Last year, I had an appointment with a cardiologist from the Alawite sect, which I got after waiting for three months, which is a great time for those who know that appointments for specialist doctors in France take at least six months and maybe more.
What made the appointment even more special for me was that for the first time in more than ten years, I would be talking to a doctor to whom I could explain my pain, without the need to use a translator or seek the help of a friend over the phone, whom I may not find on many occasions.
In the waiting room, I watched the doctor as he took his patients one by one, speaking to them in fluent French, while I imagined the moment when I would tell him that I am Syrian when it was my turn, and how he might hug me, or at least smile broadly, and then say to me in a Syrian accent: Welcome.
But unfortunately, none of that happened, as the first thing he said to me after I told him that I was Syrian was: Which province are you from? His facial expressions changed and he became gloomy after I told him. Then he asked me directly and unexpectedly: Why did you choose me among all the cardiologists in the region?
I said: Simply because you are Syrian and I need a doctor who understands me and I understand him.. He replied: Then I will connect you with another Syrian doctor in the same region and specialty who is from Daraa and an oppositionist like you.
He had told me during the short period of acquaintance that he had heard my name before, and perhaps read some of my articles attacking the regime, then he told me rudely that he did not want to treat me, but if I insisted he would do his job as usual like any doctor.
This incident that I am narrating today did not leave any impact on me at the time, but on the contrary, I left his presence proud, as if someone had just decorated me with a medal of heroism and dignity. Some friends even suggested that I complain to the French authorities about his mistreatment of me, so I told them: On the contrary, I am grateful to him. He treated me without realizing it.
It seems that the pains I was feeling were not organic, but rather related to the state of internal defeat that accompanied us during the past years, and here he has restored a large part of my lost energy.
What makes me recall this incident today is the state of division that the Assad regime has planted in us, and how a doctor and a journalist from the same country, living in one of the advanced European countries and enjoying citizenship there, may not think of returning to Syria at all, while the gap between them has become vast, and they treat each other as if they were strangers or enemies, based on political positions only.
I do not blame this doctor nor do I blame myself, because the Syrian people everywhere and from all components, have begun to suffer from a general state of depression, a state similar to a collective nervous breakdown. Imagine yourself if you decided today to visit a dear friend after a long absence, you will most likely not be able to sit with him for more than a few minutes. Each of us has begun to feel that his soul is wandering, lost, and unable to get along even with another intimate person.
In short, what the Assad regime has done is not easy to overcome, as it makes the wise angry, the wise crazy, and the one with the sound opinion confused.
And all that you see today of sectarian, agitated reactions from all parties is normal after more than 13 years of dirty practices by the Assad regime and its allies in Syria.
And this stage, in my opinion, we must overcome, not only out of love for our country that has finally returned to us, but out of compassion for our children who have the right to bequeath the future to them, not to bequeath our sinful past to them.
Fouad Abdul Aziz - Zaman Al-Wasl
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