Too many bales on Syria!

(To Andrea Cucco)
23/02/16

This morning I hear Aleppo defined on TV as "a city in ruins".

Of course, if I had not returned from that country for a few days I would have believed it without hesitation, but this is not the case.

Now I will explain to you what others will not tell you, especially because journalistically it does not pay ...

What is striking when arriving in Syria is the vitality of the population. There is traffic in the capital, people who go to school and work. Even some desperate people who beg for alms, something - according to the locals - never seen before the war.

Up until two years ago Damascus was much less sparkling, more checkpoints and more “in vainsivi ”, shops that closed at sunset, few people in the streets. Of course, it is not yet the city where one could sit in a restaurant at any time of day or night, but it is awakening.

War? It is remembered by occasional detonations in the distance. Two districts of Damascus are still hostage to terrorists: a few thousand "rats" (it is the name with which the Syrians call an enemy who - like a mouse - has slipped into their homes) occupies and controls areas inhabited by tens of thousands of citizens who do not want to leave them apart from freedom, even their own homes.

The news that comes from us? It is always the same: the attack.

During the report we could easily have brought us to the place of many disasters but it would have been a lie. We would have served not the information but the instigators of the massacres. Not because they don't happen, but because it is not what must be correctly witnessed.

Many also congratulated us on the "courage" in having gone to Syria. We do not feel like heroes because it is simply shameful to go a few weeks in such an environment and not consider HEROES the Syrians who DAILY take to the streets, take the children to school, get into a taxi and go to the office or to do the shopping. All of this, of course, with a grenade that can fall into the street, a car bomb that can jump around the corner, but it is "normal" life and it is this population that must be honored.

Coming back to the "city in ruins" the words of an official of a United Nations agency met at breakfast in another Syrian city come to mind. Knowing that after the coffee he would go to Aleppo (!) I immediately asked what the situation was on the ground. After years of fighting I imagined it as a single esplanade by now.

I hear from the official (a fat African from one of the poorest countries on earth) that "it is one of the most beautiful cities in Syria", "there are the best restaurants and I can't wait to sit in one of those Armenians : we eat very well! ".

You will understand the amazement of hearing about something I had been led to consider "Hiroshima", as if they were "the castles" (Capitoline suburbs renowned for the kitchen).

"And the fighting with the terrorists?" - I ask.

"But no, that happens now only in a neighborhood. And he is well surrounded by the army ... ", the smiling answer.

Back in Italy I crossed Beirut. In the midst of modern buildings and apartment buildings, I saw a ruined ruin dating back to the civil war (photo). If all the connections from the Lebanese capital turned there, surely Beirut would still be a devastated city.

(Photo: Online Defense)