“Since my childhood, I never differentiated in love between Jordan and Syria; to me they are as they have always been “one country”. And since I became an adult Damascus was my fortress. wars and defeats went on and on from camp David to Oslo to wadi araba. From the occupation of Beirut to the occupation of Baghdad and I never lost hope; as long as Syria remains everything can be correctified. So, when danger surrounded Syria, I had the feeling of the end! Syria had to be victorious, so life and ideas and struggle would have a meaning, so we can continue being able to love and write, so we can listen to Fairuz in the mornings, feed the birds, water the Jasmines and Gardenia, read poetry and taste the deliciousness of anise in the glass of arak.

On the eve of victory, I think of all those nights and the insomnia of expectations that are about to finish. I think of all the martyred and wounded, and I am ashamed of myself; I am ashamed because I am not a martyr, but what condoles me is that I can repeat with the poet Amal Danqal:

"Oh pen; witness!

That we did not sleep

Nor we got lost

Between a no and a yes!"