After 14 years of conflict, Syria has entered a brand new and unsure chapter. The nation is devastated – 90 per cent of Syrians stay in poverty.
Regardless of the challenges as much as a million individuals dwelling in camps and displacement websites throughout the nation’s northwest intend to return dwelling inside the subsequent yr.
As these Syrians put together to return dwelling, they’re starting the troublesome technique of rebuilding and confronting the previous.
Ms. Al-Kateab, the filmmaker behind the award-winning documentary, For Sama, captured life below siege in Aleppo earlier than fleeing the nation in 2016.
Since then, she has remained a robust advocate for the Syrian individuals, co-founding Motion For Sama, a marketing campaign, advocating for human rights, dignity, and accountability for all.
On this interview with UN Information, as Syria stands at a crossroads, she shares her willpower to verify justice shouldn’t be forgotten within the nation’s subsequent chapter.
This interview has been edited for readability and brevity.
UN Information: Waad, how have you ever been processing the previous few months?
Waad Al-Kateab: I believe it’s actually complicated. We’re over the moon, however on the identical time, it was one thing that appeared so far-off.
I assumed the ending of my story was dying in exile, not having the ability to return, by no means having the ability to see this lovely day. And it simply occurred out of the blue, with none indication.
We weren’t prepared, however that doesn’t matter. It occurred, and we’re actually glad.
On the identical time, the ache and grief we needed to undergo for the final 14 years – and for thus many people, even 50 years, when Hafez al-Assad was president – it was simply an excessive amount of to deal with.
I’m nonetheless pondering, is that this actual? Am I simply having an extended, lovely dream?
UN Information: Have you ever been involved with individuals on the bottom in Syria? What have they been telling you?
Waad Al-Kateab: Till now, due to my refugee standing, I used to be not ready to return. However I am engaged on this, and hopefully, at any second I’ll get citizenship within the UK, so I can transfer freely.
© UNICEF/Rami Nader
My dad and mom went again in January, and a few of our mates too. I used to be additionally capable of talk with my household who have been in Syria the entire time, whereas earlier than, I could not even name or ship a message as a result of I used to be nervous of what the regime might do to them.
It’s not straightforward – the nation is drained, the financial system may be very dangerous, there’s no electrical energy, no water however what everybody has in widespread is the sensation that it’s positively a brand new starting.
We’re afraid, however we’re not likely scared. We are able to do something we wish.
UN Information: Whenever you nonetheless lived in Aleppo, you spent years capturing each the resilience of individuals and the devastation round them. What moments have stayed with you from that point?
Waad Al-Kateab: To be trustworthy, the scenario I couldn’t settle for was after we have been displaced out of Aleppo.
I understood early on that we have been combating towards a dictatorship that may cease at nothing. I used to be okay with that. I knew the danger I used to be taking, the danger my husband Hamza was taking, even our personal daughter.
© UNOCHA/Mohanad Zayat
We have been combating in our personal approach – me, with my digicam, my husband, along with his work within the hospital.
Then got here the siege – six months with no remedy, no meals, no fundamental providers. After which, compelled displacement. That, for me, was probably the most merciless factor: throw us out from our personal nation the place we wished to be.
It was the second which actually broke me. Saying goodbye to every thing – my dwelling there, the hospital, the individuals we knew.
For the previous few years, I’ve compelled myself to not image going again as a result of it didn’t appear potential. However now, it’s.
So many individuals I do know went again. They ship me footage from the neighbourhood, the college: “See, it’s there. We’re again.”
And I can’t wait to be there myself.
UN Information: You speak about your pleasure, your loved ones’s pleasure, and this chapter closing. Do you assume the toughest a part of the work has been carried out now?
Waad Al-Kateab: Undoubtedly. The toughest work has been carried out.
Now, with this new chapter, there’s so much to do, and it’s troublesome in a really completely different approach. However the shelling, the bombings – that’s over.
There are such a lot of essential points – transitional justice, detainees, the disappeared. There are very troublesome conversations to have about revenge; and the financial system – it has greater than crashed.
There are such a lot of authorities, agendas and worldwide gamers in a rustic ranging from scratch. However now, we’re in cost. It’s very heavy to hold however we’re right here and we’re going to do it.
I’m very hopeful and excited.
UN Information: You point out transitional justice, what does actual accountability seem like to you now?
Waad Al-Kateab: Bashar Al-Assad was accountable, however there are various others – those that ordered killings, those that carried them out, those that helped him. And I’m not simply speaking about people, but additionally overseas governments and armies.
There isn’t a approach to have a future in Syria if we don’t face what occurred. For everybody accountable, it should begin with an apology and finish with accountability.
Proper now, militias and former regime troopers nonetheless have weapons, making an attempt to cover or defend themselves. That is very critical, and all weapons must be handed to the brand new authorities.
For victims like us, now it’s about asking: what do we wish? What can occur? How will we return to regular life? There’s a lot to be carried out.
UN Information: You’ve lived within the UK for nearly a decade now. You mentioned you’d wish to return. Would that be long-term?
Waad Al-Kateab: To be trustworthy, we by no means imagined this second would occur, so we constructed a life away from Syria.
Even in our conversations with our daughters, I wished them to like Syria and perceive what occurred but additionally, I wished to guard them.
Now, I see they picked up far more than we realised, they picked up what we felt. For them, Syria was a spot the place individuals die.
They don’t perceive they usually ask: “What if Assad continues to be hiding there? What if he’s ready for us to go after which he kills us?”
The dialogue of going again has triggered many troublesome issues for them.
For me and Hamza, we don’t have to consider it, we need to return in fact. So, we agreed on one go to and after we come again, we’ll discuss – what we wish, what they need. They positively have an equal say.
No matter resolution we take, a method or one other, we might be again.
UN Information: Together with your advocacy, what position do you see your self having within the rebuilding of Syria?
Waad Al-Kateab: We’ve carried out a lot all over the world – working with communities who know Syria effectively and others who know nothing about it.
© WFP
For us, the most important achievement has all the time been consciousness and preserving the narrative of what occurred. Now, greater than ever, that’s a precedence on the bottom in Syria.
For me, it’s not nearly For Sama as a movie, however about every thing I’ve discovered as a filmmaker – years of telling my very own story and others’. Now, I need to convey it again to Syria by screenings and conversations, not simply as a movie occasion, however as an area to listen to from individuals.
That is a part of transitional justice, particularly acknowledgment – serving to native communities discuss to one another, perceive one another’s experiences and begin therapeutic.
UN Information: What can be your message to the worldwide group right this moment?
Waad Al-Kateab: Syria shouldn’t be like another battle. Individuals tried to match it to Iraq or Afghanistan, however that is completely different. Even how the regime fell and what comes subsequent is unknown.
Because the U.S. slashes overseas assist, Syrian civil society is liable to collapse. Organizations that fought for justice and guarded civilians for over a decade are actually struggling. The worldwide group should step up.
A profitable transition should be Syrian-led, free from armed teams or overseas affect.
The world has a accountability to help this in a approach that displays Syrians’ aspirations for peace, justice and accountability.
