In his address at a Sanitary Fair in 1864, Abraham Lincoln pointed out an oft forgotten dimension in wars. “We all declare for liberty,” he said, “but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.” If we brushed aside the thundering noise of arms and the suffocating clouds of smoke and fire, we would grasp that forgotten field in war: contested meanings. After ten years of all kinds of battles, we, Syrians, have failed to agree on one shared vocabulary. Contested meanings have become the essential battlefield. Each and every word must be carefully selected, since each holds a different meaning according to the speaker’s political, economic, social and sectarian background. War is a crisis, yet even the simple word “crisis” should not be used without further analysis. The Arabic word for “crisis” is azma, but azma has gained negative connotations in Syria because of its use in the regime’s discourse. The words thawra (revolution), intifada (uprising), and even harb (war) are equally controversial. Wadʽ or awdaaʽ (status/statuses) is the best synthesis we get. Awdaaʽ is hugely dismissed among the hardcore pro-opposition and pro-regime groups alike, but extensively used among the varying millions who have stayed, or who have been forced to stay in the regime-controlled areas. Ironically, this group is labeled by the former two as being ramadi (grey), which is a pejorative word implying cowardly neutralism. Luckily, this ramadi silent majority, after years of suffering, could not care less about the name-calling. They have reached the level of tamsaha, a hard-to-translate word derived from timsah (crocodile), roughly “thick-skinned”. Their sole concern now is survival.
Contested meanings govern Syria and Syrian lives inside the country and abroad. There are two separate Syrias at least: one inside the borders, and the other outside. Not all who are still inside are identical, but we can, with some generalizing, define them as a silent majority; and not all who are outside are the same, yet we can, with a similar generalizing, define them as lost between being at home or in exile, being a refugee or exiled. The tragedy of carrying home along with all its traditions, ideas, borders, categories, and separations to exile has cast heavy shadows not less painful than on those who have stayed home.
The nearest example to which current Syria may be juxtaposed, is, I suspect, Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse’s correspondence during the Nazi era. Mann and Hesse stress the essential nuances between being a refugee or an exile, between staying or migrating, and – most importantly – illustrate the meaning of migrating while staying: the crucial difference between silence and acceptance. They may define Syria, then, through defining what is not available in Syria: sane discussions, a shared ground for dialogue, and a careful, realistic dealing with the present. After all, the present is not temporary, it is the essential factor which pinpoints the shaping of the future. A silent majority is not necessarily neutral or cowardly, for survival confuses all other options. You cannot survive in Syria today unless you shut up or, at least, blur what you say. Suicidal tendencies benefit no one but the god of death who accumulates his victims. I tend to be more confident when speaking about who stayed home because I am one of them. This does not mean denying the right of everyone, at home and in exile, to write their narratives, in order for us all to conceive of the linguistic ironies which govern our whole lives.
Chekhov, the master of writing about the “unlived life,” would feel totally at home if he heard the common Syrian answer to the question “How are you?”: “ʽaayshin” (sill living). This simple word refers, in fact, to its exact antonym. There is no country for the living, especially when the response is followed by the second half: “min qillat al-maut” (since death is meager). Well, death is hardly meager in this land which has officially become the Land of the (Un)Dead. ʽAayshin here does not have a sole meaning: we have survived (provisionally), for the answer might be changed in mere seconds, or even entirely vanished if its speaker were to perish in one accident or another among the uncountable sudden deaths which plague the whole land. Death is the only fact left when everything else is contested.
Lewis Carroll, too, would be entirely impressed when he sees the New Wonderland, where wild imagination is limitless. Syrians are masters in devising astonishing solutions to the successive problems which face them every single day— infinite rabbit holes which shift people from a world to another, and often end with survival and reasonable math skills. Math? Yes! A masterful mathematical brain is badly needed to conceive of numbers in order to keep following the insanely confusing timetables which include the allegedly government-supported products to be sold to people standing in limitless queues which could take several days to be over: diesel, gas, bread, rice, sugar, and – most importantly – electricity.
When God, according to Jewish, Christian and Islamic narratives, created the universe, his first words were: “Let there be light.” Faith, for religious people, is a belief or a confidence in some metaphysical force that allows them to stay alive, to survive; a life force which is bigger than life. God, or the god-like, or the larger-than-life force, in Syria, is the regime/government. When it decides to recreate the Syrian universe, it allows light to inaugurate life. Light here is electricity, and without the math skills gained by rechecking electricity timetables, Syrians’ lives would be much harder. Syrians are accustomed to certain numbers which would seem bizarre gibberish to other peoples. These numbers can be summarized in four principle double-figure groups: 4/2, 3/3, 2/4, and 1.5/4.5. The first figure in each group is the number of hours when the electricity is on, and the second when the electricity is off. Figures change pro rata with how good of a citizen you prove to be, according to the government of course. It is easy, then, to guess that the first double-figure group means all Syrians are spending their days with a Julia-Roberts-wide smile. Electricity on all day long is a fantastical myth vanished from Syrian memory long ago. Sixteen hours of electricity a day would make life a perfect spring. Yes, we do actually see this magical double-figure group only in spring, and less so in fall. Things get worse in winter and summer, since electricity suffers stress. You have not misread the sentence. Electricity, too, suffers stress. Stress, nowadays, has reached its highest point, so, naturally, we are in the 1.5/4.5 group. I would rather not talk further about the “hiccups” which shorten the six hours into four or less. Things are “easy” when electricity goes on and off at, say, 8:00 or 8:30, but the government gets really nasty when it decides it to be at, say, 8:05 or 8:50. Can you imagine the harrowing numbers you would be forced to calculate?
Electricity has drastically redefined and reshaped my life in the last ten years. I live every single seized by the need to renew my imagination so that it may be wild enough to follow my six-year-old daughter and four-year old son’s continuous questions about when the electricity will be on again. These children who have begun the level of ever-expanding curiosity are equally obsessed with electricity and with the fact that I, their father, must brainstorm as hard as possible to answer their questions and describe the other world outside this damned land of meager electricity. Their reluctance to believe that there are other countries where electricity is available 24/7 speaks volumes. I, too, can literally write volumes about my life with electricity, my life within electricity.
Ten years ago, I was freshly discharged from compulsory military service, and was about to start a career—an avid reader with relatively excellent English, and nearly perfect Arabic. Translation it is! I spent several months doing what I have done since 2004: writing essays and reviews when serious military clashes had begun. Weeks, then, were divided between noisy days where heavy rains of mortars blindly hit the city, and quiet nights when the various killers take a break, so my day would begin with nothing but reading. I thought that clashes would end soon, just like several rounds of them had begun and finished. Everything I needed was there: books, cigarettes, maté, araq, some food and electricity. The lack of electricity was the main reason that made me leave my house, not the shelling nor the noises of war. After two days spent waiting for the electricity, I realized that the clashes would continue nonstop, so I decided to move to Damascus where electricity was available, to get my normal life back on track. The clashes expanded until they finally reached Jaramana where I lived, and the off-electricity movie began shooting its sequel. Moving to another city, or even immigration abroad, was not, then, one of my dreams. I used to semi-seriously tell my friends that I longed to witness the last flame of the country burning to ashes while smoking my last cigarette. But the country had not (totally) burned to ashes, and my translation career was seriously taking shape.
My memories of the books I have translated are strongly connected to electricity. Don DeLillo’s White Noise was translated under LED lights, the latest invention entering Syria to replace candles. The novel that is commonly agreed to be a clever anatomy of advanced technology was being translated with the assistance of a simple technological device. DeLillo, however, was much luckier than other authors, especially Isaiah Berlin whose Liberty I translated by the light of a gasoline lamp, before LED was even available. Nowadays, I steal minutes from the four-ninety-minute magical electricity times to follow Americans noisily arguing as they redefine democracy and liberty. Not a waste of time no doubt.
Exactly at this moment, no electricity is available due to a storm causing a big hiccup. Most probably, it will not be on tonight, so I will continue writing this article by pen, as I have been doing since the gracious 1.5/4.5 timetable invaded us. I have also switched between two laptops, and I will send it via mobile, absolutely careful not to waste any drop of its battery. You can guess, then, why am I not a big fan of dystopian literature. Zombies? Aren’t we all? Aliens? Please come and enjoy yourself in watching tens of nationalities on the no-identity land. Plots where technology and electricity are down? Oh, really?! Another 1984? Big Brother is already watching us; he has been here for fifty full years and counting.
A friend told me once that my crazy engagement with writing and translation is already a kind of resistance. This might be true, although I do evade playing the martyr or fighter. The true irony, once again, is my continuous desperate attempts to explain my work to others. I often restrain myself and say that I work in translation, leaving my interlocutor to unwrap his confusion alone. Sometimes, I pity them and cut the explanation short by claiming that I teach English. I did teach English ten years ago, but I quit, convincing myself at last that I am not created to be a teacher, since I deeply detest the teaching environment in Syria. I do that in order to release them from the hard labor of trying to figure out how writing and translation could be a means to make a living, for how could they possibly imagine there is someone who lives a relative financially comfortable life while he rarely gets out of his house. This does not have many meanings, in the land of tireless travail; this man is surely one of the nouveau riche who suddenly got rich at/by war. It is, indeed, a real miracle to stay clinging to the middle class while millions are slipping under the poverty threshold. You sound arrogant or like a snob when saying you make a living from writing and translating. “Writing what?” they ask. Articles about authors like Emil Habibi or Abdulrahman Munif. Their astonished wide-open eyes would be transformed to absolute stupid emptiness if they knew you also write about Chekhov or Gilgamesh and translate John Rawls or Willa Cather.
Books are literally luxury. Never will I forget that the thousands of books and magazines I left behind in my house in Deir EzZor remained completely untouched while everything else was stolen or destroyed. None of the countless successive armies who invaded the house bothered to use the books in anything, not even burning them to get warm in winter. Possibly, they flipped them with their boots while laughing and poking fun at this idiot who deserves to be killed because he left them nothing to steal. It might be resistance, as my friend insists, yet I realize the painful irony that it is equally a luxury. Embarrassment and disgrace gradually plague me when confessing I live relatively better than hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Syrians. I have stopped asking the question I kept asking for years: How the hell do people manage to live with their tiny salaries? I feel ashamed because I managed to live, to survive. Language burns me all over again when remembering etymology. To survive simply means that you outlived others; survival necessarily means that there are others who did not, could not; others who have perished.
Yazan ElHaj is a Syrian writer and translator. He has translated twenty books from English to Arabic including novels by Henry James, Willa Cather and Don DeLillo. He writes regularly in Al-Akhbar and Jadaliyya. His other work has appeared in Al-Adab, Bidayat, and Maʿna.