Chapter III. The dictator

In northwestern Syria, there is a mountain range belonging to the countryside of Lattakia Governorate, called the Kurds Mountains. Close to it, towards the Turkish border to the northwest, there is another mountain range, called the Turkmen Mountains. A third range, called the Alawiyya Mountains, is named after the minority of the Alawite sect based there.

According to historians, the Kurdish race is descended from the majority of the Kurd Mountains’ population. They arrived in this mountain range in a variety of migrations and stages, the earliest of which occurred during the reign of the legendary Islamic leader Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (1138-1193 AD), and the majority of which occurred during the Ottoman-Persian wars, which began in the early 15th century. It began in the fourteenth century, when many Kurdish clans went to the highlands of Latakia province, in northern Syria, and settled in the mountain range that bears their name.

Years passed, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and France invaded Syria in 1920 A.D. The Kurdish mountains left their mark on the occupation that would last throughout its existence on the butchers, on the plains, and behind every tree and stone, and the French suffered a great deal at the hands of the locals before leaving the country in 1946 A.D. He also left his own imprint on them in the form of the Alawite sect, a small minority group that includes some Syrians. Over the duration of the occupation, he gave them encouragement, fed and fattened them, and they did the same for him. They have lived there since the dawn of time in a mountain range that is figuratively known as the Alawiyya Mountains and is situated exactly opposite the Kurdish mountain range.

The Alawite mountains agonized over every affliction that befell the Kurdish mountains and wished that chain against them and its inhabitants would perish because their masters dealt with the occupier in the name of the sect and were therefore referred to as treacherous and outcasts. The occupation eventually found its way to the Kurdish mountains.

– What drives a group of individuals from a nation to act in this way when they have lived there for a millennium and their ancestors have done so for millennia before? A profound query, and its response is equally profound

Following the military withdrawal of the occupation, which came to an end in 1970 AD with the rule of Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, a succession of military coups occurred in Syria.

The people of the sect now own Syria along with those who live there, killing, torturing, stealing, looting, marginalizing whoever they want, and bringing close to whomever they want. Of course, the time for old retaliation for the occupation has come; today is the promised day, and the Kurdish Mountain residents have experienced their fair share of injustice and persecution along with the lion’s share of iron and fire. They tried their best to demographically penetrate it through the purchase of lands and the displacement of the indigenous population, but in spite of this, it remained insurmountable to them. Instead, its people took the covenant and the promise upon themselves: do not sell them an inch, do not waste a tree, and do not leave a village. They stay, no matter the cost.

An entire people cannot be held in servitude in ten years.

A popular uprising against the dictator occurred in 1980, and the Alawite regime in Syria, commanded by Hafez al-Assad, put a stop to it by murdering at least 30,000 civilians in Hama, the stronghold of this uprising, as well as detaining and disappearing thousands of others from all across the country.

One of the prisoners was a young guy of twenty-nine years old who just vanished; no one knew where they took him, and no one dared to inquire about him. As a result, anyone who was so impolite as to inquire also suffered the same fate.

The masked men assaulted the house while the children and women of the neighborhood screamed loudly, and the woman in the next room cried not only out of fear for him, but also because of the pain that befell her.

Although being aware of his impending doom, he made an effort to resist.

Even though he knows there is no chance of escape, he is attempting to put off opening the door in the hopes that he will hear that voice.

His fingers clung to the edge of the door, his head was slashed, and blood covered his face. His ear was there in the room where his wife was crying out loudly, pleading with her to hurry because it was her last chance to hear his voice. They dragged him to the floor, beat him with a rifle’s butt, slashed his brow, his head, and covered him in blood.

After what seemed like an eternity of wanting and waiting, he closed his eyes and heard himself start to cry, his tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks.

– Welcome, my son; I’ll go, and you’ll be staying.

Oh Abdullah, he is a boy, his sister yelled as she hurried toward him in a race against time.

He was seized with both the pain of death and the ecstasy of life as tears streamed down his face.

As they placed him in the trunk, he shouted at the top of his lungs.

-Walid, give him that name, and may the Lord make his birth a new dawn.