At 18, Mustafa was told his only way out of prison was to join the regime forces. After 14 years, his past as one of Assad’s fighters could get him killedMustafa was 16 when he was detained and beaten by the police for the first time. It was early 2011, and the first stirrings of the Arab spring had grown into anti-government demonstrations across the Middle East. In Syria, a sense of anxious anticipation hung in the air, and the government was responding with propaganda films and TV shows designed to fire up nationalist sentiment. A friend of Mustafa’s hired him to play an extra in one of these shows. The job didn’t pay much, but it was more fun than the long hours Mustafa spent working in a restaurant kitchen. Tall and handsome, with dark eyes and long eyelashes, Mustafa dreamed that maybe one day he could join the long list of Syrians who starred on Arab TV dramas.The youngest of three brothers and a sister, Mustafa had grown up in a crowded working-class district in the eastern ...
A Syrian man recounts his struggle to survive the country's civil war, including beatings by police, serving at a brutal checkpoint during the siege of eastern Ghouta, and witnessing widespread suffering and death. He joined the army after his brothers joined the uprising and grappled with disillusionment and the complexities of the conflict.
