Sweida is my home

"Sweida is my home, and the path to my victory."
Didn't we once sing, "Palestine is my home, and the path to my victory"?
How did everything change?
And yet, perhaps there is no contradiction. For when justice rises above all else, contradictions lose their meaning.
We stand as Arabs, raising our voices for what is right—from north to south, from east to west.
Our cause has never been anything but the oppressed.

And in my homeland, my people were the ones who were wronged.
They did not distinguish between civilians and anyone else.
We built that home, room by room.
We carried the weight of life together, sharing exhaustion with laughter and hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Every stone held a story.
That wall was my father's support, keeping him on his feet through years of hardship.

There were many doors, and at every doorway we sang:
My home...
Home of peace...
Cradle of the free.

Even if my home had been nothing more than a single room, it would still have been the finest place on earth.
Yet still...
Sweida has fallen into the hands of ignorance and those who brought destruction,
while we stand at the threshold of victory, still waiting.
We carried the sky on our shoulders, asking for nothing but the chance to rise—
to lift my father's name, carved by years of labor, to the place of honor it deserves.
He who carried our burdens for an entire lifetime deserved nothing less.

And my mother...
She did more than cradle our pain with tenderness and mercy. She was our sky.
Then, one day, the sky embraced them all.
In my homeland, we mourn the young before the old.
We mourn every unarmed civilian.

For those who came to our land never learned the meaning of peace.
Their hands are stained with blood.
Their hearts have turned dark.
And my homeland finds no comfort in their presence.

Yet still...
We sing.
Despite the grief.
Despite the strangers who walked across our beloved land.
Because a home is more than walls.
It is memory.
It is dignity.
And no one can take that away.