It has been almost 12 years since I left my city. And I have never been able to return. Homs, the place I was born and grew up, has been destroyed and I, like many others, have been left in exile: left to remember how beautiful it once was. What can a person do when their home—that place within them that carries so much meaning—has effectively been murdered?
I sometimes wish there were cameras that could livestream the streets of Homs in Syria. I wonder, how is my city getting on? How are the people? Can I see their faces again, and can I, even through a camera, see every corner of the streets of Homs.
Now, when walking the streets of my newly adopted home city of Oxford, Homs remains in my mind. I remember the day I left on November 17, 2011. The departure day was filled with tears to leave as tanks were positioned across different parts of the city and Homs was being divided and shelled. I feel a deep sense of grief for the people who have been killed since the start of the revolution—and for those who remain, for those who are forcibly displaced: for us.
Despite the constant threat and fear of death, the people stood up. Walls of fear and silence were knocked down as thousands of Homsis gave the streets new purpose, turning them into sites of resistance and protest. 2011 will forever be engraved in my mind because it was a historical moment of discovery built on the hopes of everyday people who dared to imagine and construct a new way of life based on the simplest of things: freedom.
At the time of her response, the emerging videos and photos from Ukraine, reminded me of the trauma that the Syrian people have suffered through."All the images were trembling into our lives again," Doucet wrote in her foreword, adding:
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