Ideas - Imprisoned Syrian Wrote Poetry Imagining the Fall of the Regime. Now it's Come True

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

For 14 years, Syrian poet Faraj Bayrakdar was imprisoned and tortured in a series of prisons. He found refuge in writing poetry. Now, the poems he wrote imagining the fall of the regime are a reality. He tells host Nahlah Ayed how the freedom within is greater than any prison.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Once upon a time, a man imprisoned by a brutal regime wrote a fable imagining its downfall. And though he could only write it in his mind, it marked his rebirth as a poet. Once upon a time, Epoch, son of time, told me that fire is a guide.

So make sure you've got enough for a long and rugged ride. for a long and rugged ride. That was the first poem Faraj Bayraktar composed in his mind behind bars, the first time he'd written poetry since giving it up for political activity. He spent the first several months in interrogation, alternating between torture and solitary confinement. It was surreal. The cell was a strange place. Our treatment, our interrogation, torture, everything. I felt as if I was a different person watching myself and finding what is happening strange.

O Master Despair, tell your Lord, the Sultan, that the cell is no narrower than his grave, that the cell is no shorter than his life. This, if the earth accepts his corpse, enclosed by footsteps and protected by forgetfulness. Faraj's words, comparing the sultan's grave and life to his narrow and short cell,

was his imagining of the fall of the Syrian dictator. When I wrote the poem, I did not dare see it as a real-life event, so I called it fable. Yet somewhere through the darkness of daily torture and a 14-year odyssey through three of Syria's notorious prisons, Faraj Bayraqdar maintained optimism that the fable, the dream, would become reality. What was the source of your optimism then, when things looked so bleak? The truth is, I have faith in the human being.

I have great trust in our people. Trust comes first after optimism. The second thing is that I believe in what I defend. I defend human rights, freedom of expression, women's freedom. I'm against injustice, against tyranny, against prisons. I believe that nothing stays forever. Everything will have an end, and every country shall disappear. Therefore, I was confident that this regime will change. In mid-December, Bashar al-Assad, Syria's longtime president's rule, did collapse,

ending more than half a century of Syria's own incarceration. Humanity will be more beautiful when it loses a tyrant, when it loses a prison or a jailer, when it loses torture, it will gain freedom. The world will be more beautiful and richer. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. Today, a conversation with Faraj Beir Akhdar, a former political prisoner and award-winning poet on disobedience, on hope, and on how the freedom within is greater than any prison. the freedom within is greater than any prison.

I was hoping you could take me to the moment when you first started to see the news. And especially all these incredible videos, incredible images of prisoners being freed from Syrian prisons. I felt that I lost a dream that I was dreaming, that this would happen to me while I was still in prison. I and many others, in fact, felt that at any moment that someone or groups could come and open the prisons and tell us that you are free. We were imagining that al-Assad would fall for some reason. Maybe at that time we were thinking a military coup or a group or a popular uprising. And in the end, it meant our liberation.

I mean, we weren't hopeless, but after many years, I mean, for me it was 14 years. Others stayed 20 years. A friend of mine stayed 32 years. stayed 20 years. A friend of mine stayed 32 years. Unfortunately, the dream of release was not realized in this way, that a group of people comes to open a prison and say, you get out, you are free.

When you saw them walking out of prison. I was aware that when I was released that I had my freedom. But it was a partial freedom. As long as the people are not free, any freedom remains fragmented, small, not real. This freedom now is real. It is real freedom, not false, not partial, not transient, not a dream, meaning it is a reality,

complete and comprehensive. I can say that a new term has entered the history of Syria that hadn't existed since the era of al-Assad the father from the beginning 54 years ago. Liberation. Freedom not imposed or granted by the regime. This freedom was wrested by the people. My specialization is the Arabic language. I mean, I supposedly know how to speak and express myself. But by God, my language is not enough. I felt as though on my shoulders there was something growing, something growing quickly that becomes like feathers and like wings, something akin to flying.

I mean, I don't know. My hands were moving out of my control. I didn't know whether to clap or to believe that these were wings with which I can fly. I was just sad that I wasn't there. I would have loved to hug each prisoner. I did hug them virtually. Wow. And you didn't come up with any poetry? No, no, no, no.

It's not possible to express. Maybe later. First, my soul must calm down. But I will definitely write about it in the future. I wrote about death a lot. A lot. I have many books, most of which are full of death or talking about death in prison or massacres. Enough writing about death. Now it's time to write about life. You have said that the tragedy of prison is not only reflected in the person of the incarcerated, but also in life outside of prison. Many families have been destroyed and fallen apart. Can we understand Syria, under 54 years of the Assad family, as one huge prison, and this moment as a nationwide prison break? Yes. I think we and our parents were well aware that Syria is a prison.

And inside it there are prisons. And inside those prisons were more prisons. There is a toy, a Russian wooden toy called Matryoshka, a wooden doll of a woman in two pieces inside which there are smaller dolls. Syria was a prison inside a prison inside a prison. I have a poem entitled Matryoshka Syria, in which I say it's prisons intertwined with prisons. Pushka, Syria, in which I say it's prisons intertwined with prisons.

But the suffering of the families worried us more than our suffering inside the prison because we knew that we were alive. We suffered, but we knew how to endure it. But the families, they didn't know. I spent six years with no visits. My family didn't know whether I was alive or not. I myself know I'm alive. So I'm less worried than my mother, father, and sisters. When I was released, they told me that they assumed I'd been killed.

I was saying that if I had to choose between being in prison myself or one of my brothers being there, I would choose to be in the prison myself because the prison is more comforting than the life of the prisoner's family. Syria was hell. Without prison, it was hell. And if you were related to a prisoner, your life was doubly hell. If you were related to a prisoner, your life was doubly hell. The fear of prison in Syria and the fact of prison in Syria, how much did that experience over half a century actually lead to the courage that led to revolution. A tyrannical regime assumes that the more they pressure people and scare them,

it weakens their resistance. It is true to a certain extent. When every citizen is threatened with being arrested at any moment, and there's no law to resort to, there's no resort except God, the effect piles up and the tyrants do not realize it. For example, in the prison, they once did a search. They confiscated my papers. The prison director read the papers and asked me, What did you write? I said, I wrote about the prison, about the arrest and torture, informants. I wrote what

I believe in. I wrote what you read. He told me, don't you know the punishment for these thoughts and these words? I said, I know. Its punishment is arrest. Go ahead, arrest me. The person who is outside the prison will try not to say those things so he wouldn't get arrested. But if you're already inside the prison, you're not afraid to be arrested. So, in a society where you are miserable and you can't earn a livelihood and dignity, whether you are a loyalist or an opponent, what will you lose? It is like a mob uprising. What will the slave lose if he revolts, or the working class?

They only lose their chains that are restraining them. They already have nothing. That's, I think, attributed to Marx or Engels. When people reach their limit, they might revolt. The tyrant who rules with blood thinks that people will be fearful forever. In an instant, people will break the fear barrier. Faraj Bayraktar was born and raised in Homs, an ancient city with a reputation long before it made international headlines

as the capital of the revolution in 2011. You've said that you learned disobedience from the river in Homs. Can you explain how? When I began to understand language as a child, I asked why the river in our city was named Al-Aasi. I knew that it was called the disobedient, which also means rebellious or one who disagrees. This comes from the fact that the river flows from south to north.

Most rivers originate from the north and run south, except this one originates in the south and runs north. Most rivers originate from the north and run south, except this one originates in the south and runs north. It disobeyed the norms of nature. So from that time onward, I felt that I was blessed with the water of this river. In the ninth grade in the summer, when I was getting ready for exams, I studied at the banks of the river. In our village, fruit trees grow on the banks of the Al-Aasi River. We have pomegranate trees, figs, oranges, and all kinds of fruit. We ate everything from these trees and plants in its season. When we needed fish, my mom would just say,

go to the river and catch some fish for us. This led to having a strong relationship, a sort of deep friendship with the river Al-Asi. I considered the river my twin brother. I felt that I am also disobedient against the laws, against the authorities, against injustice, against poverty. My disobedience was directed at society, but the river's disobedience was against nature. At the end of the day, we complement each other. What about Homs in general? How did this city help shape who you became?

Homs is a poetic city in its nature. It is full of gardens, orchards, and the river passes through it. The nature of the people of Homs is well known. They are willing to make jokes at their own expense. When I speak of Homs and its surrounding area, I speak of poetry everywhere in Homs and throughout its history, especially in the modern ages. The history, whether it is cultural or political, its nature is very rich.

It is a rich fabric intertwined between Muslims and Christians, Sunni Muslims and Alawites. There is this sort of marriage between them. This sectarian conflict, the black sectarianism, did not exist before the Al-Assad era. Al-Assad used it for his own purpose, but now his allies can see that it was all a big lie. But Homs is poetic. It includes the desert, and Tadmur is part of Homs as well, and its famous Zenobia kingdom. There was this historical miracle of the birth of a kingdom of Zenobia. Then the regime turned it into a new miracle, which is the big prison of Tadmur. There were mass massacres and mass graves. This goes to the current history.

Homs is a city of poetry. This is to say that my genes were proper. I became a poet. In 1987, under the elder Assad, Faraj was accused of political activity for involvement in a communist party, and he was arrested. In between torture sessions, he found refuge in composing poetry. Lines and lines that he memorized and had fellow prisoners memorize until he could, years later, write them down using tea

as ink, a piece of wood for a pen, and cigarette paper. Prison poems painstakingly spirited to the outside world. It was in prison, he said, that he became a true poet. You've said that poetry is the antithesis of prison. Can you explain what you meant by that? In my view, Al-Assad's prison is extreme predatory masculinity. Anything that is brutal is masculinity. That's my opinion.

While freedom is an extreme merciful femininity, it is the total opposite. Poetry is what made me withstand the conditions in prison and challenge it. The most important element in the imagination for me is in reality poetry. You cannot imprison imagination. Physically, they can arrest me and control me, but my imagination cannot be arrested. I said before that poetry is the most beautiful bird of freedom for me. In other words, poetry is the extreme exercise of freedom. Thus, it was impossible for them to arrest my spirit or imagination and lock it in a prison.

The sharpest weapon is writing poetry. You've said, the freedom within us is greater than the prisons that we are in. What is the source of that freedom within you? Thank you. of freedoms, the real freedom and the false freedom. The false freedom is that one moves as he wishes, travels, for example. That's not the real freedom. The real freedom is the one inside yourself. If someone is free from within, that is what is called true freedom. True freedom. Thus, the one who is free from within cannot be broken or defeated by physical captivity.

My inner freedom is stronger, and my inner freedom can resist for one year, five, ten, or more, even until I die. There will be a moment when this captivity will be defeated or demolished and true freedom remains. Prisons will vanish, but my freedom will never vanish except if I give it up. The slave becomes a slave because he gave up and accepted the conditions of his slavery. I will never be a slave. I shall remain free. I felt that I was freer than the prison director.

The director of the prison cannot say what I can say. I can say whatever I want, and the prison will not stop me. I can say whatever I want, and the prison will not stop me. I'm in conversation with Syrian poet and former political prisoner Faraj Bayraktar, speaking to us from Sweden. You're listening to Ideas. You can find us anywhere you get your podcasts. And on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, on World Radio Paris, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas.

I'm Nala Ayed. My name is Graham Isidore. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. And being I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. For more than half a century, Syria was an imprisoned nation. Even mention of the regime's fearsome institutions like Tadmor and Saydnaya sent terror through its people. They warehoused countless political prisoners who were often tortured and killed, never to be seen again. Faraj Bayraqdar spent 14 years in the worst of those prisons,

cut off from his family, his wife, who was also imprisoned for four years, and his one daughter. In his first months at the so-called Palestine Division, toggling between brutal interrogation and solitary confinement, poetry became his refuge, a diary, an exercise in freedom, and an important work of history. Once on the outside, Farage's searing poems stirred the interest of colleagues, who had them published as a book, titled A Dove in Free Flight, an act that would eventually help start an international campaign for his release. Farage, meanwhile, kept delving deeper into his bizarre existence. In 1992, in Tadbor, he wrote,

wrote, Oh, these two, give me back a little space, since my cell is a body I claim and a freedom that claims me. Give me back a question, for the answers scattered by the tribes, or that scattered me over them. No harm in that. The coming day, overflowing, will gather me, teardrop by teardrop, like an ode in its cradle, and then illuminate me suddenly, like a verse at its climax, and bless me with its antithesis. My cell is a body I claim and a freedom that claims me. It almost seems like you're able to use poetry to kind of rewrite the world around you, like to exert control over your surroundings

rather than allowing them to control you. Yes, that's true. I say, my body is a shell and the poem is an emergency exercise of freedom. Meaning, as if it suddenly came down from heaven, suddenly it happens that no one can stop it because it suddenly happened and imposed itself. In fact, this is how I saw the poem and how I see poetry in general. Secondly, there are other freedoms. For example, I was liberated from the pressures of society. Previously, if I wrote

something like that, maybe my family would be made uncomfortable. My mother may be disturbed by this adjective because our society is more conservative. I'm freed from all this. I am freed from all constraints. I say what I want, and I don't think about society, people, family authority, or anyone, and I'm liberated even from the constraints of language. Previously, I had to follow the norms of the language. I do not write in classical language. If this is correct and that is wrong, that no longer matters to me.

I have other standards. I am the one who decides. When I see that it is better to be outside the rules of the Arabic language in a given subject, I do it with a clear conscience. Before prison, I couldn't do that. Prison has really freed me from many things, and I have freed the poetry inside me as I released it as it is, in any form. When I was out of prison, life was full of constraints.

Family constraints, school constraints, compulsory military service constraints, state constraints. The newspaper where I published my writings had constraints, religious constraints. When I was in prison, I was free of all of them. It's extraordinary to think of prison as a place where you can feel more free to write. It's amazing that prison is what frees you from writing and thinking. Yes, before prison, you're afraid that they will confiscate your freedom. Once you are in prison, your physical freedom is confiscated. You're supposed to liberate yourself in the end.

One is no longer afraid of anything. Choosing to expand one's freedom into every horizon and at all levels. If we say that prison is negative in all its facets, only this facet is positive. You've also said that when you were being tortured in prison, that returning to your cell felt like returning to your mother's womb. Yes. The cell is the last mercy. In the end, it comes as a real rescue

This may contradict a lot of what we've read about prisons The literature always had pictures of the cell that it is narrow and that it is always dark and always bad. I long to go back to the cell when they took me out of it because the cell is underground. They ask us to go upstairs to the interrogation rooms, and there the torture begins. And once the torture is over, sometimes I couldn't walk, and they put me on a blanket. They pick me up, two in front and behind,

and throw me in the cell. Here, the earthquake happened again. There, the cell becomes my refuge. There's no torture here. I go back to it as if I had returned to my mother's womb. In the womb, the fetus is safe. This means that the womb is its appropriate environment that protects it. If everything that came before was without mercy, then the cell is the ultimate mercy. Here my understanding of the cell for me was that there is a close and good relationship between us.

The important thing is not to be in their hands, not to be under interrogation. Leave me in my cell forever. I can have a relationship with the cell, an intimate and kind relationship. To go upstairs to them for the sake of being interrogated is hell. So leave me in the cell. Don't take me to hell. So if your relationship was positive with the cell, what was it like to be released from

the cell? What was your relationship with the cell afterwards? They didn't immediately release me from the cell to the outside. They took us to a dormitory where my comrades were. We went to Tadmor prison, then to Sednaya prison. And 14 years later, they released me. But I had an emotional relationship with the cell. Because my days were black.

My daytime and nighttime were black. Torture, interrogation, fear, anxiety, etc. Whenever I hear sounds coming towards my cell, I know they want to take me upstairs. I mean, there are horrible torture methods. I hope no one comes. Leave me in my cell. That is, any step that comes is a sign of danger.

It seems that I have created life in my mind, in my imagination when I am in solitary. My imagination formulated it as it wished. To the extent that I felt, for example, that the cell is a beach. A beautiful beach. I would walk on this beach. I would walk for an hour or two or three hours. My cell was 180 centimeters long. I mean three or four steps. I go back and forth the four steps. But in my imagination, I feel that I am walking on a beach. Or I feel that now it is a forest.

So I walk in the forest. And I'm in this cell. Or sometimes I say I want to walk now from east to west of Homs. From the house of so-and-so to the house of so-and-so. This will be around two hours of walking. I keep walking, remembering all the steps I took on the street. I went out of the cell while I was still in it. It was like a cinema. No, it was more than a cinema. I brought everything outside to the cell. But upstairs, no. Upstairs, no one can imagine anything there. I mean, the body wants to defend itself. punches, sticks, and whips means that one is looking to protect his life.

I'm in the cell writing poetry, and I'm imagining a journey. Writing poetry at first was difficult, and then I convinced myself that our ancestors 2,000 years ago had no papers and pens. They composed poems in their minds. I said, okay, I consider myself to be living in an era 2,000 years ago without paper. I started writing poems in my mind. And I was able to do it, and I did it. I stayed 14 years in prison, which is a terrible number of years, but I felt that I was able to reduce it

and wrote seven manuscripts that were published. I wrote seven books. So prison is not 100% black. There is nothing pure black. I told you it depends on how you see things and make it function. I made the prison work for me because I was able to write poetry in it. I wrote poetry about prison, books about women. I wrote about mysticism. I wrote poetry about love, about nature, about everything.

This comforted me at the time of imprisonment itself or freed me from many constraints. Faraj was eventually released from prison in 2000, part of an amnesty for political prisoners orchestrated after the younger Bashar al-Assad assumed the presidency. He left Syria in 2005 and has lived in exile in Sweden ever since. When the Arab Spring began in 2011, he watched as his poems were reinterpreted for the moment, carried as slogans on the streets. He also despaired as Syria's prisons also found new purpose.

The concern was greater after 2011 because the prisons were no longer the same. At the time when we were prisoners, the number of people who died under torture was one per hundred or one per thousand. After 2011, the number who died became 99, probably died out of a hundred. The torture became brutal and blind. For us, the torture was brutal but not blind, meaning when I got to the verge of death, they would transfer me to Harasta military prison. They treated me until I wasn't on the verge of dying. They then would return me to the Palestine branch, and the interrogation and torture began again. If I got too tired, they'd take me to the Palestine branch, and the interrogation and torture began again. If I got too tired, they'd take me to the hospital, and so on.

After 2011, they don't take anyone to the hospital. If a detainee dies, it is not a problem at all. We lost some comrades under torture. I mean friends who died under torture at the Palestine branch. Friends died at Tadmor prison. Friends died in Sadnaya prison. But after 2011, I began to feel that we had no right to talk about the atrocities that happened to us. Or let's say they're incomparable to the atrocities that happened after 2011. I wonder if you could talk about how,

what this moment is like for Syria, getting to know all those sons again who were in prison, and for those ex-prisoners to, you know, to make up for all the time that they've lost. you know, to make up for all the time that they've lost. We can say we are reassured that now that the horizon is open, we can move forward. But the losses that have come and gone are enormous.

I believe that the Syrian people have endured losses more than what has been inflicted on other nations. If we study the history of nations, we will find that nations have lost a lot. But successful nations are those that were able to surpass and rise beyond and were able to open new horizons. We have martyrs who we cannot bring back, but we can build a culture where it's impossible for a regime that will kill or martyr people to return. We will build new morals so we don't fall into it again. One of the poems you wrote in Said Naya ends like this. Do you hear me? I am calling. I'm not searching for a collective grave, just my country.

Do you think Syria is closer to being just your country? I am calling out. I am yelling. Do you hear me? And my words are directed to the other who is outside prison. hear me. And my words are directed to the other who is outside prison. I'm calling out. I am not looking for a mass grave. I am looking for my country. The mass grave is the dictatorial regime. It tried to turn Syria into a mass grave. Not a prison, but a mass grave. If I come out and I have to live without dignity, without freedom, it will be like living in a grave. In order for it to be my country, it must be free. And its people are dignified and decent.

They have their rights, have the possibility of creativity, have the possibility of human communication, and are able to benefit humanity and benefit from humanity. This is my country. This is not the mass grave. This is not my concern. This is what the regime wants. That's not my business. And although I am captive now, and I do not know when I will be released, this is my goal.

My real country, after al-Assad is gone, this is the country I want. This is what I'm looking for. Faraj's poems have been translated and published worldwide. They've inspired music and been included in a course on Arab prison literature, taught by renowned Lebanese writer Elias Khouri at New York University. It was a group of students in that course who collaborated to translate Farage's book, A Dove in Free Flight, into English. What does it say?

I mean, what are we to make of this history that's been written or these cultural artifacts of prison, both in poetry and words and in music. What does it say about the Middle East and the Arab world and what could it say about its future? or resistance forces for any person, especially in prisons, are evident and also varied. Resistance or elements of resistance in any human being,

especially in prisoners, vary. Some of our attempts in trying to defeat the prison I think succeeded to an acceptable degree. We are in prison, but will the prison, I think, succeeded to an acceptable degree. We are in prison, but will the prison defeat us, or will we defeat it? Let me define the prison. That it is a constant attempt to abolish meaning,

to abolish the meaning of the prisoner, to abolish his being, to abolish something and to abolish meaning at all. Imprisonment means a state akin to nothingness, while meaning is closer to life. This vile prison is to cancel the meaning. To confront the prison is to try hard to create meaning. Creating meaning can be done with a poem, a painting, a song, or music in many ways.

All musicians say that without singing and music, they would not have endured prison. We would have come out psychologically devastated. We created a state of balance from a sense of meaning, from a sense of beauty. Imprisonment or tyranny in all its forms is the champion of ugliness, champion of robbery, negative dimension at all levels. The prisoner must create antidotes. I used to say that poetry for me is the most beautiful freedom bird. It is the most beautiful exercise and the best exercise for freedom.

Those who used to sing or play music said this about music. Others who wrote novels said that they were facing the universe. Sometimes they would ask me to write words to a tune that they had made, and I write the words that suit the universe. Sometimes they would ask me to write words to a tune that they had made, and I write the words that suit the music. We made our situation and conditions better and stronger. Our steadfastness created a moment of joy. Joy can cope with gloom and sadness inside prison. It never occurred to me that one day it would be possible

for these songs, poems, and music to see the light. But I was surprised when I came out of prison that one of the singers heard the lyrics of a song I wrote, and he wanted to sing it. He sang it and became very famous. You've previously said you pity those who jailed you and tortured you, that they were transformed into the depraved. My question is, how can that thinking be applied on the national level? The regime tried to create irreconcilable enmities.

Enmities between the jailer and the prisoner. Between the Sunni Muslim, the Alawite Muslim, the Christians, etc. Because whoever created these divisions rises above them all, and observes and manages it. If anyone opposes this, he is imprisoned. When we were imprisoned, the purpose was to let us abandon these ideas. So if we abandon it, he will succeed in his mission. So if we manage to look at the jailer himself, who is the jailer? What did a jailer do?

Can't a jailer be changed? From the beginning, we are attentive to the fact that we're not enemies with the jailer because the jailers are humans. They're a tool in the hands of the brutal regime. I can say that once one of the guards noticed that I can't bear it. I mean, my body can't bear the beating. He didn't want to torture me. But the senior officer told him he should torture me.

He asked me to scream at the top of my voice, and he didn't flog me. He flogged the walls and the floor. But the senior officer must hear that I'm screaming from pain, therefore he is doing his job. but the senior officer must hear that I'm screaming from pain, therefore he is doing his job. He doesn't want to say that he doesn't want to beat me because he'll become like me, a prisoner being beaten like me. How would I hate him?

The regime assumed that I hate him and he hates me. Neither does he hate me, nor do I hate him. When new circumstances arise, we will be friends. When I got out of prison, I met some of those who were jailers on the street, and we hugged each other. But this happened with the conscripted soldiers, and they often go to compulsory service. They're different from trained professional officers whose interests are an essential part of the regime. For example, I was imprisoned three times. During the first arrest, they took me, not to torture me. They told me that we want to torture this other person so he would confess, and if he does not, you should beat him. I mean, they wanted to turn me into an executioner while I was a prisoner.

Notice how dangerous the idea is. The warden made me hold the whip, and he told me that the other guy was lying, which means I have to flog him. I threw the whip. He told me to hit him. I told him, no, I won't. He got up and said to the other person, grab the whip. And he grabbed it and told him to flog me, and he did. I wasn't upset because he flogged me, because he was scared.

When we returned, the prisoner apologized to me. I told him not to apologize because he was forced to do it. This al-Assad really destroyed the spirit and morals of his homeland. He destroyed everything. He did. But fortunately, despite all that, the Syrian people are now back as they were at the beginning of the revolution. Peaceful, peaceful. One, one. The Syrian people are one. But how do you get justice for all those? How do you exact justice for you and so many others

who lost so much of their lives because of that regime. I believe that the most important thing is to have a clear distinction between transitional justice and revenge justice. Transitional justice is the one that restores rights to their owners. It is the one that compensates them, at least morally. And this is a definite material compensation. And it is the one that holds the ones who gave the orders accountable. The ones who gave the orders. You wrote a poem imagining returning to Homs. Do you think that poem might come true?

I was talking about it as though it was a dream I've seen. Meaning, it's going to come true soon. I'm coming to Homs soon. But this is what I said 11 years ago. 11 years ago, I said I would come to Homs shortly. But it took 11 years. But it has happened. And I will really come to Homs.

I will come to Homs in a little while. I will enter it safely, under the protection of her people and my certainty in them. And for close to 20 years of absence and faithful prayers, 20 years forsaken me at her crossroads. The guards armed me with weapons I do not see, and passed by me with weapons I do not see. But I will come to her in any way she wishes. Could not this city buy me, even with just a little waris, myrtle, and words of welcome, I will come to her, even as a refugee, for the meaning of refuge has changed and departed from its old lexical dictionary. So how do I fashion a dictionary of Homs,

when the likes of me has neither an imam nor prayers? To dissipate doubt, he has nothing but a God, whose verses he chants in his mind, while her dawn is dispelled on her sights, to say to us, safe are all those who speak or do not speak, all who believe or do not believe, and all whose appointed times have been illuminated by the candlelight of their fingers

to see their tomorrow, our people. And Homs, like her mother, Syria, is above all suspicion. I will come to Homs alone. I will come to Homs alone. I will come to Homs in affection. I will come to her with longing and adoration. For Homs, which christened me,

and Homs, which made me Muslim, it is only fitting for her that I belong to her. A thousand loves and sorrows and a river of memories for her to recover and for me to recover. On Ideas, you've been listening to my conversation with Syrian poet and former political prisoner Faraj Beirakdar, speaking to us from Sweden. former political prisoner Faraj Beirakdar, speaking to us from Sweden. He is the author of A Dove in Free Flight, published by Upset Press. The poems in that collection,

and that you've been hearing throughout this episode, were translated by Amil Al-Khalay, Sinan Antun, Rebecca Johnson, Ilyas Khouri, Soline Nalbatian, Jeffrey Sachs, and by me, Nala Ayed. Special thanks to Maha Takla for translating my conversation with Faraj and to Sean Foley for reading the English translation. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. English translation. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Technical production, Danielle Duval,

with assistance from Will Yar and Oronde Williams. Our senior producer is Nikola Lukšić. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly, and I'm Nala Ayed. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.