My third article published for Arab World in Revolutions blog:

anonymous graffiti in Syria that says: “A country is not a hotel to be abandoned when the service gets bad – we will persevere.”

“The battle has reached to a bone-breaking stage; who will fall apart first?” Martyr Bassel Shehada.

The biggest talk now on the streets in Syria is that everyone is leaving, families, business people, and most importantly, activists. This problem has reached to a point where many in Syria are getting angry at their friends who left or considering leaving the revolution at this difficult stage, some even consider such a thought of leaving as betrayal to Syria.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, those who are leaving Syria are either well-connected or come from well-off families. Syrian economy is deteriorating, so if you can buy a ticket and spend money in some other country, it really means nowadays that you’re rich enough to do so,” said Somayya whose friends are leaving one after another, escaping regime detention campaigns.

“The regime is deliberately pushing the youth to leave, some activists’ names were on the wanted lists on the borders but now they’re not. The regime is leaking lists of thousands of wanted activists so they’ll get scared and think of escaping. It’s precisely because the regime wants us to leave that I believe we should stay. I think our mere staying in itself is resistance,” Sumayya affirms quietly: “to leave is to be defeated.”

Read the rest of it here.