It's an open secret. A business branch flourishing across the border lines. You want to enter Syria? No problem, if you are escorted. For your own protection, of course. A driver, a translator, an armed bodyguard - the spectre is wide-ranged, a lot of people are entering the free market of trips into a war-torn country. In earlier times of the revolution bringing you inside and safe outside was reportedly unsalaried, Syrians were glad to show foreigners the reality on the ground, offering them the chance to speak with victims of the armed conflict, displaced, injured. But those times have changed with the presence of international journalists and photographers working for media agencies to cover up the drama.
It's about money in the meantime. Some hundred US$ daily rate are usual, bigger agencies are paying much more higher amounts to catch the story behind the story. The frontlines in the North, from Idlib to Aleppo, are full of professional reporters witnessing the crossfire and the shellings. Attending the katheebas, the battalions, on their way is a lucrative business, some of the freedom fighters claim to donate the money they receive to needy refugees, other ones speak of investing it 'into the revolution' what actually means they are spending it for fuel and of course weapons. You can't avoid becoming part of the ongoing game. Even if they reassure you not to use their salary to upgrade their arms. The monetarized tragedy leaves a bitter taste. A few top dogs are running the business arranging professionally all-inclusive coverage trips, the rest is desperately trying to start-up their income branch as organizers and brokers. Facebook sites in all combinations of the terms free Syria, media, journalists, office, center are springing up like mushrooms, on the streets of Kilis, Reyhanli or Antakya you only have to stroll a bit up and down until someone addresses you, starting with the usual chit-chat, asking you after a short while the magic question: you like to enter Syria?
Besides the money it's all about trust. Can you trust the person offering you a guided tour or entering the country illegally at night? Don't forget, in the most cases it's simply an intermediator you're talking with. Getting in business with him and landing after all in the back of a car full of suspicious dudes causing indisposition might be too late to change your plans. Syrians can be very convincing following their intentions. A hesitating 'maybe' and the guy has picked already his mobile out of his pocket phoning his mates to arrange everything immediately. Better to argue that you have to confer with your employers and if you could exchange your phone numbers so you might call him back. Get yourself a Turkish prepaid cell phone, it's comparatively cheap, almost all exiled Syrians are having one. Even if the broker assures you that money isn't the problem because it's all about the truth to cover, latest during your back trip it might become a problem. Generally it's recommended to carry minimum 500 US$ with you during your stay inside, just in case, and the case might become real, for sure. Drivers might vanish, cars might get broken, a mortar or a bullet might hit you. See it as your personal insurance against the unforeseen, the only true companion you have during your voyage. If you're not covering professionally the armed insurgence, if you simply want to accompany the rebel fighters, taking yourself up a gun, a rifle, chances are high to enter the war zone for free.
A lot of stories are circulating around about battle volunteers joining the katheebas, fighting with them, taking the lives of regime soldiers and shabeeha. Honorable engagement or doubtful heroism? Depends from which side you see it. Some of the rebels are glad about every helping hand, even if blood sticks on it. Desperate situations create desperate measures. Philanthropic idealists will sooner or later crush in that atmosphere if they don't get in touch with like-minded circles.
Disillusion is one of your entry tickets here. Regarded from your cosy couch thousands of miles away in a safe haven it looks brave, selfless, courageous. But the reality here will throw you on the ground like the hands of a shabeeh after your capture. There's a new term describing death and destruction: profitable. Accept it and the world keeps turning. The value of human life is fixed in monetarian terms; a smiling kid in between refugee camp tents, a crying mother mourning over the loss of her beloved son, a resignating patient waiting in front of a hospital for medical care - all those images are consisting of material value, to raise awareness among the interested readers as also among the people willing to donate.
Curiosity doesn't kill the cat in that case, it kills the expectations of the victims, the urged civilians. If they recognize you as a journo their minds are getting darker, they feel that you are only hunting a meanwhile common story of human tragedy, simulating solicitousness while you are in thoughts already back in the hotel lobby checking your mails, preparing yourself for your next mission at another war-torn place, chatting with your colleagues. That's the impression the Syrian civilians have. Therefore they are either closed and reserved or telling you each bullshit running through their puzzled, traumatized minds. They are the real betrayed ones in the fight for freedom Syria is in.
Many are mentioning the term 'the hi-jacked revolution' referring it to all different parties, from foreign fighters to religious radicals, sometimes both of them are in one. But the system of professionalizing war coverage is in the same way responsible for this disillusional stance. And the fixers are, involuntarily or not, a central part of the business taking away the remains of dignity in the eyes of the war victims. Dignity was and is together with freedom one of the main demands the revolution started with by the way. Describing exactly the paradox: to gain freedom against a professionally armed counterpart you have to get weapons, and if your supporters aren't willing to deliver them to you, mainly fearing they could end up in 'wrong hands', you have to become creative organizing money to buy adequate arms. Even by sacrificing the dignity. Only in moments of dreamy glorification the smart dude is the one acting selfless for the justified cause. In the actual reality it is still the guy with the fat wallet.
But there is another side of the revolution all around, a parallel world existing between, trying to maintain humanness. Activists engaging themselves to support the people's movement, to sustain non-violent actions, to work as medical staff in the refugee camps, to start-up projects together with their Syrian friends. From all different countries they arrive, carrying the initial spark of the Arab Spring in their hearts, the postulated demand of prevailing over tyranny and injustice. Dolphins in a shark bassin. Generally tolerated but not taken serious by the main players on the field, verbally attacked by different factions, mainly the religious fundamentalists not trusting 'those secular free spirits' fighting each level of totalitarianism, even the one the extremists are standing for. It's not easy to hold up some higher goals in times of struggling for pure survival. Especially if their desired impact isn't commencing immediately in form of first aid or fast money.
So this part of the strain will continue together with other different ambitions to take power after finishing the regime. The question is: will it be a secular, tolerant Syria after that? Or will it become another despotism in new, shiny clothes? Are there chances to realize the proclaimed utopia or are the compromises to grant peaceful stability getting the upper hand?
While such considerations are made the regimers are sitting in Damascus, probably in Tartous, deeply entrenched in the areas they still control, relaxing in an obscene lightness of being. Knowing the stalemate, physically as politically, plays for instead of against them. Sadly.
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