Story:

Τhis object is a military notebook. In Syria, every boy around the age of 15 or 16, is required to go to a specific military office to get it. From that moment on, he must carry it for the rest of his life.

This notebook is used to prove one’s military status: whether you have permission to postpone your service because you are studying, you are the only man in your family or other limited reasons. It is also used to show that you have completed your military service. You are expected to present it at every checkpoint. Even after finishing military service, you must still carry it as proof.

In this sense, the notebook functions almost like an ID. It contains your photo, your name, and all your personal details. But unlike the national ID, which everyone has, this notebook is only for men. It constantly reminds you that you are living under a police state—direct, brutal, and unavoidable. Not indirect, not hidden, not soft. Face-to-face. Always above your head.

This notebook is tied to fear. A deep, core fear that followed us boys and men. Whenever we moved beyond our neighborhood, if we were stopped by the police or military and didn’t have it, it would be a serious problem. And if we had it but lacked an official stamp, that was also a problem. So we carried it all the time.

I took this notebook from my hometown in the countryside of Aleppo. I kept it with me constantly. When I finished my studies in Syria, the revolution had already begun and the war was unfolding. I fled the country, and I took the notebook with me, still believing I might need it. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows…

Regimes changed, time passed, and I still had it. Even now, I feel unable to let it go. Subconsciously, I keep holding onto this shadow. You could say, “Just throw it away.” But it’s not that simple.

When the Rebloom Festival was announced, I decided to participate with this object. After the festival, I will throw it in the garbage. Yet every time I look at it, I feel the shadow of my childhood—the darkness of it. It reminds me of a child who was about to grow, but couldn’t. A child shaped and restricted by dictatorship, police control, society, and patriarchy. Growing up as a man in such an environment is extremely difficult. Men pay a very high cost in war simply because they are men. Women also pay a very high cost, but a different one. Both genders paid deeply, in different ways.

My experience as a man in Syria was shaped by a deeply masculine culture. The jokes, the comments, the constant judgment: if you took care of yourself, if you wore something considered feminine, if you showed strong emotions, if you cried… everything became a reason for sarcasm and criticism. This happened daily, everywhere, with everyone. Slowly, it sculpted you into a man who must have nothing feminine in him.

But you don’t even know what “feminine” really means. You start confusing it with basic human qualities: softness, kindness, warmth, tenderness. These were things you first learned from female figures you grew up around, and then you begin to fight them. You fight femininity. Eventually, you realise you are fighting yourself. That is what happens to many men.

As a boy, being feminine or being physically beautiful also made you vulnerable to sexual harassment on buses, in public transportation. You were a teenager, they knew you were not mature, not protected. If you had a soft or “beautiful” face, you were targeted. Growing up like that was horrible. Almost every boy I knew who had any softness or beauty in his appearance suffered through this, unless he came from a wealthy family or had strong protection. In poor, conservative neighborhoods, violence and harassment were almost guaranteed.

So you grow up burying femininity deep inside yourself. You hide it to survive.

My experience in Istanbul was different. Here, I felt more freedom to explore femininity, sometimes deliberately, as an act of liberation. To confront what I was afraid of. And it worked. Facing fear directly works, in such a complex way but still. Through this process, I began to grow as a man for the first time. I started touching, understanding, and feeling my manhood in a new way. By allowing fear to stand in front of me, I discovered something else, something more human, more whole.

– Ammar Alhamidi