Monir

born in Syria, living in Germany

In Syria, our biggest dream was to have a car and to marry. That was the biggest success we could have. But no matter how hard you worked, you could not realize your dreams. The biggest success you can have in Syria is to have something to eat every day, to cover basic needs, have a house and raise your children, without having to ask someone for help, just achieving it by yourself. In Syria, we were such good and ambitious people. But the Syrian government did not manage to provide us with the basis on which we could have realized our dreams. If you wanted to be successful or help somebody, the government stopped you. If you wanted to give milk to children for free, they would catch you and put you into prison. In Syria, they don’t want anyone to be successful or to affect anyone in a positive way.

Bashar al-Assad want all people in Syria to be slaves. When the problems started five years ago, the people just said, “ We want freedom. Just freedom. We don’t want war, we don’t want to kill you, just give us some – some freedom!” And what did he do? He killed us. The people just said “freedom” and now you cans ee, we don’t have water, we don’t have food, no electricity, no gas, no fuel, nothing. If we say “freedom” in Syria, they kill us. They kill our families, they put is in jail. We just said “freedom” and Bashar al-Assad destroyed our future.

Everywhere in Syria the people are now hungry, poor and ill. They want the people poor. They want the people ill. They want the people to leave Syria. When we picked up our Syrian passports, there were many people in line. Because some of them were pushing impatiently, one policeman shouted, “Hey, Germans! Swedish! Wait, you will get to Germany and Sweden! Just wait, you will reach it, we will give you your pass ports.”

As young man, you don’t have any opportunities in Syria. There are just two ways to choose from: War or Flight. If you don’t want to fight and kill, you have to run away. Now the biggest success you can have in Syria is to stay alive and leave Syria. All my cousins, all my family, all my friends are now dead. I am still alive and now in Germany, that’s a success! In Germany you can realize your dreams, because the government is strong. It gives us the basis for our dreams.

We are good people, we are not just here to eat and to sleep. We want to do something; we want to be successful! We are taking now, but we will give later. In our country, we are successful people. That’s why we chose Germany, because it gives us the opportunity to also be successful here. I had a company for satellites and such things. This company had many stores in different countries. All the businessmen of Syria are now in Europe. And now we start again.

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