We forgot the heart wonder and left in you the best of us−our martyrs whom we ask you to look after”. This was the way Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish cried when he remembered those he had left in Tunisia before the PLO moved to the West Bank and Gaza.
What have we left in our home to cry over or fight for?
Actually, we left a lot and have to cry a lot over this home where killing by everyone in every place spreads without questioning. This home has no value without us and for some of us it does not have any value, for some others it has great value.
In Syria, however, some parts are no longer valued by anyone as if they had actually been removed from the Syrian map and left the hearts and minds. Or, it might be that oppression exceeded the limits and became unbearable; Manbij, that old Levant story sung by its own poets, is for whom? With whom? Who is slaughtering it? Who benefits from this? What if we defend it? Why are we not defending it? And finally, who will defend it?
These are big questions in a lousy time that changed the famous Arab poet al-Buhturi city to a mere unknown place except for entering the blood circle after the US decided to gain the glory of destroying ISIS via the destruction of Manbij by facilitating the coming of the new invaders picturing them as saving conquerors. The US even prepared military plans for them with an air cover that abolishes the confrontation possibility.
The cover has another mission which is killing hundreds of civilians inside the city. All these civilians are internationally viewed no more than a terrorism incubator and are accused as being ISIS members themselves. This is a new scene of the killing and murdering the alleged coalition is practicing against all Syrians under the pretext of fighting ISIS and is another chapter of the ethnic cleansing chapters against Sunni Arabs in the west of Euphrates this time not in its sacred east, an ethnic cleansing for the sake of Syrian minority Kurds fighting under the YPG brigade which constitutes the backbone of what is known as Syria Democratic Forces (SDF).
Manbij these days is living a tragedy as its inhabitants are punished without guilt. They are the ones who liberated themselves from the Assad regime years ago and established a local social rule that confronted Assad regime and was able to withstand due to tribal ties and the harmony of its people who were protected by geography to a certain extent; geography became tough on them because the city became a destination for ISIS which was at its best expansion.
ISIS exploited this relative stability and the lack of a sufficient military power that can defend the city (as it was not subject to attacks for a long time). Manbij enjoyed stability as one of ISIS strongholds except for some Assad regime sporadic air raids till the US and its coalition decided to launch their war on ISIS where air raids intensified.
The turning point was when US forces landed on Syria wearing the YPG patches on their arms to promote the start of the Raqqa Battle; those forces directly moved their battle to Manbij to help the Kurdish units to cross the Euphrates to go to Manbij making the city that was already occupied by ISIS subject to the attack which some parties are promoting as a liberation while in fact all of them are part of the terrorism hitting the city.
My problem with the situation in Manbij is exactly with the situation in Raqqa and Deir Ez-Zoor. Have we all forgotten these cities and delivered them to ISIS from the depth of our hearts and minds to render them a legitimate target of all attacks that kill their people?
Now, we are walking on the edge of a knife charged with suspicion and accusation that any support to the people of Manbij, even if in words, is a support to ISIS. In this moral dilemma the world has put us, we have to find a way out and reach self-conciliation first and redefine these afflicted cities with ISIS occupation as Syrian cities which are still revolting; ISIS is no more than a temporal passing condition. It is inevitable to differentiate between those who belong to ISIS and those who are its victim and the victim of the war launched on it.
Our children in Manbij and their afflicted families are our only concern and it is necessary to admit our dereliction towards them and we have to be more courageous when we are defending our people especially when we realize that no city in Syria revolted to surrender to ISIS, but revolted against Assad and herein lies the origin of the story.
This is a common factor for all which should pressure us to be united in uncovering anyone who tries to distort Manbij, Raqqa, Deir Ez-Zoor, al-Bab or Jarablus and who tries to mark these cities with ISISism. This has to be made clear to the Kurdish fighters in the Protection Units; their gains are temporal and covered with the mightiest warplanes; once they leave the sky, these easy gains will be lost. This is not to glorify the strength of ISIS, but because they realize that their aim of fighting on this land is not legitimate. Attested to this fact is the displacement that targeted other Kurds who were and still are against the practices of the Units that do not represent them.
Manbij today is the expression of the international community’s intention to go on in exhausting our revolution, but this time by making us choose between keeping silent or accusing our people of ISISism or in the best cases resort to light condemnation. Meanwhile, the coalition realizes that what it is doing to make the Kurdish Units progress will not be good to any of the parties, but will incur destruction and more bloodshed today or in the future regardless of the results of this campaign.
We have to realize that relieving the stress resulting from Europe’s inability to protect itself from “terrorism” in our countries is not coincidental. Rather, it is a consequence of our addressing, as exhausted societies, of cases similar to Manbij.
Feeling towards all cities ISIS occupies became dull after our revenge became greater with it. Here we can say that any revenge with or aggression to ISIS will not make us accept the annihilation and burning of our cities which ISIS occupied because in them we have a lot and in them we left the best of us; we left there our martyrs, and some of our revolution and revolutionists.
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