Amarji

This is the essence of my disgust: our leaders can’t tell the difference between mediocrity and strength.

Still, even a mediocre inquisitor has sufficient power to detain and torture. This is the essence of my fear. And my terror. My would-be torturer will be a mediocre figure, working for a mediocre President, in a mediocre country, going through mediocre crises, that could have been averted through the application of a mediocre amount of wisdom (they had none), still the torture will be no less painful.

Syrian poet and activist Ammar Abdulhamid, founder of the Tharwa Project and Dar Emar, author of the novel The Whore with The Trillion Vulvas and blogger.