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    We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria
    We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria
    We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria
    Audiobook6 hours

    We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

    Written by Wendy Pearlman

    Narrated by Erin Bennett, Assaf Cohen and Susan Nezami

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.

    Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government’s ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times.

    Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 6, 2017
    ISBN9780062675514
    Author

    Wendy Pearlman

    Wendy Pearlman is a professor and award-winning teacher at Northwestern University, specializing in Middle East politics. Educated at Harvard, Georgetown, and Brown, Pearlman speaks fluent Arabic and has spent more than twenty years studying and living in the Arab World. She is the author of numerous articles and two books, Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003) and Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011). She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

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    Reviews for We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Poignant and brutally honest. Powerful stories of losing a homeland.
    • 5/5
      It feels strange to rate a book like this. Because I don’t want to be rating a person’s struggles, trauma, losses... but the way Wendy Pearlman put these fragments of people’s stories and thoughts, combined with the introduction, really helps for those even not deeply familiar with details of what has happened in Syria to understand what those ‘news events’ mean for very real human beings.If someone wants to try and understand what’s going on in Syria from the perspective of those who ultimately felt they had no choice but to flee their country and everything this once knew, I think this book will really help you to that. It can be hard at some points to process what you read is something that really happened. Not just that, but recently happened. But, I think especially because of that it’s important to know stories like those shared in this books pages.
    • 5/5
      Book 3 of Life's Library (John Green's online communal book club). This is subtitled, "Voices from Syria". Pearlman is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern, and as a part of her study of the Middle East she began interviewing refugees, survivors and participants in the Syrian uprising from 2012 thru 2017. Instead of writing a scholarly treatise or a narritive non-fiction work on the conflict, she put together a very powerful curated collection of the real experiences of the people that experienced it first hand. She groups this interviews very well in different somewhat chronological areas. Starting with the beginning of the Bashar regime, Authoritarianism, to the militarization of the revolt; Militarization to the struggle to escape; Flight. It was a very powerful book, there was a lot about this area and time that I didn't know. When the revolution began in Egypt, we were on Facebook giving Egyptians advice and sharing revolutionary songs. We flt like we were in Tahrir Square along with them. And then the first demonstration occurred in Daraa. In Aleppo, I heard about it and wrote a Facebook status in support. I didn't hit "enter" to share it; I was too scared. My fingers were on the keyboard. I told myself that it was shameful that I was sharing things to support revolution in Egypt, but when the same things were happening in my own country, I was too afraid to do anything. So I finally hit "enter." I went to bed sure that the regime's people were going to arrest me the next morning.There was a man called Jaber and his mission was to go around and find ice from other people in the city (to store the bodies) He had a motorcycle and sometimes would travel long distances, searching for ice. And then Jaber was killed, and we couldn't find any ice for him.I'm not saying that the conscience of the international community is asleep. I'm saying that conscience doesn't exist at all.My son spent the first years of his life in Homs stuck inside because of the curfew and the bombing. He had no contact with anyone but his parents and grandparents. He was two years old when he saw another child for the first time. He went up to him and touched his eyes, because he thought that he was a doll.9/10 S: 3/24/19 - 4/3/19 (11 Days)
    • 5/5
      In We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, political science professor Wendy Pearlman edits interviews to tell the story of “Syria’s historical trajectory from authoritarianism to revolution, war, and exile” (pg. xxxiv). The interviews cover the period from the rise of the Assad regime through the Arab spring and the current humanitarian crisis following the combined unsuccessful attempt to depose Assad and ISIS’s attempts to seize control of Syria. Pearlman seeks to humanize the events that, for most in the West, occur distantly on the television and are filtered through Euro-American interpretations that ignore the day-to-day reality of most Syrians. Pearlman concludes her introduction, writing, “The voices here bring to light the human significance of the Syrian rebellion for those who shared in its longing for change. Mixing pride, guilt, sorrow, courage, and hope, their pained words challenge us to think about who we might be if faced with the same trials of revolution, war, and exile. One wonders what might have been different had we listened to Syrians’ voices earlier. It is not too late to listen now” (pg. lix).Pearlman’s title comes from the record of Annas, a doctor in Ghouta, who describes one of the largest protests in Damascus saying, “I remember we crossed a bridge and it trembled underneath our feet because we were so many people” (pg. 86). One of the interviewees described the Assad regime’s tactics, saying, “When the revolution began, I discovered that Syria was my country. As Kurds, we had thought that we were oppressed and others were favored by the regime. After the revolution we discovered that we were all suffering from the same oppression. We discovered that we had not been working together, and that is how the regime was able to dominate us” (pg. 89). An FSA fighter described the effect of the Assad regime’s crackdowns: “When the regime started attacking us, a lot of people who were on the sidelines started to join and protest, too. Because of the blood. Blood is what moves people. Blood is the force of the revolution” (pg. 145). Abu Firas, a fighter from rural Idlib, captured the sense of betrayal Syrian revolutionaries felt at the international community’s stance of non-intervention, saying, “I’m not saying that the conscience of the international community is asleep. I’m saying that conscience doesn’t exist at all” (pg. 160). Discussing the effect of the refugee crisis, Imad, a student, wrote, “Media has tied the revolution to terrorism… It’s easier not to mention the revolution, or even the regime. And, in this way, the truth of the revolution gets buried. It’s getting lost… And that alone is a crime against everything that has happened in Syria” (pgs. 249-250).Pearlman’s work recalls Studs Terkel’s The Good War in its organization, explaining things in Syria before the war and the constant state of paranoia the Assad regime maintained in order to ensure its control of the populace. From there, her interviews capture the tension and excitement of the earliest protests, the feeling of Syrians throughout the country that they were finally free. Finally, Pearlman’s interviews demonstrate how a multi-cultural people found themselves caught between trying to overthrow a dictator and preventing extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS from seizing control in their wake as well as the bitterness Syrians felt at the international community’s turning a blind eye to events in Syria. Ghayth, a former student from Aleppo, best summarizes the significance of these narratives and the paradox of the international community’s response: “If you don’t want refugees, help us make peace in Syria” (pg. 273).