so HBO released this much awaited documentary on Syria and its been few hours but i’m still recovering from the impact of it.

please, i beg of you, if there is a beating heart and a conscience in you, kindly watch #criesfromsyria. all this fucked-up, nonsensical, racist rhetoric from all right-wing politicians around the globe focusing on this singular most magnified humanitarian crisis will sound exactly that, FUCKED UP.

the roots of how the revolution started is eerie, heart-wrenching. following multiple revolutions that arised in tunisia, libya and egypt during arab spring, syrian children started painting “you are next, dr. bashar” on school walls. slowly, those same children were kidnapped and brutally tortured to death by assad’s army.

delivering the tortured corpses of these children to their families, especially the mutilation of limbs and genitalia of 13yo hamza al-khatib led to a collective rage and massive protests by the syrian people against the regime. before you know it, there are multiple leaders and activists leading peaceful marches in all major cities. one activist that really stood out to me was giath matar. he led protests in the city of daraya and he appeased to syrian soldiers with flowers and bottle of water. ofcourse, his fate was later sealed in the brutal hands of syrian army, who tortured and killed him after keeping him captive for three days. even his burial shrine was guarded by soldiers for days after because of the sheer, symbolic power matar embodied.

i shiver while i try to write a recap of this harrowing documentary, like that’s how much i have been affected watching cries from syria. the issue of syria has been on my peripheral vision since arab spring but the severity of the civil war that has been continuing for 6 years now has always been a contained background noise. for an individual like me whose heavily invested in american politics, israel-palestine conflict and other subcontinent issues, syrian war seemed a confusing, never-ending saga that american mainstream media simply ignored. the average person around me doesn’t give two shits about wars in middle east, famine in somalia, tsunamis in asia etc etc. most (if not all) privileged citizens of the first world nations are apathetic to the extremes of inhumanity. we have blinders on good days, we indulge in frivolous pop culture bullshit, we spend shit load of money to keep sane and maintain some typa lifestyle. but also to be fair, many of us are embroiled within the confines of domestic fuckery, whether the issues deal with racism, healthcare, police brutality, sexism, women’s heath rights, citizens rights under NSA surveillance etc etc.

we are kinda living in a pretty fucked up country ourselves. our current government is barely functional, our election was the grand puppetshow mastered by putin, a rapist is the current Potus.. like just thinking about the current climate makes me want to cry. however, so as not to digress, the major difference between us and syrians are that none of our cities are under siege. there are no blockades to food and aid. our government doesn’t have the army breaking down doors, kidnapping children or killing protestors in broad daylight. cnn tends to make it seem like america is heading to war when clashes erupt between protestors and cops or store windows being broken etc. matter of fact, America isn’t in any civil war and these candyfloss journos should take notes from brave reporters who actually live amidst actual wars. we think that as a nation, we are heading towards a fascist regime but we haven’t yet and most probably, we won’t either. but syrians are under a gridlock by a war-criminal of a leader who uses chemical weapons against his own people while UN and the leaders of the “civilized nations” just mourn behind closed doors.

my head hurts, it is snowing outside, i’m sitting comfortably on my bed pondering how far-removed i am from the atrocities, pain and suffering felt by many millions of women, children, old people and men right now. i know i don’t have the power to do much but donate to trustworthy organizations, spread the word on my useless social medias, call up my inept congressmen and google adoption policies. i feel so obsolete, so paralyzed to be born into privilege of freedom, education, comfort and yet not knowing how to utilize this for the greater good. i want to be more proactive, i want to gain more knowledge, i want to remain steadfast and compassionate and i sure in hell have ample raging vocabulary to obliterate anyone who dares spews hateful rhetoric on syrian refugees.

but is any of this enough? what is the tipping point in a story with monsters and dead children? what is the endgame of beautiful, old cities bombarded to rubble and ashes? what is the power of the muslim ummah if the muslim leaders themselves are the actual apostates? so many what ifs, all i can feel is a dejected “what the fuck, God?”

please visit http://www.criesfromsyria.com to learn more, to donate, to be involved. #criesfromsyria is one hell of an hour and a half documentary directed by evgeny afineevsky. you will definitely cry, you will understand patriotism, you will surely cherish freedom.

In memory of Giath Matar – picture from The Resurrection Project by Jaber Al Azmeh 

it’s day 3.

i wake up and the first few minutes i just sit in silence waiting for it to dawn on me that this isn’t a nightmare. then it hits me like a hammer, i suppress the involuntary urge to cry out loud and reluctantly get out of bed to start my day.

i can’t honestly deal. i suffered a major anxiety attack couple of months back due to personal bullshit and since then, it has taken a solid few weeks to rebuild my internal mental blocks and homeostasis. it was hard, took a lot of courage and i’m adamant not to lose sight of my mental stability.

but now i’m riding on a panic-driven roller coaster with no sense of stoppage. my family, friends, and coworkers are all in duress. we have no idea what may happen on our commute, who in our family may get racially attacked, would one of us fall victim to discrimination next? we are all in fear of safety, of religious intolerance, of deportation & so many other unconstitutional breaches. it is not vocalized but there is a palpable fear of white supremacy seething into our regular lives and we don’t want this, we want to avoid it like a fucking plague.

what happened election night is a colossal fuck up that all americans will gradually have to be held accountable for generations to come. mainstream media, news media, far-right, far-left & centrist pundits, MAGA voters, Dem voters, Lib voters, Green voters, we are all responsible for this storm that is to come. i’m a proud democrat yet i now feel guilty that with my candidate losing, i’m somewhat responsible for the global trepidation that has been imposed. i feel disillusioned, my eyes burn from tears, i feel hopeless that the party representing my staunch liberal beliefs is beyond fractured. right now, DNC chair is up for grabs and i sincerely want DNC elitists to take a backseat and let the true progressives lead. we are tired of behaving like predictable moderates and it is time to re-think, re-invent, reclaim what our beliefs truly mean and FIGHT for it. if we have any desire to take control by 2020, we need to rebuild and we need to start RIGHT NOW. let’s cut the holier-than-thou bullshit & listen to the disenfranchised base.

i have wasted enough time since election night arguing with smug sanders voters, angry sanders voters & third -party voters on why we lost. we argue over the unbelievable losses of PA, MI, WI. swing states that generally lean blue had turned red & we couldn’t fathom what the fuck happened. we discuss possible impeachment, then roll eyes at pence’s track record. we sign our names to abolish electoral college, then we lament the possible overturning of obamacare, roeVwade, dodd-frank. whatever President Obama had set in motion & his 8 year legacy had been invited to burn in hell and we are the silent observors. and we still can’t fucking believe that a  p**** grabbing, bigoted, racist, chauvinistic con-artist is taking over the baton. at times we fight among ourselves, we blame each other, we curse out the other 49% who voted against us. our livelihood is in disarray while we adsorb the reality that we have lost house, senate & scotus for a generation. we are left with no check & balance in our government come january 20th and all democrats are rightfully pissed the fuck off.

all said and done, i miss receiving text messages from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign. i’m proud of the campaign she has run and how gracefully she had conducted herself in the debates and rallies. i’m proud that i took my father to the polling station and voted for our first female presidential candidate. i’m however enraged that America did not trust an experienced politician to be the commander-in-chief and chose a volatile, bankrupt and insecure jock with the nuclear codes. i’m amazed yet not shocked at the sexism & hypocrisy that surrounds us but is deeply underplayed and i promise to continue advocating and screaming feminism at every corner. i also understand that Clinton may not have been the most inspirational or even the perfect candidate for hordes of voters to rush to polls; but the fact that a possibility of going back to 1930s Germany didn’t deem to be critical concern for millions is disconcerting. is our education system from the elementary years a complete failure or as human species, we have desensitized so profoundly that we pay no heed to recurring eras of brutal history because of self-interests?

i don’t have the heart to get into the technicalities behind the tyranny we await. i was heavily invested in this election since 14 months now and the forecasted “definite” win that unraveled into a devastating shitshow has left me desolate. i’m vexed, i’m unforgiving, i’m ashamed. we have entered the twilight zone of a circus zoo and the worst part is, we don’t know what the fuck we are dealing with. we assume the worst, we fear the known praying that it remains the unknown, we attempt to normalize the abnormal. we need a reset button. or we can just continue bolstering the sale of happy pills and booze hoping to ease the pain. we as a nation is divided and i wish the like-minded states could unite and secede from the rest of the land of stupids. but that’s like living a fairytale and we’d rather sleep with eyes open in dystopia.

President Obama’s WH staff watching the Potus’s speech on 11/09/16