The spaces in between Latamneh’s houses
As I watched Mani’s latest film from Syria, lines from a poem by James Fenton came into my head.
It is not the houses. It is the spaces in between the houses.
It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.
The poem is about post-war Germany, but actually it’s about any city during or after war. I think the reason I thought of it is because Mani films the things most reporters ignore. Not the houses, but the spaces between the houses.
When we cover conflict, we usually concentrate on what we call the “bang bang”. But those intense moments of violence are just a small part of what goes on.
You notice all sorts of little things that you rarely get into your news report. Fighters eat, sleep, wash, talk. Children play football in the lulls between air strikes. In Baghdad in 2003 I went shopping for make-up with an Iraqi friend.
Mani films Syrian fighters having a meal and talking about their unease with the foreign jihadis who have joined their ranks. “We’ll have big problems when Assad falls,” says one. “They have the same mentality as Al Qaeda. In Syria we don’t have that mentality.” We, as viewers, are witnessess (voyeurs?), watching the thought process of those fighting, hearing their doubts and fears.
But what sticks in my mind is the boy at the beginning. He looks about 12. Standing in the middle of an empty road, rubble (from an airstrike? A tank shell?) over his shoulder, in a matter of fact way he lists those members of his family who were killed in a massacre. “Two cousins, my aunt’s daughter, her three brothers, my granddad and my uncle.”
He pauses. “Oh yes, my uncle’s wife and three daughters.” It’s the pause that got me. So many dead, he nearly forgot. That’s the space between the houses.
I went back to the poem and found a passage about the child, about any child who’s lived through war.
It is not your memories which haunt you.
It is not what you have written down.
It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.
There are 2 comments on this post
pity! for some reason I could not get the video to play. But the words painted a thousand pictures. The 12 year old boy broke my heart even further. The poem is for all children who have been robbed of their childhood and innocence. Thank you Lindsey for your brilliant and sensitive commentary.
The power, and stark beauty of Mani’s film, followed my the deafening emptyness of the 3 people asked to comment. Empty and discredited rhetoric, amplifiying the points already made in the film. The sly and cruel excuses of the pro-government supporter, the irrelevant comments of the SNC. American fears, but off at a tangent, about chemical weapons.
As I understand, chemical weapons were in use at the seige of Homs, allied soldiers carried gas masks, and more, going into Iraq. Chemical weapons are an accepted part of modern warfare.Nasty, but in use.
Could we please have the case for a No Fly Zone, or whatever the Turkish government are curently suggesting. An embargo by sea, an embargo by air.
Could we hear the voice of someone with pity and military know-how. Malcolm Rifkind has been a voice for integrity, as has Tony Blair. Get these people onto Channel 4 News, widen the debate, get new thinking.
My personal experiences were shared with British authorities. In 2005, when I was there, Syrians were terrified of air attacks. It seemed implausible, but they knew. Those same villages are now having their young men taken, Officially, any male over 14 years is taken, by shabiba or government forces.
The government has slaughtered its own forces, in huge numbers. Now it conscripts kids of school age. And the west knows all. Does nothing. Time for leadership indeed. The cost of doing nothing? Uncountable.
Rosemary Berry. Worked in Syria 2004/6