If the walls could talk, they wouldn’t whisper, they would scream.
They would tear themselves apart brick by brick, desperate to end the reign of the torturer, to free themselves from the blood that stain their very being. If they could cry, their tears would drown the cells, a flood of rage and grief, for being condemned to witness horror every day, every night.
The walls have ears, but if they could speak, they would curse so violently, you’d think Judgment Day had arrived.
They would wail for the children, taken from their parents’ arms, left to rot in life’s hell. They’d howl for the parents who hear their children's screams in their sleep but wake up to nothingness. For the lovers, whose dreams of a future together are thrown out like a cigarette on the interrogation table. For the families broken, for the souls shattered.
The walls in my country have ears. They hear everything, the beatings, the cries, the chains, the begging for mercy that never comes. But if they could talk, they would condemn every act of cruelty.
They would expose the secrets whispered in the dark corners of the branches, the names of those who gave the orders, the ones who delight in pulling the trigger, twisting the knife, tightening the ropes. They would scream until their very foundations cracked under the weight of our humiliation, our despair. And if the walls could speak, they would never stop, because the pain they’ve held inside would be an unstoppable torrent, a reckoning, an insurrection of truth.
But the walls have ears, and so we are silent. We censor ourselves, forced to hide our terror behind locked doors, behind whispered conversations, for fear that the walls betray us. For in our world, in this world, the walls serve the oppressor, but not in the next.
Your speech is not just controlled, it is tied to your very right to exist, even in private. While people fear death, what they fear most is vanishing behind the closed doors of the intelligence branches. It’s not just a matter of life and death, but something that has been ingrained in you from childhood. It runs deep in your veins, shaping how you think, what you say, who you speak to, and who you allow into your life.
This fear is more than just survival, it becomes part of your everyday existence, guiding every decision, every word, and every relationship.
The battle between the subconscious mind and conscious reality is not just metaphorical—it reflects the deliberate way the Assad regime, through its mukhabarat, systematically implanted fear into the psyche of its citizens. From a young age, Syrians were conditioned to believe that safety is an illusion, and that danger lurks even within the home, where the regime's ears are always listening. The idea of instilling fear and insecurity wasn't just a passing feeling but became deeply embedded in the subconscious, shaping how people interacted, spoke, and even thought.
The phrase "the walls have ears" wasn't just a warning—it became a lived reality, sinking into the fabric of everyday life, where paranoia replaced trust, and silence became the only shield.
The mukhabarat, as an extension of state power, doesn’t just monitor speech; it holds the power to decide who is worthy to exist and who will be erased from the world. It determines who lives and who dies. The state can make someone disappear, imprison them without trial, or even execute them based on mere suspicion. This suspicion doesn’t only come from official channels—it is fueled by everyday people who act as extensions of the mukhabarat, those who have turned themselves into the regime's eyes and ears.
These informal informants, operating far from the dark halls and bloodstained cells of the state, help perpetuate the fear, making every space unsafe and every conversation dangerous.
The phrase "your aunt’s house" or “beit khaltk” is traditionally a symbol of safety and intimacy within society, a place where family and trust are paramount. But in Syria, it has been twisted into something sinister, a direct reference to the mukhabarat. The saying "Don’t talk, or you’ll end up at your aunt’s house," has become a coded warning.
The fact that such a phrase, once innocuous, now signals paranoia and fear, is the state’s deliberate effort to instill terror even in the most personal, supposedly apolitical spaces. The mukhabarat infiltrates personal lives, shattering the very fabric of family trust, creating a society gripped by paranoia.
This destruction of boundaries between public and private life is not accidental—it is the Assad regime’s calculated method of control. By transforming personal spaces into battlegrounds for political power, the regime normalizes violence and the potential for lethal consequences. Speaking out, or even existing within these spaces, becomes an act of defiance subject to the threat of death, as every corner is marked by surveillance and danger.
In this environment, silence becomes not just a survival tactic, but a form of resistance against a regime that thrives on fear.
Michel Foccult, in Discipline and Punish, speaks of the concept of panopticism, which helps explain how surveillance and control work in authoritarian states. Foucault described the panopticon as a system of power where people start to regulate their own behavior, simply because they feel they’re always being watched—even when no one is actually watching. In Syria, the mukhabarat created a reality where this fear became deeply ingrained.
People lived with the constant assumption that someone, somewhere, was listening, leading them to censor themselves, even at home.
That someone, somewhere, is not a phantom of fear. It actually exists and has been recorded. The Assad tradition of mukhabarat and self-censorship has penetrated deeply into the very fabric of family life, fostering an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust even between the closest relatives, in fear that one of them might serve as an informal informant for the mukhabarat.
Such an understanding not only fractures intimate relationships, but it also weaponizes the family unit itself, transforming it into a potential site of betrayal, where political loyalty becomes paramount over familial bonds.
This constant sense of surveillance invaded most private spaces, forcing individuals to police themselves, censoring not only their words but also their thoughts. Conversations between family members became measured, cautious, as if the mukhabarat had penetrated the subconscious itself, making people fear even their own voices. The regime did not need to be physically present everywhere because the idea of its omnipresence was enough to sustain control.
The subconscious mind was rewired to anticipate consequences, to feel as if every word, every glance, every hesitation could be an act of betrayal.
And yet, despite this powerful psychological conditioning, the conscious material reality ultimately won. The people's collective understanding that this fear, though suffocating, was not impenetrable, began to crack the walls that once seemed indestructible. The regime's efforts to instill insecurity and fear could not fully smother the human. Fear, after all, is not a permanent state—people learn to live with it, resist it, and, over time, break free from it.
Fear was the regime’s greatest weapon, but it was also its greatest weakness.
In my country, the walls have ears. But if they’d talk, they’d cry and cry until the bricks melt, until they turn into a molten, vicious fire. They’d burn him, you, and me, so you’d know that Judgment Day has come. The walls have ears, and the angels have pens, recording every act until that day comes.
Image credit: Yara Al Najem, Walls Have Ears
