The Right to Remember

Senior researcher Noura Aljizawi speaks with Nalah Ayed from CBC Ideas about her personal experience of returning to Syria to grieve for the first time in 13 years following the fall of the al-Assad regime. 

Aljizawi recalls how grieving publicly was not allowed in the wake of the 2011 revolution, despite the importance of collective grief in Syrian culture. She remembers friends who were killed, noting that for one who is still missing “it’s not closure until we find his body and we have a grave for our loved friend.”

Listen here.