Shrapnel Pride, Sexual Scars — Girlhood Memories From Syria’s Civil War

-Essay-

BEIRUT — I was 11 years old when the civil war began in Syria, but there was also a small war of its own raging inside me, one that was illogical to a young girl. It was a war between the known and the unknown growing inside of me, trying to seize control of who I was: my femininity.

I did not realize it until later, and I did not understand that its presence required a battle, not because it was difficult to handle, but because the world in which I grew up tried in various ways to mold it into a small, ridiculous form, like a porcelain statue of a girl smiling foolishly, while she is as mighty and stubborn as a basalt statue.

Unfortunately for me, the first shot of the Syrian civil war coincided with the beginning of my teenage years. At that time, I was a fan of walking, and refused to take the bus to go to school. For me, walking was and still is more like a ritual of worship. The road to school took many turns, changing from a quiet neighborhood with trees and flowers to a crowded market, followed by a random popular street, until I reached another, more civilized market, and finally to the school.

I passed through these stages as if it was a journey in which I used all my senses to memorize the way. I never forget the smell of the air in the morning, the sound of bus engines transporting children to school, the cold breeze that makes my body shiver in summer and winter, the sound of distant bullets, and many strange smells.

What I will never forget are the faces of people wandering aimlessly, itself a sign of imminent danger. I was too young to understand then that this was a bad omen.

​Fear of walking

After the May 2012 explosion in the Qazzaz neighborhood of Damascus, my mother refused to let us walk to school. I had already grown scared of walking alone, after I had been (sexually) harassed on my way back home, but had been afraid to tell my mother. That incident had happened by chance, and I did not understand its impact until many years later. I dealt with it as harshly as possible, punishing myself with monastic rituals, burying my femininity in a box, because I preferred my freedom.

After that, I gradually fell into an abyss of collecting fragments, projectiles, and the remnants of war. I wore wide jeans and cut my long, shiny hair short — but it was nothing more than a cry for help.

I needed to know that feeling when war penetrates your body and leaves a scar on it.

On the day of the Qazzaz bombing, I remember that we returned home running, pushing with the terrified school children. My brother and I thought of a way to protect the house from the subsequent explosions, so we pushed the sofa towards the door to close it tightly and hid in the closet, hiding some pears with us. I don’t remember eating that pear that day, but I remember feeling motherly towards my brother, as if I had to protect him.

I was terrified of the war, but my brother was laughing at it, so I suppressed my fear that day and laughed with him. I could not be afraid of war or harassing men! Later, when he went with his friend to collect shell fragments and bullet casings, some soldiers stopped them, and fortunately they returned that day.

Gunpowder and bullets

My family was one of the lucky few not directly affected by the war. My parents somehow managed to keep us away from what might expose us to harm — TV, political conversations, residential areas.

Our house seemed to have an imaginary dome protecting it from bullets. When the students in my class talked about shrapnel and bullets penetrating their windows, I did not have a story. I walked every day and looked perhaps for a bullet or shrapnel in my body. I needed to know that feeling when war penetrates your body and leaves a scar on it.

I wished I had been shot instead of being harassed in the empty street. What a ridiculous and shameful story, for a man to attack me and then disappear after I pushed him and ran away! I can’t tell a story like this. What if they understand it wrongly? What if they blame my dress or my walking alone? I have been dying to tell a story, an exciting story just about war, about gunpowder and bullets! Perhaps as a child, I wanted to feel like I was part of something bigger than myself. I was drowning in my loneliness, my secrets, and the defeats that no one knew about.

My dream came true in the most ridiculous way possible after a long wait. On one of my walks to school, in the last days before break, and the last year of bombings, I heard a noise and a stone fell on my hand as if someone had thrown it at me. I stopped to hold the stone, and it contained a very small shrapnel, like a chickpea seed, left on my hand, that left a small burn mark, as if someone extinguished a cigarette in my hand.

That little shrapnel became my identity and my birth certificate.

At that moment, I saw people running, so I ran with them. It was a shell that fell very close. I did not hear its sound that time, but I felt unparalleled enthusiasm! Here I am running with people and sharing their feelings of fear and anxiety, and here I am hiding in the shadow of a strange shop that eagerly welcomed us, and here I am sharing with them talk about the scourge of shells and the shrapnel that burned my hand, and the small fear that I created.

And here they are praying for my safety and looking at the ridiculous burn on my hand as if it were a deep wound, and they do not care that it resembles nothing more than a cigarette burn, but rather they feel it as a collective wound that has befallen us all.

Saved from shame

Finally, after seven years, the Gods of war blessed me with a bloody sacrifice, finally baptizing me with fire. Only then did I become a Syrian with an identity. To become Syrian means to be baptized with tears and fire, to pronounce the word revolution with pride or not to pronounce it at all, to spit on the asphalt and kiss the ancient stones. That little shrapnel saved me from the shame of not having a story, and became my identity and my birth certificate.

As for my little story that I hid from my mother, I never revealed it to her, as it kept growing inside me in parallel with my femininity, which grew distorted. Today, I realize that it is a war scar bigger than a cigarette butt. I wish I had been able to feel at the time that it too was a fierce war — and not just my own.

Today I understand that the war was completely incomprehensible to all of us. We all thought it was just fire and gunpowder. The memory of those wandering faces at the start of the war comes back to me every day. They are around me every day, carrying one collective defeat, and many smaller ones that appear in their eyes that no one knows except them.