We have not seen these scenes before, despite the enormity of what we had seen. They are more dangerous and brutal. Countries and capitals are drowning in a sea of oppression and darkness, and travelling to the past, to damp and moldy caves full of hatred. We once called these open slaughterhouses homelands. Now, they are pyramids of corpses and mountains of blood. The scenes are truly appalling. The storms of the spring toppled the last fig leaves that our societies had. They exposed their underbellies and the corrupt blood and sick ideas that accumulated therein. What was your partner in the homeland is now your victim. You were his partner in the homeland but you are now his victim. The homeland does not have room for two men, two ideas, or two sects. You are not a citizen. You are a project for a murderer or a murder victim. Don't accuse me of exaggeration. Just look at the region and reflect. Entire maps are at risk. Entire countries are panicked. Entire governments have crumbled. Entire armies are drenched in their fear or the blood of their compatriots. Entire communities are alert. Entire sects are vigilant. Entire faiths are infighting. Entire minorities are treating their anxieties with suicidal practices. You beg at home or you beg in the camps in neighboring countries. You had a village and now it has been erased. And on the roads to oblivion, you hear about the boats of death and corpses lost at sea. Don't accuse me of exaggeration. A suicide attacker detonates his car at a café, funeral, or school. Explosive charges and pistols with silencers. Those who are supposed to protect you kill you. Those who are supposed to save you assassinate you. I write under the weight of pain. In traffic at the port area in Beirut, a young man tapped on the glass of the car. He uttered a painful phrase: "I am a university student and all I want from you is the price of a sandwich." He then repeated his plea again a few meters later. I was curious so I asked the driver to stop the car. I found out that the young man was indeed a university student who was afraid to starve. He said that he tried in vain to find work in Beirut. The number of Syrians there was very high. He suggested that those he asked for a job met him with a certain measure of fear. Some feared he could be affiliated to the regime. Others feared he was an opposition supporter on a mission. One question in particular pained him: "Where are you form?" He knew that what was meant was his religious affiliation. Some did not even hesitate to ask him directly: "Are you Sunni or Alawi?" The crude question hurt him. It made him feel that "Syria is finished." He felt that "Arabism also is finished." He said that relatives of his were murdered. He spoke about massacres committed by more than one party. He said what is being reported on Syria, despite its atrocious nature, is much less than what is actually happening there. He said that influx of foreign fighters to both camps has deepened sectarian division, pushing it towards complete divorce. He ruled out that Syrians from now on would live anywhere they do not belong to the overwhelming majority. He discounted the possibility that Syrians would spend the night in an area from a different affiliation. He said that he was waiting for the opportunity to escape to faraway countries. He said he could work there in a port, café, or factory. He wanted to move away from massacres and images of massacres. If he had the chance, he said, he would bring in the lost members of his family too. He asserted that he did not want to stay in Lebanon "because it resembles Syria." He passed through Tripoli in north Lebanon, and saw the Sunnis and Alawis there fighting. He wants to be in a faraway country where cannot read the newspapers or understand the language of the television. He wants a place to sleep and three meals. The Syrian young man did not want more than a sandwich to delay hunger. He does not wager on Geneva 2, and he does not wait for the results of the efforts of Lakhadar Brahimi. He did not want anything from Barack Obama. He does not expect anything from Vladimir Putin. Luckily, he does not know the name of Nabil Elaraby. He said that felt humiliated because ‘foreign fighters' were swimming in the blood of this or that Syrian, as though they were on a hunting trip. The young Syrian's tale broke my heart. I was ashamed to stare at the depths of despair in his eyes. A university student who wanted nothing more than a sandwich. I feared he might jump tomorrow on a death boat and turn into a lost corpse in the sea of Indonesia or Italy.
