ABSTRACT
On October 9, 2009 Hassan ‘Abbas celebrated the new openness in an article about some contemporary Syrian novels that he entitled Hikayat didd al-nisyan [Stories against Forgetting]. He argued that “during the past ten years” (i.e. since Bashar came to power), novels were no longer written to make readers forget their circumstances, but rather to forbid forgetting. They criticized the state’s suppression of “a contestatory consciousness through a series of steps that begin with censorship in its multiple forms and end in prison or sometimes execution.” ‘Abbas also praised writers like Mustafa Khalifa, Khalid Khalifa, and Faraj Bairaqdar, who continued to risk freedom and life for their daring. Their writing was and “still is (la yazal) to a certain extent,” about the painful truth of political prison, a truth formerly silenced in official publications. ‘Abbas was commenting on a known literary phenomenon in a way that was newly open. The permission to write about the censorship apparatus had signaled a positive step beyond the former silencing. On October 17, 2009, however, the Syrian government banned the October 9 edition of al-Adab that had published this article. ‘Abbas protested that this “ban did not accord well with the current situation in Syria or with the image which Syria is trying to project about itself and its culture. . . . These works are widely available and read. So what’s wrong with writing about them?” What was wrong? The state was losing control. Taboos were being tested: 1982 Hama, the Muslim Brothers, and prison experiences were openly mentioned for the first time. Intellectuals were raising popular consciousness about the injustices inside Syria, and the Asad cult was taking a hit.
