Questions People Ask You When You Turn Thirty

Two days ago, I turned thirty, which is the acme of a human being's lifespan according to my own beliefs and mathematical logic, as the average lifetime of a male human is roughly sixty-eight years. And thus, reaching that momentous stage prompts people to ask specific questions. It's their twisted way of analyzing you and judging your character.

I personally have been asked the following question at least thrice so far: "What [the fuck] have you achieved so far in your life?" The phrase between the square brackets was only added by my best friends; and it's worth mentioning that the accentuation on it was too resonating, which denoted a twisted mix of genuine care and friendly derision. It's not an easy question to answer at all, I can tell you that. If I ask myself that question, however, I wouldn't hesitate at all to confidently answer as follows: five original piano pieces; more than forty songs written, produced and performed by me; fifteen short stories; and one novel (I know I haven't finished the novel yet, but I will within a few weeks. I know I keep saying that, but this time I'm being sincere. I know I said the exact same thing last time as well, but this time I'm being sincerely sincere!) However, in a real world where success is an assortment of mundane accomplishments ranging from having an insanely boring—but highly lucrative—office job to having your own house where you and your own family live, all of my nonsense I daringly call "achievements" is valueless. It's all about standards, Abdallah; it's all about standards, irrespective of how much these achievements mean to your mellow heart.

Another important question my fellow humans asked me was: "What [the fuck] have you learnt about yourself during the past thirty years?" Giving a full answer to that question in a blog entry is beyond impossible; I need tomes to say everything I want to say. However, I'll mention three fundamental things succinctly: I've learnt that death is not as terrifying to me as it is to most people. I have also learnt that I can always rely on music and my words to elevate me when I'm down. And finally, I've learnt that there isn't a problem—no matter how gargantuan it is—that can't dissolve in a glass of Stolichnaya on the rocks.

"Are you getting married soon?" was another question that people obtrusively asked me. I mean, it's okay to be asked that question by your mother, best friend or older brother—actually, no; your older brother doesn't have the right to ask you that. Anyway, the answer I gave to that question was: "Would your sister be interested in a one-night marriage?" As if that would be a euphemism to "one-night stand." But seriously, marriage isn't something you put much thought into…it's just…it's just something you go for simply when you find the one; the person with whom you want to foolishly squander the remainder of your lifetime. I found that person a year ago—she said no.

The last question I was asked was: "Is there something you've done that you now regret?" Now that's a fucked up question. Why would you remind someone of all the imbecilic decisions he or she has made? A question like that merely aims to immerse the person in the quagmire of their shitty judgments. My answer to that question was: "Yup—getting to know you."

Fifteen years ago, Bashar Al-Assad came to power...

Today is a memorable day in the violently volatile history of Syria—it's the day on which Bashar Al-Assad, the fortuitous successor, came to power after his father died of a heart attack. Fifteen years later, the ophthalmologist—who was fatalistically propelled into the realm of politics for which he had never had any penchant—finds himself in an utterly unenviable situation.

The pivotal event that caused the abrupt deviation within the course of Bashar's life was a car accident on January 21st, 1994 that led to the sudden death of his eldest brother, Bassel Al-Assad; the awaited inheritor of his father's dominion in a republic where the president's powers were more plenary than those of most monarchs in the world. The vague circumstances around that fatal car accident, which induced various stories of an assassination plot and drunk driving to be circulated among Syrian citizens in exceptional quietude lest they're heard by the government, vanished soon; and the forbidden chitchats related to the heir's death were superseded by a far more momentous question: who will be the next "eternal" president when the current "eternal" one dies?

Although the regime had been inculcating the concept of Hafez' immortality in the people's minds for more than two decades via introducing slogans and chants such as "Forever, forever; the immortal leader shall be Hafez Al-Assad" to be recited in morning assemblies at schools, the inopportune demise of Bassel bluntly reminded the Syrian people of the ineluctable mortality of their president and his entire offspring. That wakeup call resulted in the aforementioned question, which had only two possible answers at the time: Maher or Bashar; as Majd, the youngest of the four brothers, was excluded due to mental health issues. Despite the fact that Maher was younger than Bashar, the former was the more probable choice, which was ascribed to two main reasons: first, Bashar's willful withdrawnness from politics, and his utmost focus on his prospective career as an oculist; and second, Maher's incredibly vast experience in both military and political fields when compared to that possessed by his brother. However, and against his wife's desire who had always favored Maher, Hafez picked Bashar to become the heir apparent for reasons of which no one is certain. A lot of speculations suggested that Maher's ill temper and rigid mentality wouldn't be suitable traits for someone running the country; therefore, Hafez chose Bashar.

After his brother's death and upon his father's request, Bashar had to quit his ophthalmology studies in London and travel back to Syria, where intensive measures took place to militarily and politically prepare the succeeding president who knew nothing about politics or presidency. Six years later, Hafez died of a heart attack, establishing with certitude the unreasonableness of the chants that had been wearing out millions of vocal folds for more than twenty years. And then, quite prematurely, Bashar was the country's cynosure. In the year his father died, Bashar was only 34 years old—six years younger than the minimum age of the republic's president as stipulated by the constitution. But after a swift, cockamamie, constitutional amendment that dropped the minimum age of the president from 40 to 34 to fit his age at the time, Bashar Al-Assad ran for president unopposed and won 99.7% of the votes, smashing his father's record (99.6%) and becoming his successor. He officially assumed power on July 17th, 2000.

Bashar was haunted by the fact he was occupying a position in which he didn't belong or earn. He felt rejected, for Bassel had always been the father's—and to some degree, the nation's—favorite. And when the eldest brother died, it was Maher and not Bashar, who was the mother's and the political analysts' favorite presidential candidate. And above all, Bashar had never been interested in occupying the family's throne. Consequently, there was immense, psychological pressure applied on the callow president. The pressure exacerbated by his nonexistent experience in that field of business, but within a few months, he would realize how easy it was to run a country adopting oligarchy.

Out of their desperate hopes for a better future, Syrians disregarded the undemocratic process upon which their new president came to power. They were not that bothered with the tailor-made constitution or the fact they'd never be ruled by someone whose last name wasn't "Assad"; they actually saw a promising future in the young president who described himself as a "reformer". All those hopes, however, gradually faded away; as the young president got involuntarily remolded by the unyielding regime governing the country and the stringent ideologies that have never believed in providing the people with any margin for freedom. The incessant suffocating measures reached the climax in 2011 when the revolution erupted in Syria, joining other aggrieved nations in Arab Spring.


Four years later, Bashar is still clutching at the bloodstained throne with tenacity; ignoring the death toll that has reached more than 200 thousand people, the five million refugees who fled the country, and the eight million citizens who got displaced within the country.