The scope of the informer’s imagination had to grow proportionately to fulfill the increasing demands of this apparatus he would begin to invent stories and incidents. However, with time, the informer’s status grew until he became a secret agent, providing his services on a “freelance basis,” i.e., he would get paid for each report and its importance. A party comrade would begin by simply transmitting information about his colleagues’ cultural and ideological positions to his leaders. The leadership and party branches encouraged new members to write reports about their colleagues. Report writing and “informers” were both part of the Baathist culture. As it turned out, one of those students, an expert in writing security reports in those days, wrote one against me after a silly argument.

I was summoned, along with a large group of students, to the Military Intelligence Branch regarding an accusation that I was collecting applications for the Masonic Lodge from the students.

Years later, as a freshman at the Industrial Institute of the city of Quneitra, I was arrested on March 19, 2002, by a military intelligence officer after 48 hours of interrogation. The father was “The Eternal Redeemed Leader,” Bassel was the “Martyred Staff Major Engineer Parachutist Knight” and Bashar was “Syrians’ Awaited Hope.” Among the loyalists, each of these Assads had a special nickname. A year later, portraits of the younger son Bashar - the current president - began to appear alongside those of his father and “martyr” brother. In fact, he was also present in the car when his eldest son and heir-apparent Bassel died in a car crash while driving to the Damascus airport on Jan. Hafez was present everywhere: schools, government offices, universities, mosques, churches, police stations - even in the prisons. Our leader for ever: the comrade Hafez al-Assad.” Today, that image remains etched in my mind, and perhaps in the minds of most Syrians. All the classrooms were similar, with a large green board and a portrait of then President Hafez al-Assad on the wall, smiling with a grimace, looking at us with his droopy eyes, as if saying: “I see you all.” Under the photograph, the motto of the Arab Socialist Baath Party said: “One Arab Nation, with an eternal mission … our goals: Union, Freedom, Socialism. The headmaster opened it by calling out “Our covenant,” and we responded back in an angry, zealous, collective voice: “is to stand up to imperialism and Zionism and reactionism, and to smash their criminal tool, the Muslim Brotherhood collaborators!” Everything appeared - and still does - strange, shocking and incomprehensible to the child who I was.Įach classroom had about 40 students, squeezed into very narrow seats. We moved our arms in a salute that was identical to the Nazi one and recited the Baathist Youth Scout declaration. The morning rituals began with a military drill: “Rest! Get ready! Stand in a row! March!” This was uttered in a distinctive intonation and rhythm. The headmaster ordered me to join my classmates, wearing mud-colored uniforms, in a long line where we stood one behind the other in the school’s front yard. 15, 1987, the first day at primary school, my father took me to an old and elegant building with high ceilings and large windows, surrounded by spacious playgrounds, and left me with the headmaster - a skinny man older than my father who wore gigantic prescription glasses - after signing some official documents in his office.

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