What’s Unsaid | In crises, can life ever be normal?

Ali Latifi 

Today on What’s Unsaid: In crises, can life ever be normal?

Zeina Shahla

I'm trying to search for normalcy in very, very small details, because the big details I'm not able to control. I don’t know if I’m succeeding, but yeah, I’m trying.

Latifi 

This is What’s Unsaid. A bi-weekly podcast by The New Humanitarian where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world’s conflicts and disasters. My name is Ali Latifi, staff editor at The New Humanitarian. 

And for more untold stories behind conflicts, be sure to tune in to the podcast The Mediator’s Studio by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. The Mediator’s Studio offers a rare glimpse into the often hidden world of conflict resolution. You will hear first-hand stories from mediators, armed groups, state negotiators, and humanitarian actors on the challenge of ending wars. Notable guests include Dr. Joanne Liu, former International President of Médecins Sans Frontières; Monica Juma, the National Security Advisor to the President of Kenya; and Fatima Gailani, the former President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society. Listen to The Mediator’s Studio wherever you get your podcasts.

So, I’ve recently been struck by the fact that three of our team come from – and are living in – countries long gripped by crisis. And when media attention does come, it tends to focus on the worst aspects of our countries, but we know we have so much more to offer. As we personally deal with conflict, economic instability, and threats of violence in Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Syria; we also buy groceries. We have coffee with friends, and even listen to music - as long as the Taliban doesn’t find out. All this can make for a strange duality, because for us life is normal - but it’s also really not.

So, on today’s episode: In crises, can life ever be normal?

I was born in Kabul, and returned to live here in 2013. With me today are The New Humanitarian's reporting fellows: Zeina Shahla, a Syrian journalist based in Damascus, and Iván Reyes, who lives in Caracas, Venezuela. Zeina, Ivan, thank you for joining us. 

Shahla

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Iván Reyes 

Thank you, Ali. 

Latifi

Let's start this discussion in Syria with Zeina, because it's been really tense there, given Israel's attacks on Lebanon and so firstly, how are you doing, given all of this?

Shahla 

It's a really tough question to answer. How am I really doing? Because I wasn't doing well. I wasn't able to work, or, let me say, function as usual, because everything was really terrifying. Because when every war starts, you say, Okay, it's gonna be one week, two weeks, one month. But eventually you discover that a lot of wars last 4 years. So, I really don't know…the future is not, it's not so bright. Let me say, for me, everything is really difficult, because we have lived already, like a very tense war in Syria, and now we are sanctioned, and we have a lot of things that are not functioning in Syria, including our airports, international airports, so Lebanon is really our gate to the world. So, taking into consideration that Lebanon now is also under the war, and the main road between Damascus and Beirut is cut because of the bombing, I keep asking myself, Okay, how long will it take? 

Latifi

Do you think that the big difference right now is that Lebanon is pretty much closed off to you, like you feel more shut out from the world? You know, Afghanistan right now, it's almost impossible to get a Pakistani or Turkish visa, so people do really feel cut off in that way. In Syria in the past, was there a little bit more sense of: Well, at least you can go through Lebanon and get to other places?

Shahla

Yeah, actually, in Syria, we don't have functioning embassies. Our airport doesn't go to almost all international destinations. So, we depend a lot on Lebanon for our visas, for travel, for, even like, language exams, for example, TOEFL or the German language exam, or anything, they need to go to Lebanon. And now you can imagine those people who wanted to travel to another place, or they had, like, a visa appointment, everything is cancelled, and they need to reschedule. They needed to pay a lot of money. Some people are going to Amman to Jordan instead of Beirut, and you feel like you're wasting your time and your energy, your money on the basic things, on things that you don't need to think about.

Latifi

And I think that's the kind of things that people don't really think about when they think about Afghanistan or Syria or Venezuela is that…

Shahla 

Yeah.

Latifi

It's really simple practical things, right? Like you said, like now you have to pay more money to go through Amman. 

Shahla 

Yeah.

Latifi

When the banking systems here were largely shut off, you know, it was almost impossible to get cash. And you know, when you don't live in a society like that, it's really difficult to understand how things like that can impact your daily life.

Shahla 

Yeah, I'm not talking about luxuries. As you said, the banking system in Syria is not working, so we cannot get transfer from the outside world, or we cannot transfer money, and we have been living like this since almost 13 years, and Beirut somehow was solving some problems for us. So, now with the war in Beirut, it's really getting so difficult.

Latifi

Iván, I want to ask you about this, because Venezuela is sort of in the middle of the continent, but it also feels like it may be shut out from the rest of the world. Does what Zeina is saying resonate with you and your situation?

Reyes

Yes, well, sort of. We are right now experiencing like a new way for isolating due to the political crisis that we're living here. Many countries are not recognizing Nicolas Maduro as the winner of the election. It's also very hurtful, because it’s not our fault, as people, that we have such a terrible government, and it's not our fault, because every time that the people had the chance to stand against the government, they have done everything they can, and to be used as a bad example in the political way, it's not really fair. So, for example, what Zeina was saying about getting a visa here in Venezuela. You cannot get a visa for the US right now. So, you have to travel to Colombia or to Brazil or to Uruguay, maybe. And you have to spend a lot of money, because you could be there at least for two weeks. And the chances you get the visa approved are really, really, really low. So, we do feel kind of isolated from, you know, the rest of the world, and even to Mexico. Mexico doesn't actually require a visa for a lot of countries, and they do require visa to us because the US government wanted to stop the immigration from Venezuela to the US. So, now, if you want to go to Mexico, you need to have a visa from Mexico or from the US. Because in 2021, you'd see 1000s of Venezuelans travelling by flight from Caracas to Mexico City to the north, and then they will cross the Rio Grande. And the US saw this, and they start like, Okay, we need to stop these flights from Venezuela to Mexico, because the people, they were going to be in Mexico for a week or for two weeks, and then they just cross the river, and they will be in the US. So, after the US took that decision, we start to see hundreds of 1000s of Venezuelans using the Darién Gap, which is really, really dangerous to go to the north of the continent.

Latifi

That's interesting, because that's always one of the points that I don't think people get, that countries around us will be influenced by Western countries and their policies in terms of their interactions with the three countries we live in. I think a lot of people tend to forget that. But I kind of wanted to bring it back to life in Venezuela itself, because in July, there was the election. There was a lot of controversy. There was a crackdown. There was obviously violence against protesters. But it's been a few months now, so what is life like in Venezuela and Caracas right now? How are you dealing?

Reyes

Well, it depends. In here, things are a bit better than in other sides of the country. Like here, you can find gasoline easier than if you go to Maracaibo, which is the second largest city in the country. If you go to Maracaibo, you have to wait for at least three or four days to get gasoline. So, in Caracas, we don't have that issue, but we have a water shortage issue, for example. We’re also having electricity issues where practically, like 80 percent of the country went to darkness for at least 12 hours. So, life here is easier than in other parts of the country, like there's a lot of people coming from other cities of the country, because they feel that in Caracas they could live better, and especially, they could have more opportunities to work. If you live in Caracas and you buy a motorbike for example, you can work as a delivery guy. But if you live in other parts of the country, these work sources are not as plenty as you can find in Caracas.

Latifi

That's sort of like one of the dark jokes - I would say - about Kabul right now, is that everyone is turning their car into a taxi.

Reyes

Yeah, a lot of people that they had their cars, even the brand new cars, are using the cars as taxis, and especially with the motorbikes. We have more than 150,000 motorbikes just in Caracas, and you can see it every day in the street.

Latifi 

Zeina, a lot of what Iván has been saying, does it resonate with you? What is it like doing basic economic things, or trying to obtain basic everyday goods, in Damascus or in the rest of Syria?

Shahla 

Yeah, actually, it resonates a lot with me, because in Damascus and in the place where I live, almost in the city centre, we have electricity between six and eight hours a day, so some are depending on electricity generators, and it's really expensive, and a lot of people are staying without electricity - as simple as that. The same thing for fuel, so we need to pay a lot or we need to wait so much time to get subsidised fuel for our cars. So, some people are just parking their cars and not using them. And the reason is a mix of the war, and also the sanctions. So, even if you have money, it's not easy to get whatever you want. Maybe, 2, 3, 4, years ago, if you had money, you can buy whatever you want, maybe from the black market, or it's more expensive. But now, even if you have a lot of money, you don't find what you want, and in the other cities other than Damascus, the situation is really worse, and people are not having the basic things that they need in their daily life.

Latifi 

You brought up the issue of sanctions, and I don't want to get into the politics of it, but do you both - in terms of Venezuela and in terms of Syria - when you guys speak to people outside of the country, do you think that they understand that political decisions have such a literal impact on the basics of daily life, like getting fuel and electricity? And I mean, to think that, you know, it's difficult to get fuel in Venezuela and Syria? It would kind of boggle the mind of most people. 

Shahla 

Yeah. We try to explain that the sanctions are affecting our daily life and we don't see any benefit from those policies that are being applied on our countries. And it's not only about fuel or about the basic goods. It's things that are related to the internet, to the access. So, I'm not able to access a lot of websites, a lot of services, and I need to use VPN, and sometimes it's not working with VPN. It just keeps telling me: You are in Syria. You cannot access this and this. And I don't see, Okay, what's the goal that I cannot access those basic services that are not related to any policies, to any political decisions, you know? So, we feel that we are paying the price for a thing that we didn't do.

Latifi 

Iván, do you think people understand that about Venezuela?

Reyes

Well, I think if you don't live in a sanctioning country, it is hard to understand, what does that mean exactly, right? And even if you live in one, it's difficult because Venezuela officials, and especially officials from the government, have been sanctioned since 2017. And here in Venezuela in 2019, there were a lot of people from the opposition side calling for sanctions and for more aggressive sanctions from the US. But then when the pandemic hit, we realised that that wasn't actually a good thing for a lot of people, and that the sanctions were affecting the people and not the government. So, right now, there's also a lot of people just climbing to stop the sanctions, or at least aim those sanctions only to the government officials. And in the daily life, we have been able to overcome a lot of issues with money - like getting paid with dollars and things like that - because a lot of people here learn how to use crypto and learn how to use different ways to change money. But you wouldn't actually need to do this if we were living in a normal situation. So, everything that Zeina says actually resonates with me. And we in Venezuela, we are not in a war situation, you know, so it's crazy that we live lives like too similar.

Latifi 

Zeina, I wanted to ask you a question. You recently talked about gathering with some friends to play music in an effort to try and feel normal amidst everything that's going on right now. And then, just a few days later, you shared an image on Instagram about a building being destroyed by an air raid, where one of your friends had lived. How do you balance this sense of trying to keep a normal life while literally, like the potential death is hanging above you in the air?

Shahla

It's not easy at all. We try to gather. We try to have some safe spaces. Because for me, those social circles and friends in Damascus are a way to keep my life somehow balanced. But when we were at a friend's house, the same neighbourhood was struck by an Israeli air strike a few days later. It was the building next to our friend's building, and we were really scared because we were there a few days ago, trying, trying to have a normal life. It's not normal at all. You reach a time when you feel you cannot you cannot affect any decision. You cannot affect anything that's happening on the ground. So you say, Okay, try to keep your mental health okay as much as you can, and to have this balance. I don't know if we succeeded in doing this. I could do it in the past few years, and now when the war started in Lebanon, I'm not able to do anything. I just open my laptop, but I'm not able to think properly. A lot of civilians died at that air strike. Death and war is really close to you, so you feel everything you know is random. You reach a point when you think, Okay, what's the meaning of anything in life? Because you would have died in one second for a war that you don't want to get into, but you feel: Okay, I can die, so maybe I should enjoy somehow my life, or try to do whatever I can before this bomb falls on me or on my house, unfortunately.

Latifi

You talked about a theatre recently that you went to that helped you sort of feel like people were trying to live a normal life. What was that about?

Shahla

Yeah, I attended two theatre plays in Damascus, and they were really good. The actors, they are young. They are the fresh graduates from the Institute of Theatre. They literally work without electricity. They go to do their rehearsal in very hot conditions, and they don't have any kind of air conditioning or any kind of lighting, but they insist on doing something that's really beautiful. Those kind of small things, they inspire me and tell me all the time that: Okay, life must go on, and we are trying to do something.

Latifi

Iván, you pointed out that there's not a war in Venezuela, but do you think that there is this sort of dichotomy, or like this weird balance you have to maintain, even in a society where there isn't an act of conflict?

Reyes

Yes, I do. I do think - well, it will never compare with what Zeina is living in Syria, of course - but we do have this sensation that we're trying to live our lives in the most decent way that we can, until something happens. And something could be like, for example, after the election, we had a lot of protests in the streets, and things were actually very violent in some places. And as a result of those protests and the repression of those protests, we have more than 1900 political prisoners. So, as a journalist, sometimes I question myself, like, if it's okay for me, for example, to go to the movies or to go and have fun with my friends sometimes, because it's really hard to do this, and then just couple days later, you have to interview a mother, or a sister, or a wife, or a daughter, from a political prisoner. 

Shahla

I had the same in Syria for almost five or six years when the war started, I wasn't going anywhere. I’d just go to work and come back home, because I was feeling so much guilt. How can I go out to any place while people are dying, or people are being displaced of their houses, people are being disappeared? And I lost a lot of friends. Some of them travelled, some of them died or disappeared. But then I started to think, Okay, it's not good to feel that guilt, you know, and it's not good to get rid of this feeling, because a lot of people, until now, they have this sense of guilt, because they are living and others are not. Then I started to say to myself: It's not my fault what’s happening. And it's really hard, but I worked on myself to stop feeling this sense of guilt, just to be able to live somehow normal days, because it's been, like 13 years, and you need to go on with your life.

Latifi

For me, when I did have a sense of guilt, it was either - given the nature of our jobs - unfortunately, most media outlets aren't really looking for positive stories out of any of our countries. So, we're probably at our most busy when things are actually really going badly in all three of our countries. But like, on a more personal level, I felt that way whenever I left the country, because I knew that 99% of the rest of the people of Afghanistan don't have the privilege of having two passports the way that I do, so that I can easily come and go. Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela, they've all seen massive exoduses going back almost eight years now. And in the cases of Syria and Venezuela, it's almost a third of both of their populations that have left over fairly short periods of time. Do you see the effects of that?

Shahla

Yeah, of course. On a personal level, for me, almost all my friends have left, and I, all the time, I need to make new friends. Sometimes I have jokes with someone who I introduced newly, so I ask them: Okay, are you gonna leave or not? Because if you're leaving, I don't want to be a friend of yours, because I keep saying goodbye to people that I know. Also on the, let me say, on the general level, we feel it because we are losing the know-how of the Syrian people...

Latifi

A brain drain. 

Shahla

So, we are losing doctors, yeah, the engineers and craftspeople and everyone. So, in 10 years from now, who's gonna heal us? This is really scary, because I don't know if the situation keeps like this for 10 years, or 15 years, I don't know what the situation of the country will be like.

Latifi 

Iván, do you think you’ve felt it personally?

Reyes

Yes, well, most of my closest family, they have left the country. Most of my friends also. Actually, my best friend is leaving, maybe this month. For me, it's not that easy to make a new friend. But for example, I play football, and every year we have to get at least four or five new guys because they left the country. If I go to the other level, which Zeina was talking about, we've lost medical doctors - a lot of them - and they are practically one of the best in the continent. We have lost teachers, engineers. If you go to a small town, you could see that there are no journalists in those towns, or there are no teachers. And teenagers, they all want to leave. They all are thinking that it doesn't make any sense to finish high school and go to university because they want to leave the country. Right now, for example, after the election, a lot of people are thinking about leaving the country in the next three or four months. 

Latifi 

Iván, you spent a few years in the United States. Did you ever think of just staying there?

Reyes

Yes, my family, well, my mom and my stepdad, they live in the US, so both of them, they were really interested in the idea of me staying there in the US, but they do respect me a lot. So they...

Latifi

I'm surprised they didn't lock up your passport.

Reyes

Yeah, exactly. I always wanted to come back. I think I am more useful for my people and for my country, being here in Venezuela, doing journalism, and not being another person that had to leave the country, right? 

Shahla

Actually, whenever I'm travelling , I just feel I want to go back to Syria, because Okay, everything is really difficult. But for me, life here is somehow closer to my heart, and to the things that I really want to do, in my life.

Latifi

Prior to this conversation, did you guys really think about each other's countries? And I'm kind of afraid to ask, what do you guys hear about Afghanistan?

Shahla

The story of Afghanistan taught me, like years ago, just how not to listen to media all the time, because, in Syria we, some people used to say Afghan people are, all of them are Taliban, or they like Taliban, or something like this, like, what what's being said about Syrians, that's stereotyping Syrians in one category: Islamist or Jihadist, or they like this kind of rule. But then, when you start to read about Afghanistan and maybe, like Syria, it just teaches you how not to stereotype and how you need to educate yourself about what's happening, about the real life of people there.

Latifi

What gave me the idea for this episode was listening to you guys speak in our meetings and also reading and listening to your work. And what I sort of took away from it is I feel like, yeah, socially, we're more restricted, obviously, than Syria and Venezuela. But economically, to me, it seems like Afghanistan is doing better. I could be wrong, but talking about things like fuel and electricity. We have major problems with those things, but it seems so much worse. Iván, do you think that there are things the media gets right about Venezuela? 

Reyes

I've seen good examples of coverage in Venezuela. The only thing I truly resent is that the media will say, like: Well, nothing's happening there, and I really don't agree, like, there's a lot of happening here. And even though there's not, maybe a political crisis that you could see in the streets, and maybe you cannot see people protesting in the streets, you could see a lot of people struggling. So, I think what I truly don't like about the mass media from the US especially, is that they use the Venezuelan people, and especially right now, the Venezuela immigration, as a political news and not as an humanitarian news. 

Shahla

What makes me feel somehow sad now, but it's normal, that Syria is not in the news anymore. Of course, with what's happening in Palestine, now Lebanon, and before it's Ukraine, not everyone is interested in reading about what's happening in Syria. And maybe some people thought: Oh, things in Syria are doing fine, and the situation is stable, but it's not at all. 

Latifi 

And that's the thing is, usually when the world stops paying attention is when everything happens that leads to the next time that they want to pay attention. And I think that's also when you get the most realistic stories about how people are trying to live their lives in a situation that's basically not good, you know? Yes, the world's attention has turned away from all three of these places now, because, you know, enough time has passed from whatever event that they sort of set as the marker. But now is the time when people are trying to figure out how to live in the repercussions of that, and trying to deal with the repercussions of that, is also what's making people want to leave, right? Like the difficulty of that. So, I think if you don't pay attention to this part of the situation, you'll never understand what's happening when the whole world does flood to whatever city we're in. Does that make sense?

Shahla 

Yeah, yeah, I think so. It's not only about our countries, because every time a country lives a very long disaster like this, maybe it's not on the news anymore…We see it now in Sudan. We see it in a lot of African countries. So yeah, unfortunately, that's the situation all the time.

Latifi 

It's interesting because here - and people probably don't believe it - but here in Afghanistan, at least in the cities, you can try and live a normal life, right? Like you can go to the store, you can…there's plenty of restrictions. I'm not saying there aren't, but you can try and live a normal daily life, but in the back of your mind, there's always this fear: What if I get stopped? What if someone gets upset? What if I'm somehow breaking a law and they throw me in jail, or yell at me, and they get upset? Yeah, it's this weird sort of feeling, like you can find maybe even entire hours, or, most of the day fairly normal, but in the back of your head, there's always some kind of a fear or a pressure. So, my last question to you two, it seems kind of basic, but it may also be a little bit difficult to define, right? When was the last time you guys felt quote, unquote, normal, and how would you define normal in Venezuela or in Syria?

Shahla

I really feel I'm not living a normal life. My mood is swinging all the time. I'm always nervous, but I don't feel it, because I think to myself: No, I'm normal, I'm having a good life. But I'm not, because sometimes, for very small or trivial things, I just feel I'm gonna collapse. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember when I felt normal. 

Latifi 

Iván, same question to you. Was there a time recently when you felt normal, and is there such thing as normal in Venezuela? 

Reyes

I don't actually remember the last time I felt normal for maybe one whole day, like a complete whole day. But I do think we have, yeah, these sort of normality moments where people are just trying to live a decent life, and I wouldn't say to be happy, but I will say at least to have a good face in front of these realities, you know.

Latifi 

Thank you both Iván, Zeina for speaking with us. I hope you guys learned something new. I hope the audience learned something new, and that everyone got something out of this.

Shahla

Thank you so much, and it was really for me inspiring also to listen to Iván, because we have very similar feelings and experiences despite our countries are so far away from each other.

Reyes 

Thanks Zeina for sharing how's living in Syria. And well, I'm just sending my best energy to both of you.

Latifi

Zeina Shahla, a Syrian journalist based in Damascus, and Iván Reyes is a journalist and photographer in Caracas, Venezuela. Both are reporting fellows for The New Humanitarian. 

Please visit TheNewHumanitarian.org for ongoing reporting on humanitarian work and crisis zones across the world. 

And what are people afraid to talk about in today’s crises? What needs to be discussed openly? Let us know by sending an email to [email protected]. Subscribe to The New Humanitarian on your podcast app for more episodes of What’s Unsaid. Hosted by Obi Anyadike, and me. 

This episode is produced and edited by Freddie Boswell, sound engineering by Tevin Sudi, with original music by Whitney Patterson, and hosted by me – Ali Latifi. Thanks for listening!