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hen most Westerners think of Syria, they think of its civil war, which has killed
over half a million people since it started in 2011. But death-toll numbers that high can overwhelm the senses, turning lost souls into statistics that barely register in Western minds.
Tareq Hadhad is not a statistic. He’s an entrepreneur and public speaker who escaped Syria in 2013. Despite losing his cousin and brother-in-law (both were kidnapped, tortured and killed), when Hadhad thinks of Syria, he doesn’t think of numbers or war. He thinks of family, community — and chocolate, which, for the Hadhads, is kind of all the same thing.
“My grandmother’s home kitchen
... inspired my father to leave his engineering degree behind and start on a journey to make chocolate, because he believed that it is a product that spreads happiness, that spreads joy, that really contributes to a much brighter world,” Hadhad says.
His mother’s kitchen played a pivotal role, but Hadhad’s father’s “journey of entrepreneurship” started at a cousin’s wedding, where he saw how happy the chocolates made guests. That night changed the trajectory for the entire family, Hadhad says, because “before then, none of my family members were entrepreneurs. None of them believed in entrepreneurship as a power to make a change ... to bring in something different to the family’s history. And, since 1986, it became very clear to my family that the connection to us with
the community was absolutely through giving back and contributing and making sure that everyone around us is living a happy life.”
But the war destroyed everyone’s happy lives, and in 2012, it also destroyed the chocolate factory Hadhad grew up in. The family continued running it after the war started, to provide employees with jobs and customers with a sense of normalcy. And they chose not to view it in its ruined form before escaping (though they later saw pictures) to keep it a “sweet memory” at a time when things weren’t so sweet.
“I think the harshest part of war is the uncertainty,” Hadhad says. “And
I believe that the human suffering happens after the trauma, not before or during it ... when someone is missing around the dinner table the day after,” adding that a survivor’s pain only grows when he, she or they escape, “because once you leave, you are disconnected from your roots and disconnected from your homeland.”
Hadhad did not go far before feeling disconnected from his homeland — or his humanity. As one of the thousands of refugees who crossed the border
into Lebanon each day, Hadhad found himself at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where an officer addressed him by the number on his chest. Hadhad refused to respond.
“I told them, ‘We are not a number. Why are you calling me with a number? I have a name, and you have it,’ — and he did have it, in front of him, but he just preferred to call us by our numbers. It was an eye-opening moment for
my family, because when you are in
that situation, you just need anything that brings you hope. And I think the moment that we challenged to claim our humanity back, that was the first time when I saw my family hopeful again.”
“And I believe that the human suffering happens after the trauma, not before or during it...when someone is missing around the dinner table the day after.”
— Tareq Hadhad
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