"My name is Bassel, Bassel Shehadeh. I am from Syria. — What means home for you? — It is a very dangerous question because my answer could get you in trouble... It's complicated." Bassel Shehadeh died three years ago today in Homs, Syria. He, alongside a group of other citizen journalists, was killed by an Al-Assad regime shell that targeted the group. I remember Bassel through those who knew him and loved him. Bassel left a Fulbright scholarship at Syracuse University to document and film the Syrian revolution. He had come to the US to tell his story. He abruptly came back to Syria to reclaim the permission to narrate an uprising against a regime of silence, fear, and death. He paid the ultimate sacrifice for his return and, briefly, Syria and the world mourned. The world swiftly forgot when Syria tumbled. Bassel left behind a rich cinematic archive of nuanced films. His films echo Omar Amiralay, the Syrian dissident documentary filmmaker who died on the eve of the Syrian revolution and whose films are ever-relevant to attempt an apprehension of Syria in all its complexity. Amiralay's last film, "A Flood in Baath Country", profiled a small village on the Euphrates River whose protagonists are fiercely pro-Assad. Decades back, the village had to migrate en masse to a new location in the Euphrates Valley to allow for the creation of Lake Assad, a large reservoir designed to alleviate a growing Syria's thirst for water in a dry climate. The village enthusiastically volunteered to relocate in order to facilitate the project that was supposed to bring Syria prosperity and, thus, modernity. Amiralay's film opens and closes with a nearly identical shot: an open window looking out onto a minaret under construction. In the ending of the film, the minaret's scaffolding is coming down. Amiralay saw that a new flood was coming to the country of Baath. Emulating Amiralay, Bassel Shehadeh's film, "Saturday Morning Gift", features a young boy in pajamas lying carefree on a white linen covered bed. "I love weekends," he reminisces in a voice-over, while the camera lingers on his feet, his freckles, and the warmth of the sheets. The monologue is taken from an actual interview with a child survivor of the 2006 Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. Abruptly, the white light from the clear sky turns dark as his house shakes. "I hate weekends." Today, as Islamic State [IS] floods the Euphrates Valley and US and European bombs fall on civilians, the work of both Amiralay and Bassel takes on renewed importance. Both filmmakers asserted their right to narrate their country's past, present, and future. Both left Syria, and both returned at the end of their lives. Today, three years later, different narratives have won over the popular imagination of those residing in the West, hypnotised by the violent phantasmagoria of ISIS videos and sectarian rhetoric. Silence, fear, and death dominate our screens. The only people we allow to speak are those who dominate the power to take life away: pro-West military strongmen turned politicians and knife-wielding executioners that speak in native English and dress in black. Those who give voice to those who live, such as Amiralay and Bassel and those who survive their passing, are not heard. When Bassel's life was taken away three years ago, many Western outlets sought to tell his story. By doing so, however, they didn't allow him or those who knew him to speak. Bassel was part of a broad movement of Syrians dedicated to creating a Syria at once liberated from foreign colonisation and occupation and simultaneously representative of its inhabitants. Despite the best attempts of the Assad regime, the voice of Bassel and those who rose up could not be silenced. Those of us who are not Syrian can do well by paying close attention to Bassel's films, his tragic yet optimistic voice that remains even three years after his death. We hear a voice that was speaking with hope and love to those who would listen. Born in Chicago, Bradley Williams is a student at Columbia University in the City of New York, specialising in Comparative Literature and Arab Political History. He previously worked with the Iraqi Student Project in Damascus, Syria and is in the process of opening A Dream not Deferred, a scholarship fund for Syrian students in the diaspora unable to finish their university educations due to protracted conflict.
