By Fathi Ibrahim Bayoud Al Tamimi; Translation by Dani Murad
(Zaman Alwasl)- On a wintry “Homsi” night in 2011, in which the rain had beautified and made it more humble, I stood in hesitance in front of "Al Auroba" newspaper as if time had stopped for a while.
Stood there, as the wanderer, searcher I was, looking for some kind of entrance to the world of journalism, and holding only an article about “the Russian Mafia” not so suitable for a fresh journalist in a beautiful and cold city as Homs, yet I eagerly decided to do the next step and went to the office of editor in chief “Ahmad Tkroni”, a professor whom I owe a lot after God, for building my future in winters to come.
After Introducing myself, and giving him the “Mafia” article, Tkroni laughed for a long time, and asked me about my residence, I told him I was a homeless in Homs until further notice, and that my home town is in the west, then he asked me to go to my town and the surrounding villages and write service reports, after I meet tomorrow with “Ahmad Qarbish”, head of investigations department in the newspaper.
The next day came, and I met Ahmad, who handed me yellow papers, the remains margins of old newspapers, and he asked me to immediately start writing, however, my first report was a total failure, so the guy amended and drafted it as it should, but the story is not here, the two Ahmads are Alawites and I have immense gratitude for them.
It’s the same contradiction in a society where sectarianism vary, according to the situation, day, and circumstances, because when I tried after a period of time to get a job in the same newspaper "Al Auroba", my “partisan” shortcomings started to surface from one hand, and sectarianism appeared on the other hand, for I was not an efficient member in Baath Party, nor my family are from “the favorite sect” to impose “ me” on the management of the newspaper using their preferential privilege ,so any talk about competence had no value.
Few week passed, before I met “Natasha” a more experienced journalists than me, we sat for long time, and she used to explain to me how to deal with the newspaper, journalistic work and how and how… until I fall in love with her … yes “Natasha” a nick name for that Shiite girl, who was all my life between the winters of 2001 and 2002.
Her mother welcomed me, a new member to the family which lost its breadwinner at the hands of sectarian militias in Lebanon, but the shock was when I proposed to her and was refused by one of the family men, who said to me: “you are Sunni, why are you here”, after that Natasha closed her heart and door forever without even a farewell.
Sectarianism in our country takes hundred of shape and forms, and appears in some people but not all. After few years, Ahmad Tkroni was dismissed from his position because he allowed the publication of an article described as “sectarian, and stayed in his house silent with no power to do or change anything.
May God have mercy on the martyrs of Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon
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