Hassan Al Kontar - Man at the Airport

Copyright 2021 Hassan Al Kontar

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, audio recording, or otherwise
without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Tidewater Press

New Westminster, BC, Canada

tidewaterpress.ca

978-1-7770101-8-8 (print)

978-1-7770101-9-5 (e-book)

library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

Title: man@the_airport : how social media saved my life : one Syrians story / Hassan Al Kontar.

Other titles: Man at the airport

Names: Al Kontar, Hassan, 1981- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210159839 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210160136 | ISBN 9781777010188

(softcover) | ISBN 9781777010195 (HTML)

Subjects: LCSH: Al Kontar, Hassan, 1981- | LCSH: RefugeesSyriaBiography. | LCSH: Refugees

MalaysiaBiography. | LCSH: Internet personalitiesSyriaBiography. | LCSH: Social media

Political aspects. | LCSH: SyriaHistoryCivil War, 2011-RefugeesBiography. | LCSH: Kuala

Lumpur International Airport. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC HV640.5.S97 A42 2021 | DDC 956.9104/231dc23

For my parents, Salem and Hoda, and my family: Solaf, Ammar, Tharaa, Medo and Jasmin.

For my Avenger Team and all Canadians who welcome refugees. Canada is more than a place, it is a symbol and an ideal.

And for all Syrians, be they refugees, prisoners or free men and women.

by Nuseir (Nas) Yassin

Palestinian-Israeli Nuseir Yassin is a Harvard graduate who gave
up his job to travel the world, making one video a day for a thousand
days. Posting his one-minute videos about the people he met and the
places he discovered on Facebook as Nas Daily, the vlogger and
businessman now has more than 33 million followers across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.

In my thousand-day journey with Nas Daily, there were only two times when I thought my video was going to kill someone. Literally be the reason they die. One of those two times was in Malaysia, with a Syrian refugee who had been stuck in a Kuala Lumpur airport for six months. He could not enter the country and he couldnt leave it because of passport issues. What happened was that I made a video about him, so that more people could know about his story. I didnt think much about it, but to my surprise the video made an entire government super-angry. And I woke up one day finding myself the reason why that government was putting someone in jail.

That someone was Hassan, and you may have heard of him already because he was all over the news in 2018. Luckily, he didnt die, as you might have realized.

When I first heard about Hassans story, it was because one of my followers sent me a message on Instagram: Hey, you should make a video about this guy. They linked me to a news article, where I read this crazy story of a man living in an airport for six months and facing arrest in his own country because he refused to participate in a war. I thought to myself, Wow, I have to make a video about him.

So I called him up and started chatting with him. To my surprise, Hassan did not sound panicked, worried or tired for someone in his situation. Instead, he was patient, he was funny and, above all, he had a plan. He had been documenting his days in the airport on his personal Instagram, and he knew the uniqueness of his situation would attract attention from journalists and influencers from all around the world. Like Vice, CNN, the BBC. Like me. And he was putting a bet that all this attention on social media would lead to freedom.

Heres the thing. Social media is a powerful tool. To me, as someone who makes videos for a living, it can save a life. Normally we look at social media as a stupid thing: For stupid dances or for stupid challenges and theres nothing much you can gain out of it. Thats the perception of social media and the so-called influencers. But thats not all it can do. When you put social media to good use, it can literally change lives. Because of how easy it is to access anytime, anywhere, its giving a platform for voices that are not normally covered in the mainstream media. And when something goes viral with millions or billions of views, its impossible to ignore. Whats put on social media can reach governments, policymakers and literally change lives. Its incredible how powerful this machine of social media is.

So that was the basis of Hassans plan. It was a really crazy, risky plan, but it was a really smart plan, in retrospect. Hassan is the Social Media Refugee, as I like to call him.

After my chat with Hassan, I decided to help him and pulled off a crazy stuntsomething that to this day still feels to me a bit like out of a James Bond movie. I couldnt go to Malaysia, so I sent my team to the Malaysian airport, met Hassan, filmed his story entirely in secret and flew back to Singapore, all while avoiding the authorities. We edited the video, published it, and I watched as Hassans plan worked right before my eyes. I watched as the view count shot up to about eighteen million viewsessentially reaching a lot of people in the world.

But heres the catchhis story caught the attention of the good guys, but also the bad guys. Hassan paid the price for his plan. Because he was talking to the media, he got arrested. After the launch of the video, he disappeared. Went completely offline. Nobody knew where he was, and I got scared. He could have been deported to Syria and killed.

Luckily, it all worked out. Because of all the media attention, from Vice, CNN, the BBC and the rest of the world, it reached the Canadian government. When Hassan entered prison, the Canadian government took notice and expedited his application for refugee status. What supposedly would take two years, for Hassan took only two months. He was released, welcomed by his sponsors in Whistler, and he is now enjoying a new life in Canada as a free man. After all he went through, the Social Media Refugee finally got the happy ending he deserved.

But my involvement with Hassan at the airport prison was just a tiny part of his incredible journey from Syria, to the UAE, to Malaysia, to (almost) Ecuador and Cambodia, and back to Malaysia again. And even though everyone knows about the airport prisoner, Im glad that Hassan has finally decided to share the rest, because it might be even more interesting than the airport prison itself.

Thats one minute. See you tomorrow.

Six months after I arrived in Canada, I was invited to speak at the Canadian Council for Refugees Spring Consultation in Victoria, BC. It was a sunny day, but the wind was chilly, the kind of breeze that makes you want to spend ten more minutes under the blankets before you get out of bed. I was on the ferry and pulled out my cellphone to take some photos. I loved how Whistler was in the mountains, and still only an hour from the open ocean. I couldnt believe how far Id comelife was strange, weird, unfair and generous all at the same time. Only a few months before, Id been in a crowded detention cell in Malaysia, and now I was having poutine on a ferry. In Canada! In the country that every refugee dreams of. Why me? I smiled as I looked at the snow on the distant peaks. I wish my family were here to see this beauty, I thought. I wish they could feel what I am feeling now: safe, legal, hopeful and, yes, finally happy.