Arabic → English transcript

I was a kid, I did not know school, but I knew the sounds of planes and the angles

of hiding, and my parents’ eyes shaking with fear, my father’s eyes

full of fear for us. I learned… I learned how to protect my sisters, yes,

but I did not learn how to write my name. One night I saw the gas bombs,

when I was seven years old, and the body parts of the kids in my neighborhood and my friends. One night I woke up

to the sound of bullets piercing the house, and my mom’s voice outside saying, “Do not

go out, my son, do not go out.” I wish I had not gone out. I saw her lying

on the ground, wounded, covered in blood, and I kept asking myself, “Why is he

doing this to us? What did we do to him? We killed Bashar al-Assad, we slaughtered him?

What did we do to him? We are just sitting here, what did we do to him? We fill

water, we drink here, what did we do to him? We did not… I…

I am sorry, I apologize, but ten minutes before this video my mom had been wounded,

and it left her disabled. We are a people who have suffered for fourteen years, from country to country,

and from tent to tent, but praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, they were tears of sorrow.

And fear, and today tears of joy. We suffered for fourteen years and we no longer have anything left.

A future sacrificed for you.

O Syria, for you, O Sham, I left my village and my town, and I left my home and my childhood.

I left the country when I heard the news of the criminal’s escape, then I came back and rejoiced.

And I started crying and said, “O Lord, may the blood of those who were lost not be in vain. I am Ali Mustafa

Al-Mohammad. I dream of Syria breathing again and embracing her children once more.”