A remarkable piece of journalism in the NYT Magazine reports on conditions in Aleppo, Syria, on a day of relative peace after the city’s recapture by Assad forces in December. The author has visited and interviewed many of the people of Aleppo and has compiled a fascinating snapshot of a city in brutal turmoil, attempting to rise from its own ashes. The article goes into great detail about the 6-year civil war, the many battling factions, and the impact of the war on the city’s residents and visitors. Aleppo has become a focal point of the fighting that has consumed Syria, with neighborhoods reduced to rubble and the once thriving civic engine that drove Aleppo now virtually destroyed.
The continuing battle in Syria pits various rebel forces that include religious fundamentalists, remnants of ISIS, Daesh and al-Qaeda, against each other and against the corrupt Assad regime, which, despite being universally despised, is viewed by many as the last best hope for stability in Syria. Many foreign powers have supported or undermined the many sides of this complex war, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Russia and the US, each with a different view of Syria’s future. But mostly the Syrian people fight just to survive one more day.
Abu Sami is a middle-aged former professor who barricaded himself in his Aleppo home in 2012 and has not been outdoors in four and a half years. He witnessed his neighbors being attacked and murdered. He lived on dried food, an atrium garden, boiled rainwater, and solar power to charge his phone. And he read and reread the books in his library. On this day, he walked out into his neighborhood for the first time in over 4 years to view the destruction all around him.
Tarif Attora is a 57-year old engineer who runs the Aleppo People’s Initiative. His team has visited damaged sites around the city since the fighting broke out in a Sisyphean effort to repair broken water pipes and electricity lines, and to deliver food and medical supplies to terrified denizens of the embattled city. He has formed a tenuous truce with rebels and army leaders to gain access to the most dangerous neighborhoods. He and his team have suffered numerous injuries and even fatalities in their effort to maintain a semblance of normality.
The entire article by Robert F. Worth is a compelling distillation of a complex political and religious quagmire that may be showing glimmers of hope amid a sea of destruction. A story of wealth and poverty, secularism and religion, savagery and power, the story of Aleppo is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn more about this long war, its contributing factors and its aftermath.