You Have Seen Nothing in Syria
By: Jumana Al-Yasiri, Lab Fellow 2017–2018
This blog post was reprinted with permission from Arts & International Cultural Affairs, the official journal of the Institute for International Cultural Affairs, University of Edinburgh. It is a written component of an in-person convening that involves the Lab Fellows alongside 23 other Global Fellows August 11–19, 2017 in Edinburgh, UK. Read more about this experience here.
In the summer of 2013, I watched in a Parisian movie theatre Hiroshima, Mon Amour, a remastered copy of Alain Resnais’s 1959 film about a French woman and her Japanese lover in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb. This was the first time I had seen the film since I left Damascus. On that sunny summer day, as I watched the film, I clearly heard Marguerite Duras’ dialogue, “You have seen nothing in Hiroshima.” The man tells the woman that she has seen nothing because she was not inside the events, and what she observes now is only the effects of the catastrophe.
And in the dark of the movies theatre, I started telling myself: “You have seen nothing in Syria.”
The last time I had been to Syria, then, was in 2011, the same year that people started demonstrating in the streets. I only experienced what happened next on my computer screen. I watched hours of footage taken by activists all around the country. Eventually my status as an observer looking from afar disconnected me not only from events in my country, but also from family and friends — and their struggles — that I had left behind.
Although I grew more estranged from news in Syria, my vantage point abroad afforded me the ability to follow the work of Syrian artists, most of whom are living now in exile. I began to use their creations as sources of information about Syria, but it soon occurred to me that these artists too had “seen nothing” because they too had fled the violence.
I asked myself: Is the Syrian artist in exile a witness, or does time and distance undermine the ability to bear witness?
And to go further, are not we all exiled and displaced, fantasizing about a country we do not know much about anymore? These questions shake one’s certainties and sense of legitimacy; but maybe it is about time to ask them if we really want to see what kind of country Syria is becoming from inside its borders.
More than 3 years after watching that remastered copy of Hiroshima, Mon Amour, I returned home. I returned to a city both so familiar and strange at the same time. I discovered how Damascus’ blue sky had become a source of fear because today it brings death and destruction. But I also knew that I arrived too late and that everything I got to experience was through ruins, both physical and psychological. Today, I do believe that if I want to “see” a bit more, I have to also look through the eyes of those who stayed and of those, who despite unbearable conditions, are still making art, longing for a brighter future, and waiting for the day when all of us will be able to return home.
Jumana Al-Yasiri was born in Damascus, Syria. She is the daughter of an Iraqi filmmaker and a Syrian-Palestinian actress. As a child, she enjoyed accompanying her mother to rehearsals; this is how she first learned that theater can bring understanding and answers to political and social issues, and that what happens on stage has the power to change the lives and perceptions of both the artist and audience. Jumana has fifteen years of experience designing and implementing residencies, music festivals, theater productions, conferences, grants, and training programs for artists and cultural practitioners. She is a Paris-based performing arts manager, curator, panellist, researcher and translator, working between Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States. In 2015, Jumana was appointed as the Middle East and North Africa Manager at the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, co-leading the development and the implementation of the program’s outreach in the region and beyond. Jumana holds a BA in Theatre Studies from Damascus Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts, and an MA in Comparative Literature from the University Paris VIII. In 2012, she met Arab-American poet and visual artist Etel Adnan, and since then she’s been in conversation with her and researching her work. Currently, she is drafting a script called Restlessness, inspired by this encounter.
