Mohammad Khaled
Over the past few days, social media has been abuzz with controversy over an artistic evening. People were divided into two camps, with each side believing that its position was a defense of the country itself. Some argued that people have suffered enough and have the right to enjoy themselves, while others maintained that the wounds have not yet healed and that joy has its own etiquette and priorities. Caught between these two voices were many who felt uncertain, caring about both sides.
To be honest, I have no objection to those who wanted to attend, nor do I object to those who chose not to. I do not claim to know which of the two positions is closer to being right. Perhaps I have been preoccupied with other concerns to the point that the matter itself barely occupied my attention. I saw nothing in either choice that warranted all this uproar. The real mistake, the entire mistake, was in those who vilified anyone who disagreed with them and turned a difference of opinion into hostility, making an issue like this a reason to set people against one another.
This confrontation runs deeper than a passing occasion. This is a society that has only recently emerged from decades in which public space was controlled by force. When the door finally opened, we found ourselves negotiating, for the first time and in full public view, over a question that had long been postponed:
What is appropriate for our shared public space?
The years of pain did not shape us all in the same way. Some people emerged from hardship more committed to faith and restraint, and that became their means of survival. Others saw the return of ordinary expressions of life as proof that life itself was returning, and that death had not won. Each carries their own wound sincerely.
Then came social media, turning natural differences into battles. It does not transmit voices as they are; rather, it amplifies the most extreme ones and buries the moderate voices, until each side begins to believe that the other is an army advancing against it, when in reality it is a broad spectrum in which most people are understanding and relatively close to one another.
Nor is this test something entirely new to us. During its rise, Japan summed up its path by bringing together the Japanese spirit and Western technology. It took tools from the world while preserving its own identity, and thus did not become fragmented. Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, learned to manage its diversity through open dialogue and local particularity. What suits one city may not suit another, without this becoming a source of conflict or estrangement.
So how do we move forward?
First, we must distinguish between personal choice and shared public space. Personal choices should be approached through persuasion and good example, while shared spaces require consensus, gradualism, and consideration for the feelings of people in every environment, city, or region.
Second, we need a sense of priorities. A country that is rebuilding its homes and searching for its missing people has greater causes to fight for: rebuilding and justice, rather than making its major battles about celebrations and occasions.
Third, we need to assume good intentions. Those who attended did not necessarily intend to provoke anyone, just as those who chose restraint did not intend to deprive anyone of joy.
Fourth, we must banish the language of betrayal, accusation, and contempt from our speech. A society cannot stand when half of it is considered guilty by the other half…
The Syrian society remains broad enough for everyone. It has accommodated differences in backgrounds, sects, customs, and traditions before, and it only became narrow when some sought to turn it into a single, uniform version.
So let us disagree as brothers disagree: with quiet voices, sincere hearts, and a willingness to put what unites us before what sets us apart.
