappearance.

In “detention,” it is somehow different, but I’m not sure. I don’t want to say something I’m not sure of. “Hostages” suggests that there is a war between two parties, and some people who had nothing to do with anything were taken by one party, and Now we want to solve it, so let’s just give people back to their families. 

Which is not the case! One thing I insist on all the time is that my dad was political. Many people in Syria were arrested for different reasons; sometimes because their names were close to others’ names. But I insist we shouldn’t be—especially in the context of European discussion, it is somehow pushed to the point where we just talk about them as victims, that they haven’t done anything. We don’t talk about the reasons for what happened, we just say that there are missing people in Syria. 

No! They are missing, obviously, but they are not missing in this sense. My dad was aware of everything he was doing; my dad was political; he was not just kidnapped randomly. He was kidnapped and arrested because he demanded things.

Most of the time I’m asked to talk about detention and detainees in a “humanitarian” context—I don’t even know what that means! Let’s not talk about politics; let’s just talk about the suffering of families…this is something I fight against every day. If someone feels that this is what they want to say, it’s totally fine, but this is not my position. My dad wasn’t just sitting at home and then he was kidnapped. This happened to a lot of people, but it did not happen to my dad. My dad went out, went to the streets, and said, We want freedom, justice, democracy, and a state of law. This is why he was kidnapped and disappeared.

EA: While you were talking, I was thinking of an essay I had to write in December 2019—it’s not even that long ago—analyzing a movie/documentary by Ghassan Halwani. He’s a Lebanese director, but he’s also separately known because his father is among those who were forcibly disappeared during the war. His mother is a well-known activist in Lebanon for that specific cause, and he was saying exactly what you just said right now: he wanted to make it very clear that this was a crime that happened specifically against his father due to X and Y and Z.

His father was involved at the time with a communist group in Lebanon, so it wasn’t just random. The word “missing” can sound as if it’s innocent; something just happened, it’s part of nature; some weird, vague thing has happened. And that’s not the case! That’s what his film is about, and in his film (he’s also an artist), he draws and animates a photo of one of those who were forcibly disappeared—

WM: You’re talking about Erased, right?

EA: Exactly.

WM: I’ve watched this. Oh my god! It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve watched.

EA: I interviewed him; I met him recently as well, in Zurich. And yeah, that’s the point: he draws a portrait of a forcibly disappeared person (I believe it’s his father but I’m not exactly sure), and he animates him, to give back agency.

Families for Freedom linked up with Bosnians and others, maybe Argentinians—can you talk about this process? It’s never the same situation of course, but the depoliticization of such crimes unfortunately has been common in other contexts as well. I know that Families for Freedom has tried to stand in solidarity with Bosnians families and so on.

WM: To be honest I wasn’t present when the ladies from Families for Freedom went to Bosnia and met women from there. I wasn’t there, but we are trying to pay attention to that. Not only because some contexts are similar, but because also we know there is a lot to learn from their experiences.

We are working on approaching—and we are being approached by—other groups from Latin America, even from Lebanon. Because we are scattered all over the world; the group has members all over Europe but also in Lebanon and Turkey, and inside Syria (most importantly). We are all over the place, and we are aware of the importance of this exchange.

I was on an event with a famous lady from the Srebrenica group, and even for me it was shocking. Almost everyone in her family was disappeared: husband, sons, and brothers. To be honest, even when you have such difficult or ongoing suffering, you still—I’m actually shocked by the fact that I can still be shocked by other people’s experiences. It was very important for me to talk to her and to ask her about this.

Also recently I was at an event and there was talk about the Colombia experience. The example is great, and I’ve read a little bit about that. But it was very important for us to say that this could not be applied to Syria, what is being suggested, because we do not trust the Syrian government. Most of the time, to be honest, when this is discussed by non-Syrians, we are pressured by saying, Yeah, but most importantly we want them back, and if that means we have to work somehow with the Syrian government, then we should.

It’s not that we are arrogant and just saying, No, we don’t want to work with them. But obviously if after ten years it’s not clear that we cannot trust them, and that they would never do anything that is in the favor of Syrian people—it doesn’t require us to be politicians and political analysts and experts to know that this is the case. To be honest, I didn’t imagine that this is something we would discuss every time for hours, why we don’t trust the government.

Yes, we don’t have other options. Obviously we don’t. But also we don’t have many options because of the way the whole world is acting! It is very complicated, and sometimes we are pushed, sometimes we are being isolated; at many events we are first presented at families of detainees or families of victims, or victims ourselves, and we are pushed to the side while other people discuss political ways to solve the problem. Then we are asked to talk about our suffering and our pain.

Which is valid; everyone can do that. But at least for us, this is something we do not accept. We are not just going around and telling our stories. This is one means we are using to approach people, but this is not the only thing we are doing. This is something I’ve always repeated: even before my dad was arrested, I was active; I was an activist. I was there, I was participating in everything. And even if my dad wasn’t arrested, I would be doing the same.

It’s not that now if my dad is back, I’ll just drop everything and just live my life. Even if my dad doesn’t come back, the revolution for me is something that I won’t give up on.

EA: On that same note, you recently posted a photo with a friend of yours, and what’s incredible about that photo is there’s a date on it: 16 December 2011 at 7:49pm. This is what you were saying; your father was kidnapped two years in, in 2013. That’s a long time! For Lebanese listeners, think how long ago October 2019 feels, because so much has happened since—and we’re not even talking about massive amounts of murders and forcible disappearances, it’s not on the same scale. And for me, when I think about the October protests, it feels like it was five years ago, and it’s actually not even one year.

My point is that so much can happen in two and a half years. Can you tell us a bit about that December protest in Damascus, and how you participated in the protests in 2011? Talk to us a bit about those two and a half years before you had to leave to Turkey after your father’s kidnapping.

WM: I always like to emphasize that to me, the revolution started—if I’m asked to give a specific date, the moment I knew the revolution would start in Syria was in front of the Libyan embassy. Nothing was even happening in Syria back then; it was in Libya, and we were protesting in front of the Libyan embassy in solidarity with protesters there.

I have video from there—this is the only video I have from protests, because when protests took place in Syria, it wasn’t something you could film. When the revolution started in Syria, I put my smartphone aside and got a very old phone that could only do calls, didn’t have a camera or anything, for safety. So I don’t have photos or anything from protests. Maybe this also plays a role in my memory, but that was the only video I have where I am protesting.

And also, people were chanting against Gaddafi and stuff, but among us, everyone knew that we were not only talking about Gaddafi. Even the police knew, because the second day, they attacked the protest and arrested some people, and we had to run. I was slapped by an officer that day, because I was wearing a necklace of the Palestinian map. I had been wearing this for ten years before that day.

I was slapped by him, and he said, You Palestinians shouldn’t get involved in internal Syrian affairs. He thought that I was Palestinian! That moment, that slap, is very clear in my mind. I was slapped again by a professor at journalism school later—I have a series of images of me being slapped by people! But that moment for me was very crucial.

The culture of protest wasn’t new for me because my dad was political. Starting in 2000, my dad started taking us every Thursday from Masyaf to Damascus, a three- or four-hours’ trip, with a group of other people, to protest in Damascus in solidarity with Palestine and Iraq. We kept doing this every Thursday, for like ten years. I started going on protests when I was ten. Obviously the setting was different, but the idea of protesting, the image of protesting wasn’t new for me.

I remember at some point in 2003, I was held on shoulders to chant, and I was like thirteen. So when the revolution started in Syria, it wasn’t a question for me. I didn’t sit and say, Shall I participate? This is why sometimes I say that the moment of the first protest in Syria is not clear in my mind—I didn’t even think about it. I was just there. My whole family did the same; it was something we all did as a family.

To be honest, I’m a bit nostalgic, and I still say that I was the best version of myself in 2011 and 2012 when I was participating in the revolution. At some point in June 2011, there was a strike called the Dignity Strike: they invited students not to go to exams in university, in solidarity with other students and other people who had been killed and kidnapped and arrested. So I did, and I posted on Facebook—now it seems a bit silly, but Facebook was banned in Syria. We didn’t have access to Facebook at that point. 

So I posted on Facebook with my real name that I’m on strike in solidarity with other citizens, and I didn’t go to school anymore. The only thing I did was protest. I went to other cities; I went to places in the countryside, to Eastern Ghouta, to Daraya—we call it “revolutionary tourism.” It sounds very silly, but I was very excited just to see how people are protesting. I was in Damascus, and people were protesting in Dara’a—and Dara’a was a huge thing for us. A year later, at the beginning of 2012, after I got arrested and released, I went to Dara’a and I stayed there for a couple of days. I also went to Qamishli in northern Syria; I went to Raqqa; I protested in Hama and Salamiyah. 

When I remember this, I have a feeling of happiness that I don’t feel anymore. I always say I am grateful, because the revolution made me the person I am. And yes, it also obviously comes with a lot of pain and loss, but I accept the fact that those were my choices. No one forced me to do so. So at least I have the responsibility to accept it. A lot of people just dropped out and said, That’s it, I cannot anymore. I respect that, and at no point, ever, did I say to anyone, No, you should continue. Because I know that this is very hard, and that people have limits.

To be honest, after we fled Syria to Turkey, I spend something like seven months in bed. The only place I went was the hospital in Turkey. My health situation was very bad; I was depressed, I didn’t see any hope, I didn’t see any meaning. I lost meaning, which might seem cheesy, but I actually feel it in my heart; it is very difficult. Sometimes people ask me, How are you so optimistic? And I say, It’s not that I’m optimistic, it’s that I tried not to be and it didn’t work.

So continuing is the only option I see. Obviously I believe that it will lead somewhere.

EA: That’s a very good way of putting it.

You mentioned depression. If it’s okay, I’ll ask a bit about this.

How do you, on a day-to-day or weekly basis—do you have ups and downs? How are you dealing with depression? How are you going through it, emotionally?

WM: It took me years, not only to be able to talk about it but to be able to see myself in this position. Most of the time, even when I talk to my friends and stuff, I tell them that there are almost two years of my life in Turkey that I do not really remember.

I wasn’t there. I was working for almost eighteen hours; I was doing three jobs together—because we needed to survive. It was only me and my mom and my youngest sister, who was only thirteen at that point. The first seven months, I couldn’t even leave the bed. I only went to hospitals. I was telling my friend a couple of days ago that I still—I don’t know how to say it. I don’t remember. 

I just remember that period as still images. I see myself in bed, and I see my mom and my sister sitting next to me and crying, and asking me every morning to get up, and I’m just silent. To be honest I feel very guilty, because we all left Syria together—my other sister was at that point in the US; unfortunately she had to suffer all of that alone. But somehow I even deprived my mom and my sister the right to grieve, because I just collapsed.

I still remember that at one point, my mom was—I can see it now. I’m in bed and my mom is sitting next to me, and my sister as well, and my mom is saying, Please do not give up on hope, at least for me, and at least for your dad, because he will be back. And I remember—this is something I cannot even imagine; I understand how and why I said it, but it hurts me a lot every day when I remember it: I said that In the back of my mind, there is knowledge I had that is telling me I should feel guilty now, and I should feel sad, and that I should get up now, for you and my dad and my sister. But to be honest I feel nothing. I’m not even sad seeing you crying for hours next to me.

I was that depressed. Seven months later, the situation was getting worse; I had to find a job, so I did. I went to another city looking for a job, and then I went to the house and to my mom and my youngest sister, and at that point my depression took another form. I was working, but I still didn’t talk to anyone. I spent almost a year and a half not saying a word to my mom and sister. I would just go to work at eight in the morning and come back at eight in the evening, enter the house and go to my room. We didn’t eat together; we didn’t have meals together, we didn’t cook together. We didn’t even talk.

To be honest, I would say that was the most difficult point of my life. Then I got to Germany, and I’m much better now. I was on medicine for like three years, but for some vague reasons I didn’t do therapy. I’ve tried many times, but it’s not easy. It’s very difficult for me. I went to different people, but I don’t know. It’s difficult. Sometimes when I see someone and clearly see that they need therapy, and they tell me, Well, yeah, I couldn’t…I’m like, What? But this is something I’m trying to do but it is very difficult.

My mind is very connected to dates. For example when I was in Koblenz and it was the second of July, the day my dad disappeared—we were working on the photos of detainees, putting them in frames and stuff, and when the clock was midnight, it felt like something happened to me. I can’t describe it. I didn’t even look at the clock or anything, I just felt it. I looked and it was midnight, and I told them, Sorry, I can’t continue. I’ll just go to my room.

And I didn’t even sleep. At seven-thirty in the morning we had to go put the photos in front of the courthouse—when I look at photos of me from that day, I even feel sad for myself. I looked very sad, and obviously I am sad, but I don’t know. It’s not easy. It’s not something that—after seven years, I’m still not sure of anything. 

Every week is the birthday of someone we lost, or the day someone was kidnapped, the day someone was killed. Even dates that are related to protests I participated in make me feel a bit more—I don’t know. I’m usually very active. My friends say that I am hyperactive. I talk a lot, as you can see. I’m trying to deal with it, but there is no one week, seven days in a row, where I don’t…

Also, everything triggers you. On the podcast, I talked some about Umm Kulthum—  

EA: Can you tell that story again, for those who don’t know?

WM: I’ve always hated Umm Kulthum, I didn’t even know why—I’m not going to go there. But my dad was, obviously, like everyone else, a huge fan of hers. So we would always listen to her, and I would always ask my dad—I don’t like her voice, I don’t see the point! I always thought there is a reason, there is something that everyone knows except for me, for them to really love her that much. So I would ask my dad why: What is the reason? And he always said, You cannot realize now, but when you grow up you will see the point.

And I kept asking. I nag a lot, and I kept nagging at my dad for years and years. And he kept answering me every time! I don’t even know why. 

But one day when I was in Germany—it was 2016, and I was going out with my friends to some place, and they played Umm Kulthum…we had just entered, and at the beginning I didn’t even recognize the song; I just heard one line and I froze. The only thing I did was: I went to the bathroom, I spent an hour crying there. I couldn’t get it together. My friends were there: What’s going on? I was crying to the point that I couldn’t even speak. I just went back home. 

To be honest, I’m quite emotional, and my memory is very related to music—which is quite difficult; specifically if you live in Berlin, Arabic music is all over. After seven years, I still react the same way. The thing is, when something like this happens it takes me like a week to get over it, get over that specific moment, and continue.

It is very difficult. I’m thirty (in two weeks), and at the end of the day, when I go to bed, I don’t only feel it but I see myself from the outside as a five, six year old kid who’s just in bed, and just crying. Because it doesn’t make sense to me; everything I talk about and everything I do during the day, justice and freedom and everything—and then at one point when I’m in bed I’m like, But wait, I had a father and he just disappeared, that’s it?

I don’t get it. It’s very weird for me to talk about that. I’m not only trying to be honest, but trying to say stuff that I don’t even tell my family. Everyone is trying to protect each other, so we don’t really talk about stuff. But one day, I remember that my friend, his dad was calling him, and he was like, I don’t want to respond, and I was sad to the point that I went back home and I created some number, said it was my dad’s, and I started calling. Maybe it explains how complicated my relationship is to the fact that my did is just…not there. 

I wake up in the morning and, again, I grow up, and I realize again that this is the reality and I should fight for it. And then again in the evening it’s the same. Yesterday, a friend of mine just shared with me that on this day two years ago, his father was released after seven months of detention. And I cried for like four hours. I was genuinely happy for him. I just felt very sad that—But why does my dad have to spend seven years? And I don’t even know if he’s coming back. 

EA: It sounds like you’re finding ways to rationalize or make sense of it, but at the end of the day, it’s as brutal as it is, and it doesn’t provide answers. That’s the worst part of it, I guess.

You mentioned that you graduated recently. Again, congratulations on that. What are your next steps on that front? What do you hope to be working in?

WM: I’m taking a break from academia for a while.

It’s also a bit complicated. I studied something a bit different from what I actually do; I studied arts and aesthetics—which was good for me! I made this decision because at some point I felt that I needed to balance my life, and it somehow did.

So I’m looking for a job, yes, thank you. And I have a project in mind—not only in mind: I’m starting to work on something, a film. It will take at least two years. This was a decision that was not easy for me; it includes me, so I wasn’t sure. But this is the main goal I’ve got in mind.

But on a daily basis, right now I’m dedicating myself to the court. I think it is a huge, important platform that everyone should use. But also I work on a lot of different stuff. I do a lot of different activities, all related obviously to the revolution. This is the only thing that I enjoy and I want to do. But on another scale, a documentary is my next step.

EA: Wafa, thank you a lot, you’ve been very generous with your time. Good luck on everything, and please take care of yourself. Thank you for what you’re doing, and I hope you get good news. Thanks for talking to me.

WM: Thank you so much for the opportunity.