Syrian Civil War Quotes

“This world’s anguish is no different
from the love we insist on holding back.”
― Aberjhani, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love

“Some live for medals. Others find their gratification in living for an ideal.”
― Ammar Habib, The Heart of Aleppo: A Story of the Syrian Civil War

“In its essence, Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech is one citizen’s soul-searing plea with his countrymen––Whites and Blacks––to recognize that racial disparities fueled by unwarranted bigotry were crippling America’s ability to shine as a true beacon of democracy in a world filled with people groping their way through suffocating shadows of political turmoil, economic oppression, military mayhem, starvation, and disease.”
― Aberjhani, Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.

“For a start, people who traveled for so many miles through such horrific conditions in order to find work cannot accurately be portrayed as lazy benefit-scroungers”
― Patrick Kingsley

“It's bewildering to me how you can just start chatting with a complete stranger on Facebook, and - next thing you know - it seems as if there's some intense connection with the person - or at least you feel that closeness and hope it's mutual”
― Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin

“There comes a time for us not to just be survivors, but to be warriors. Yara, you have your life, and the chance to make the most of it. Don't run or hide from that challenge or let your guilt keep you from living your life. This gift is such a beautiful opportunity. Embrace it. Seize every opportunity from here on out. Live.”
― Becca Vry, Musings: An Argyle Empire Anthology

“Paradoxically, the more Michael kept me at a distance, the more I trusted him - perhaps because he was always willing to help me with tips and introductions even though he wanted absolutely nothing from me (and never reciprocated my nosiness with personal questions of his own with me).”
― Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin

“You and your siblings are the most precious part of my life. And of all my children, you have the most potential to go anywhere you wish in this world – your test scores and grades have always been among the highest of your peers. But it’s clear now that you cannot reach your full potential in Syria.”
― Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin

“It’s not a bad thing, if you’re responsible about it. Just don’t start having boyfriends. Wait until you’ve found your husband.”
“And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can’t have a boyfriend until then?” I asked ironically.”
― Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin

“And this is the worse part of it — when you realize that what separates you, someone who can leave, from someone who is trapped in Aleppo, or Homs or Douma or Darayya, is that you can walk away and go back to your home with electricity and sliced bread; then you begin to feel ashamed to be human.”
― Janine Di Giovanni, The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria

“As politicians weigh courses of action against their political agendas the death toll weighs heavy on the conscience of the world. The once vibrant Syrian streets are now haunted by the souls of the innocent and the historic monuments that told of an unrivalled Arab civilisation no longer stand tall.”
― Aysha Taryam

“If Syria is to rise from the ashes it needs a united Arab world which has one thing on its agenda, not the falling of a dictator for we have seen many of those fall, but the reemergence of a prosperous Arab nation, one that is not reliant on foreign aid but is self-sustained and set on its way to become powerful once again.”
― Aysha Taryam

“...if the United States never intended to help, it shouldn’t have built up the expectation. The false promise of help was cruel and inexcusable and it would only get worse over time. If a man is drowning and a boat drives past in the distance, the man accepts his death and goes down quietly. If a man is drowning and a boat pulls up beside him, dangles a life jacket, tells the world he wants to help, but then doesn’t throw the life jacket, the drowning man dies crying and his family might take a blood oath to take revenge on the boat’s crew. This type of anger was already starting to build in Syria and al-Qaeda would capitalize on it.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“Don't know when my life came to visualising intense pain and tragedy to putting it down on paper, to putting across a message of love in times of abject hate. Thank you everybody and the conspiracy of the stars for showing me this day. To many, many more books, inshallah, and to many more launches.”
― Simran Keshwani, Becoming Assiya: The Story of the Children of War

“Those men are now fighting against the government's army, and the people who live in the town don't know whose side to choose. They only want the violence to stop. Nobody knows which side is right anymore.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I propose that we change its abbreviation from ISIL or ISIS into a new name that contains the initial letters of each country or lobby that contributed to its existence.”
― Louis Yako

“On August 3, 2012, the fifteenth day of the government offensive, rebels in the city said they were desperately low on ammunition and expressed dismay that the international community had not reacted when a huge massacre could be coming. Again, Libya was the example. Gadhafi threatened to overrun Benghazi and when he tried to do it, NATO started bombing. Now in Syria, Assad was threatening to crush the opposition in Aleppo and had already started doing it, but Washington’s reaction was only hand-wringing. In my conversations with rebels it was clear they were becoming increasingly disheartened and desperate. (The rebels would usually communicate with each other on Skype, blending in with the billions of people using the Internet instead of going through cell-phone towers.) The United States was apparently still skittish about sending in arms because it feared they would end up in the hands of Islamic extremists, but that, like so many unintended consequences of US foreign policy in the Middle East, was a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this stage the rebels were numerous, strong, motivated, and moderate and I made that clear in my reports on the air.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“At times it seems as if the whole world has become a refugee and the few of us, who are privileged enough to wake up to the sound of an alarm clock instead of a siren, those of us who are enveloped by a veil of safety many of us fail to appreciate, have become desensitised to the migrating numbers, to the images of the dead, shrugging them away as a collective misery that this ailing part of the world must endure.”
― Aysha Taryam

“This is a story, not history. So the characters and incidents are not real. It is a story about different types of rulers who rule, protect, patronize, intimidate, terrorize, or kill their subjects and others. We call them presidents, sultans, ministers, and intelligence agencies. And many people end up as pawns to further their interests.”
― Raj Nellooli

“I kept seeing turning points. First the uprising. Then the creation of the Free Syrian Army, the FSA. Now a big assassination bombing in the heart of Assad’s government. But the turn never came. It just got worse and worse.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“the United States decided it was not going to intervene in Syria—at least for the time being. The Syrian opposition felt betrayed and abandoned. Worse, Syrians were now completely without hope, which is the most dangerous human condition. A man or woman with no hope is capable of anything.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“Of what I know of life, in any moment, you run three vital risks-the risk of being yourself, the risk of not being yourself and the risk
itself. I would stress most on the third kind. It is the game itself that draws its modest players inward. The “risk” to hide out in a world where masks are normative, the “risk” to play the oppressor, the
“risk” to risk your truth one more day in life, the “risk” to not risk your lie.”
― Simran Keshwani, Becoming Assiya: The Story of the Children of War

“A soft barbed tongue cannot clean the bloody crooked claw hands.

After a conversation with Dr.Muhsin Bilal who tried to wash the bloody hands of his party (Baʿath) in general and Bashar al-Assad
in particular.”
― Jahanshah Safari

“While many Europeans made world headlines when they rolled out the red carpet for refugees and migrants fleeing war and economic deprivation, the influx of arrivals also provided the hardline right with a renewed voice. “People coming from this war will act a certain way, so it’s not just the fault of Germans. But we aren’t animals.” Ramadan, like hundreds of thousands of others, waited eagerly to find out if his family would be able to join him. In the meantime, he spent each day waiting for his wife to call, waiting for another temporary assurance that none of his relatives had died.”
― Patrick Strickland, Alerta! Alerta!: Snapshots of Europe's Anti-fascist Struggle

“Refugees are the best weapon of the 21st century and Erdogan a master of it!”
― Vincent van Volkmer

“Syria has long been on the ‘axis of evil’ list and a pretext to intervene militarily in that country, without causing public outrage like that caused in Iraq and Afghanistan, had to be manufactured. If a reason for military action in Syria didn’t exist, it had to be invented.”
― Louis Yako

“It should not be a secret to any independent and conscientious thinker, writer, or journalist that what has been happening in Syria since 2011 is nothing but complex and dirty attempts by multiple regional and global powers to 'Iraqize' Syria by other means.”
― Louis Yako

“منذ بدء «الحملة الإيمانية» في عام 1993، تغير الحزب والمجتمع تغيرا كبيرا، وتغير معهما المخيال الشتي. جاء التحول مفاجئا للجميع: في اجتماع لقيادة الحزب، تساءل الزعيم عن طبيعة «حزب البعث»: أهو علماني أم إيماني؟ وأجاب بأنه اختار أن يكون إيمانيا. وكان هذا الانقلاب الأيديولوجي ناجما عن الهزيمة والانهيار الناتجين من حرب الكويت، وإعلان إفلاس أيديولوجي. ستنطوي الحملة الإيمانية على خليط من التربية الدينية، وتحديد أشكال السلوك واللباس، وقائمة قاسية من مدونة عقاب جديدة.
في فترة قصيرة، تحجب قادة اتحاد المرأة الرسمي، ثم عضوات الحزب، وعضوات منظمات الطلاب والشباب، وانتهى الأمر بتصميم حجاب خاص لهدی صالح مهدي عماش، عضوة القيادة القطرية في حزب البعث»، وكذا للنساء في جیش القدس» الذي شكل لاحقا.
صدرت قرارات متلاحقة لتعميم «الأسلمة»: تنظيم دورات دينية للحزبين، ثم لعموم الطلاب إلزام الطلاب والحزبين بحضور دروس دينية كانت تقام في الجوامع يوميا، وتحت إشراف «حزب البعث» ومسؤوليته عن الحضور والمناقشة والالتزام. واستمر هذا عشر سنوات.
صدرت مدونة عقوبات جديدة: قرارات بقطع يد السارق، نفذت في أكثر من مكان؛ و قرار بإلقاء ثلاثة من «فدائيي صدام» من سطح بناية عالية في البصرة، بتهمة اللواط؛ وصدر قرار بسجن البعثي ثلاث سنوات إذا بط وهو يلعب القمار؛ وأعلن - أكثر من مرة - عن قطع رؤوس نساء بالسيف، بتهمة الدعارة (وهي أمور اتبعتها «القاعدة» و«داعش»، اعتمادا على الكتب نفسها التي درسها القادة الحزبيون في «الحملة الإيمانية»)؛ إضافة إلى كثير من الإجراءات الحزبية والقانونية، ومنها قرار بإطلاق سراح السجين المحكوم عليه في قضية جنائية إذا حفظ جزءا من القرآن أو أكثر من جزء، أو حتى القرآن كله، بحسب مدة حكمه، وبغض النظر عن جريمته، واعتبر القرار أن حفظ ذلك المقدار من الآيات هو بمنزلة توبة مقبولة.”
― فالح عبد الجبار, دولة الخلافة : التقدم إلى الماضي ، داعش والمجتمع المحلي في العراق

“Refugees are not a homogeneous group of people. Some are attracted by the prospect of succeeding in a high-income society; others, a majority, hope to return to Syria.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Kashmir, Afghanistan, etc, destroyed. Where is Muslim World? Don't live in past-grow up.”
― Gaza-Kashmir