Loading Experience
The Assad family were originally mountain peasants from the hills of Qardaha. Few could have predicted their rise to power. The family elder, Hafez al Assad, would come to rule Syria from a marble villa high over Damascus. The ‘Villa for Syria’ he called it. The ‘Palace of the People’. In reality it was a monument to himself.
His villa.
His country.
His watchful eye.
Some days, President Hafez Al Assad would make fun of the interiors of the villa and throw an apple outside, one of the traits he still carried from an impoverished childhood. But today is different. Today, Hafez is joined for lunch by his three sons; Bashar, Bassel, and the youngest boy - Mahar. All three would soon attend military academy together, but first Bashar wanted to buy a new television for the villa.
“What about reading a book?” President Hafez interrupted.
“Books!” Bashar spat. “What do I need books for?”
“To read.” Hafez replied a bit more assertively.
“Well, we could have a new television instead.”
“What’s wrong with books? Hafez continued.
“They’re boring!”
“Books are boring? Since when?
But before Bashar could answer, he noticed his father had left the table and was now deep in conversation with some military officers outside. Although Syria is predominantly Sunni Muslim, the country has a mix of minority groups and factions. One of those groups, the Muslim Brothers, was based in the northern city of Hama and opposed the government. There was a rumor the Muslim Brothers had hidden caches of guns in the city. Because of that, President Hafez had ordered the army to carry out house-to-house searches in Hama. And because of those searches, early that morning, loudspeakers atop dozens of mosques in Hama had called on people to begin a Jihad or ‘Holy Struggle’ against the government. The loudspeakers also informed people that guns were available at specific mosques. Now, as staff inside the Assad villa prepared vanilla cakes and ice cream for dessert, President Hafez ordered that all roads leading to Hama were to be sealed.
A warm wind blew across Damascus as the Assad children ran outside after lunch and raced down wooden steps to private gardens which adjoined the villa. Scents of jasmine drifted up from below. Yet as they reached the bottom, they saw their father waving again from the terraces above. The boys scurried back up the steps, Bashar continuing his rant about books, which ended in a furious attack on his teachers. But as they arrived back at the villa they could only glimpse Hafez duck into a convoy of army jeeps and disappear behind a cloud of dust that filled the driveway.
The convoy crossed Damascus and soon arrived at Al-Dumayr air force base. After Syria’s unstable domestic history since WW2, marked by a series of coups, President Hafez had brought stability to a tired country. Yet for the Muslim Brothers in Hama, the idea of a peasant farmer lording it over them was a hard pill to swallow. Worse, President Hafez was an Alawite, a small off-shoot of Islam who the Muslim Brothers considered traitors. Other Syrians viewed the Alawites as a simple minority group. Others saw them as just rural people from the mountains. But whatever they were, Hafez and his generals were not about to give the Muslim Brothers a free hand in Hama.
The afternoon clouds were darkening as discussions at the airbase continued, while less than a hundred yards away, an air-force pilot, and Hama native, stepped out of the shower. Ragheed al-Tatari had grown up in Hama as a Sunni Muslim, though he was unusual in the Syrian Air Force which was overwhelmingly Alawite. In fact, most of the pilots at the airbase were Alawites from Damascus or Aleppo, with Ragheed himself being the only pilot from Hama. He got dressed and donned his all-in-one flying suit and oxygen mask before gathering with the rest of the squadron in an old building at the edge of the airbase. Several pilots and staff sergeants were already waiting there. President Hafez himself sat silently amongst the group - his sharp shoulders unmistakable even from a distance.
These daily briefings at the airbase were always ones of quiet tension. Behind a faded blue curtain was a map showing the day's mission. Usually, when the curtain was pulled back, a training exercise over the Mediterranean would be greeted by a sense of relief from the pilots. Other times, a flight towards northern Israel, skimming the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon would draw nervous glances from around the room. This afternoon though, as the staff sergeant spoke and the curtain slowly opened, the pilots struggled to identify the destination in front of them. But Ragheed himself sat stone faced and stunned. A map of Hama hung helplessly in front of him. His uncle’s neighborhood in the Hadir district was marked with an X. He remembered it well. As an older district of Hama its narrow streets resembled a sort of rabbit warren with little alleys and tiny houses piled on top of each other. The Muslim Brothers had taken to hiding in there. Yet as Ragheed sat listening to the orders, he noticed Hafez begin to wriggle in his coat and slowly stand up. Looking stern and composed he cleared his voice to speak:
“My brothers. Islam is about unity and peace. The Quran tells us if an enemy is willing to make peace, Muslims should be open to it. But a mosque is a holy site. A place of worship. Apparently these so called Muslim Brothers have decided to turn our house of God into a warehouse. Today you will show Syria why you were chosen for the air force. With Allah by our side, you won’t fail.”
The briefing ended as it began, Hafez stood and saluted the pilots as they rushed from the hangar and across barren runways before slumping into the cockpits of their single-seat high altitude bombers. In 1984 Syria’s range of MiG-25 aircraft consisted of two variations – the MiG-25PD, a fast interceptor fighter, and a MiG-25RB, the high altitude version. Ragheed had flown this bomber variant in training and reconnaissance flights, but never on active duty. Dozens of planes soon lined the runways. Slowly, heavily, they gathered speed. Yet as they left the concrete and climbed into the darkness, Ragheed could still see Hafez standing there in the floodlights, alone, his tall boney figure casting a shadow over the airbase. And high above the dark green and comfortless cockpits were silent apart from the muscular hum of engines thrusting them all across the burning desert. Ragheed stared blindly ahead. His flight path partially obscured from view by a sand blasted cockpit window. But it didn’t matter. He already knew the exact route. They would fly low over the Syrian steppe passing the city of Homs and then bank east towards Hama. He had flown this way home regularly, hundreds of times, and daily even during flight school, but never with a fully loaded bomb bay.
With time, the quiet gave way to a tense chatter as the pilots slowly crossed the desert and approached Hama. Leering down they watched roads rise from the sand dunes, and beyond little suburbs gradually became visible, and beyond those the city itself started rising upwards. Hama. Home. As a merchant town Hama had been a significant stop on the ancient silk road - a place of trade and tolerance for centuries, where the great cultures of Mesopotamia and Iran had lived in peace. How this well tempered city had got itself caught in such a mess consumed Ragheed until his headphones crackled to life; “All units away”. Leaning forward his eyes swept over the gauges as he looked down at the control panel. Then he looked down, way down, to Hama glimmering in the Syrian sun. Dense neighborhoods packed with houses sat blissfully below. He imagined the reaction if his family knew he had been part of this mission. Then he imagined the reaction if he landed back at the airbase with unreleased bombs. Certainly, the ground staff would notice them. And as the only pilot from Hama his explanations would be a hard sell. Some impulse, part conscience, part ambivalence, swung the nose of the plane westward. The huge bomber strained sideways and a shudder passed through its frame. Ragheed leaned back in his seat to glance around. The airspace was empty. The rest of the squadron had already swooped down from the skies and pounced. Now Ragheed tried his best to resist the urge to simply fly away. Certainly, that would release him from all of this. Though as the minutes passed, thoughts of desertion turned to dejection and he slowly rejoined formation. But as he did, several columns of thick black smoke began to slowly rise up from Hama. The old districts of Baraziyyah and Hadir in particular looked like a cauldron. Both of them were ancient quarters of the city built so densely you could hop from one roof to the next. And far below, the panicked crowds had made for the streets but there was no escape - only exhaustion. The inferno had created a layer of intense heat which sucked in oxygen and left superheated vacuums in which breathing became impossible.
Back in the cockpit Ragheed stared down at the city he had visited twice since Spring. He leaned back and let his eyes drift closed. Hama eventually disappearing behind as the planes retreated back into the darkness. White lights blinking. Their dull droning engines high over the desert. Eventually the surrounding views returning to normal but still the air in the cockpits smelled different – a sharp salty scent. They continued on in silence until the runways came into view. Finally, they touched back down, Ragheed pulled to a stop and jumped to the ground before slumping back toward the barracks. The smell fading and his eyes adjusting to the outside world again. But as he did, he glanced over his shoulder across the dusty outcrop, towards the runways in the distance, his plane was slowly being surrounded by several ground crew, including the staff sergeant. The door swung open as soon as he arrived back at the barracks and kicked off his tar covered boots. The staff sergeant had hurried across the barren outcrop and now stood in the doorway with his eyes fixed on a dark green flight log sprawled out on the locker table. Ragheed shuffled the sheets together, his eyes cold and distant as the sergeant rifled through pages but no words were exchanged. Instead, the sergeant would save his testimony, and fury, for a forum more determinative: a court-martial staffed by a panel of judges, and all of them pilots like Ragheed.
The charge sheet read that he had failed to partake in the raid because of ‘willfulness, negligence, or other defaults’. Yet this court was intended to do more than decide his guilt or innocence high over Hama; it was meant to uphold unswerving discipline in the army more broadly. As was customary, Ragheed was not represented by lawyers but could receive legal advice during breaks.
“Have you anything to object to the conduct of the ground crew or officers, or to their proceedings in all respects for the good and preservation of your plane?” the judge asked blithely.
“No, sir” Ragheed replied – looking down at the cigarette burns running up his forearm.
“Captain Ragheed - you have neglected to fulfill your mission by willful negligence in accordance with the laws of the Syrian Arab Republic.”
After a brief adjournment, a paper was handed to the judge advocate who concluded Ragheed had mentally deserted his unit when he realized they were heading to Hama and had no intention of doing his duty. A flurry of administrative orders followed as a death sentence was commuted to life in prison on account of his service to the military. Leaning forward Ragheed let his eyes drift closed. Silence followed as he was pushed from the courtroom and down narrow metal steps to a waiting convoy. Yet he already knew where he was going. Mezze prison. And over the coming weeks hundreds more would be sent there, most of them Muslim Brothers, indicating the scale of the operation now underway at Hama. And by the end of that summer, almost 5,000 Syrians were crammed into Mezze with thousands more buried back in Hama. But it didn’t matter. The Muslim Brothers had been put down. Hama had been cowed. And the Assad family had sent a message that would not be forgotten.