— Ala’a Basatneh, social media activist
By Anand Holla
Wherever she goes, the first thing Ala’a Basatneh does is look for power sockets. If it’s not her MacBook Air, then it’s her iPhone that she promptly plugs in for a seemingly insatiable reservoir of recharge.
“I need to be connected all the time,” she says, of her everyday routine of frenetically multi-tasking through social media accounts of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Skype.
However, unlike most of her fellow selfie-crazed, self-obsessed Gen Y comrades, Basatneh has a very serious and selfless cause to tackle. Her fixation with social media then is marked by dedication rather than vain compulsion.
By staying plugged into the continuing mindless violence and chaos in Syria, 6000 miles away from her childhood bedroom in the Chicago suburbs, Basatneh has been a key player in coordinating the Syrian revolution since 2011 when she was only 19.
Little wonder then that she is the protagonist of Joe Piscatella’s powerful documentary #Chicagogirl – The Social Network Takes on a Dictator, which was screened through the week to much discussion at the second edition of the Ajyal Youth Film Festival.
Posting demonstrations as Facebook events, plotting escape routes using Google Maps, uploading footage shot by protestors; Basatneh fuels a revolution from a faraway land by circumventing the local Syrian network that’s fraught with danger.
The political science student even sends secret recording equipment to her protestor friends who must escape shelling and sniper attacks, all in a bid to shoot and document to the world the human rights atrocities of the dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
Here, Basatneh, tells us that she won’t give up until Syria becomes “free” again:
What was that moment or day that you switched from using Facebook for uploading songs and fun posts like any other teenage girl, to turning it into a tool to effect a revolution on ground in Syria?
Sometime in March 2011, I remember walking into my home and looking at the TV and seeing videos of children that were tortured by the Syrian regime. Their nails had been pulled out, one of them was skinned and killed and his body returned to his family. I was shocked that this was happening to children on the same planet that I live on, and let alone Syria, where I was born. It happened to them only because they wrote on their school walls that they wanted to topple the regime. That’s when I decided that I needed to do something.
How was that transition into a social media activist for you?
For me, it was about trying to help the activists with anything and everything I could do. Little by little, I noticed that I didn’t go out with friends, didn’t have friends and that I am losing all my connections in Chicago as I focused on meeting more people online, more activists.
Was it clear that this was your role, and that you had to do this?
It was clear that I had to help, that I can’t anymore turn around, go to the mall and have fun. It’s inhumane to do that while children are suffering. I looked around my room and I didn’t find anything but my laptop. Social media was what was going to connect me with the activists on the ground.
Knowing how effective social media was in the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, did you plan your moves?
I didn’t exactly sit down and draft a plan on how to go about it. It was very impulsive. The way Syrian people latched on to Twitter was due to the Egyptian and Tunisian activism on Twitter during their revolutions.
How did you start getting more people in on this?
One activist led me to 10, and 10 led me to 50, and the numbers increased up to the point where I had connections in every single pocket within the cities in Syria. Then, I started meeting more Syrians throughout the world.
Who were among the first activist connections you made in Syria?
I remember the day I connected with Omar (Mazhar Tayyara, a young activist who died during protests), through a friend on Skype. He needed help translating banners because he was organising a protest in Homs. It was weird for him in the beginning. He would ask — You are in Chicago, why do you want to help me? Who are you? That’s why from Day One, I have always had my name and picture on there. I want them to feel comfortable about knowing who I am, you know, put a face to that person behind the computer.
What made you feel that the regime was unacceptable?
Syrian people have been oppressed for the past 40 years. There’s no democracy, no voting at all. There’s something called as the referendum which is basically a joke. That’s how Assad gets re-elected with 99.9 per cent every single time. When I look around at my society in Chicago and I see the freedom, advantages and privileges we have, I realise we have nothing of that back home. When my dad calls up my sister in Syria, they can’t talk politics. I ask him why and he says the walls have ears. I have heard that phrase since I was very little.
How was the process of co-ordination and putting it all together?
I started off by spending around 12 hours a day online. I would get Skype calls at 4 in the morning, and go back from one activist to another. Translating texts, blurring faces of protestors in videos before uploading and posting them on Facebook pages; there was a lot to do. Gradually, I got to know journalists and gained their trust. So I started sending them videos and then it was on CNN and BBC as Breaking News. I didn’t plan. But it became, I don’t know, God’s plan.
How satisfying has this been for you?
I felt like I haven’t been doing anything. I always had that guilt that I am not doing anything. It really hit me when the news about Omar’s demise came in. It was a complete shock to me. I thought, even though I have been doing all this work, it didn’t save his life. That’s when I said either I back down or double up. So I doubled up and I started adding more hours online, started helping more, and convinced my parents into going into liberated areas in Syria. That gave me some kind of satisfaction but the guilt rushed back into me once I left, returned to my car, my apartment, and my luxurious life in Chicago that they don’t have. They are still facing bombs and sleeping on carpets.
So is the activists’ fight in Syria still very much on?
Yes, activists are still protesting there. Sadly, the extremist groups have taken the focus off the Syrian revolution. In fact, ISIS and AL Nusra are targeting activists like Aous in the movie. Aous is the rebel, the activist who truly wants to free Syria and everybody else — the ISIS, Al Nusra, the regime — is attacking him. So you can see how truly alone the Syrian people feel in this fight. Seventy-five per cent of my social media contacts are either displaced, have become refugees or are dead. The rest are still protesting.
And you haven’t taken a break?
No, I haven’t stopped spreading the word. People, however, aren’t aware of it because the media has found the ISIS to be a hotter subject than the protests. Syrian activists are still out on the streets, and their children are eating grass in cardboard boxes out of hunger. My role right now is to talk about them and to show the world that they are still struggling.
What’s your view on the extremist groups having taken over the scene?
The rise of the extremist groups in Syria is due to the lack of international intervention since day one. If the Syrian regime was toppled and if there was no-fly zone and international action, then we wouldn’t have seen the emergence of ISIS or Al Nusra. But because it took so long, these terrorist groups had time to formulate and rise. It’s unfortunate for the Syrians because even though we will get rid of Assad, our revolution won’t be complete until we get rid of these groups as well.
How does the way ahead look for you?
I will sustain this movement. I won’t stop. If I do, it would be a betrayal to the many activists still protesting out there, to my homeland and to the blood of my friends and Syrian martyrs that have died for the sake of the revolution, for Free Syria. For me to say that I have done enough and I can stop now is totally out of question.