In a Damascus firehouse, former regime firefighters work aspect by aspect with the White Helmets. They have been on reverse sides of Syria’s conflict, and battle with prejudices & fears — as they work collectively to construct a brand new nation.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The civil conflict in Syria is over. Sanctions are being lifted. People who find themselves on reverse sides are attempting to return collectively to rebuild their nation, however with problem. It will possibly take time for attitudes to vary, in the event that they ever do. NPR’s Lauren Frayer discovered these points at play in a Damascus firehouse.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOCKER DOOR OPENING)
HAITHAM NASRALLAH: (Talking Arabic).
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Each morning for 28 years, Haitham Nasrallah (ph) has opened his locker and placed on his uniform as a firefighter. It is a job he loves, however a uniform he now hates.
NASRALLAH: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: It marks him as a firefighter from the previous regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December.
NASRALLAH: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: Nasrallah remembers how a few of his colleagues took off their uniforms and fled that day. However he stayed on, hoping for a firefighting job within the new Syria. And so he was nonetheless right here on this cement block firehouse in southwest Damascus, when three days after Assad’s fall, a convoy rolled in from what was as soon as insurgent territory.
NASRALLAH: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: Nasrallah says his first impression was simply, wow. These guys had manner higher gear.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEPHONE RINGING)
NASRALLAH: (Talking Arabic). Good day?
FRAYER: They have been the White Helmets, volunteer first responders who gained worldwide fame for working into hurt’s strategy to rescue civilians in Syria’s civil conflict. There was an Oscar-winning documentary about them. They operated for years on the alternative insurgent aspect of the conflict, and so they have been demonized by the federal government. With the conflict over, the White Helmets are actually taking on firefighting for all of Syria, which implies the boys Assad as soon as known as terrorists have out of the blue moved into Nasrallah’s barracks.
(SOUNDBITE OF EGGPLANT FRYING)
FRAYER: After I visited, one of many White Helmets, Moaz Daoud (ph), was frying up eggplant for a Ramadan Iftar meal within the former regime guys’ kitchen.
So among the firefighters right here labored for the regime. And also you labored in opposition to the regime. And now you are having Iftar collectively. What’s…
MOAZ DAOUD: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: “We’re utilizing their kitchen,” he says. “However we’re not consuming with them.” There’s really an enormous brick wall dividing their quarters. Veteran firefighters dwell on one aspect of the firehouse, and the White Helmets are on the opposite. Once they first arrived, the White Helmets went room by room searching for weapons.
NASRALLAH: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: “At first, they checked out us with suspicion,” the previous regime firefighter, Nasrallah says, “like we have been behind Assad’s bombings and killings.” Now we have a long time of firefighting expertise, however they tried to sideline us,” he says. “They did not see us as equals.”
The internationally funded White Helmets make six or seven instances the firefighters’ salaries. And but, day-after-day, they have been responding to emergencies collectively.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIREHOUSE BELL RINGING)
JAWAD RIZKALLAH, BYLINE: Asking for – telling the individuals prepare and get clothed.
FRAYER: These are the hearth poles, and there is three in a row, and one is for the primary ground. One’s for the second ground, and one comes all the best way from the third ground. Oh, yeah, right here they arrive.
FRAYER: Sliding down fireplace poles from totally different rooms down into the identical fireplace vans.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIRE TRUCK SIRENS BLARING)
FRAYER: Out on a mission, I ask one other of the previous regime guys, Hussein Elyassine (ph), if he, too, appears like he has to show his loyalty to the brand new Syria. And as a substitute of answering, he simply lifts up his shirt.
He was shot? He was stabbed?
RIZKALLAH: No, that is from shrapnel.
FRAYER: And exhibits me and my producer Jawad Rizkallah an enormous scar throughout his stomach from an assault he believes the previous regime ordered in opposition to its personal males. A number of the White Helmets look on, shake their heads, and mumble, respect.
UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: (Talking Arabic).
(SOUNDBITE OF BOOTS HITTING GROUND RHYTHMICALLY)
UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: Over time, the White Helmets begin inviting the previous regime guys to work out with them…
(SOUNDBITE OF WEIGHTS CLANKING)
FRAYER: …Doing calisthenics within the yard and pumping iron in a basement strewn with barbells.
(SOUNDBITE OF WEIGHTS CLANKING)
FRAYER: But it surely takes us visiting and asking questions for the blokes to open up with one another.
MOHAMMED KHDEIR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: “The regime threatened us not to talk about how they handled us in jail,” says 30-year-old Mohammed Khdeir (ph), who has braces on his tooth, slicked-back hair and unhappy eyes. It was his lifelong dream to be a firefighter. A 12 months in, he was arrested by the regime that employed him.
KHDEIR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: “Somebody denounced me,” he says, “accused me of being a terrorist.” “Me and my cousin each went to jail, and he died there beneath torture,” Khdeir says.
RIZKALLAH: (Talking Arabic).
KHDEIR: (Talking Arabic, crying).
FRAYER: He breaks down then, grabs my producer, Jawad, and hugs him.
KHDEIR: (Crying).
FRAYER: Workers right here say 17 members of the Damascus Fireplace Division have been imprisoned through the conflict, and 9 of them died behind bars. Khdeir received out after 2 1/2 years however was banned from returning to the hearth division due to his document. The day the regime fell, although, in December, he rushed again to the job he loves.
KHDEIR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: He describes guarding the hearth station from vandalism that day, and he is been residing and dealing right here ever since, with out taking a wage. The day after I hear his emotional story, I point out it to the White Helmets.
Do you know that there is a man right here who’s working free of charge? He nonetheless would not have any wage.
One of many supervisors, a giant bear of a person named Mustafa Bakkar (ph), with floppy hair and sort eyes, says…
MUSTAFA BAKKAR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: …”I do not know who this man is that you just’re speaking about, who’s been by a lot, however he feels like a hero.”
(CROSSTALK)
FRAYER: They dwell in the identical firehouse, in actual fact, on the identical ground, on reverse sides of a single brick wall, and so they’ve by no means met. So…
BAKKAR: (Talking Arabic).
KHDEIR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: …We introduce them.
BAKKAR: (Talking Arabic).
KHDEIR: (Talking Arabic).
RIZKALLAH: He is saying I’ve met him earlier than. I did not know this was Mohammed.
FRAYER: It seems they do know one another. They only did not know one another’s names or what both one had been by. Ten years in the past, Bakkar had been wounded and rescued by the White Helmets after which joined them.
BAKKAR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: “That is like group remedy,” Bakkar says. “I do know him. I do know Mohammed, however he by no means advised me the issues he advised you.”
When will they ever take down this wall between these two sides?
BAKKAR: (Talking Arabic).
FRAYER: Quickly. Quickly, they promise. That brick wall on this firehouse between the previous regime firefighters’ residing quarters and the brand new ones – it is going to come down. “However there’s nonetheless a psychological wall,” Bakkar says, “and which will take a while.”
Lauren Frayer, NPR Information within the Kafr Sousa Firehouse, Damascus.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEB WILDBLOOD’S “OF TRANSITION”)
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