After feeling constrained in her circumstances, Syrian YouTuber Batool moved to Egypt, leaving Turkey where she had sought refuge in 2015 for her daughter’s medical treatment. However, she found herself stirring anger among Egyptians and suddenly faced accusations of promoting ideas linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS.
In detail, Batool shared with "Al Arabiya.net" that one of her main reasons for coming to Egypt was to seek treatment for her daughter. She was surprised to find herself trending on social media, unwittingly and without blame. Batool, a Syrian mother of three daughters, one of whom suffers from muscular atrophy in her legs due to a severe brain infection, explained that she had fled to Turkey in 2015 and settled in Kayseri for nine years before moving to Egypt last February.
She stated that she had read many articles and watched videos by specialists in physical therapy in Egypt, which is what she sought for her sick child, who had received physical therapy in Turkish hospitals but did not see sufficient improvement. This encouraged her to move to Egypt, especially after witnessing increased cases of racism towards Syrian refugees from Turks.
**"Egyptians Resemble Us"**
Batool and her husband have been creating content on social media for five years, focusing on daily life, shopping tips, home decor, food recipes, and other stories. She chose Egypt as her place of residence because it is an Arabic country, expressing, "Egyptians resemble us, and since I came here, I felt like I was among my family and in my homeland; it's impossible to feel alienated here, the people are friendly, kind, and generous."
However, what happened to her was unexpected. Last Eid al-Fitr, she noticed many locals distributing sweets at prayer, a concept she liked and decided to replicate during Eid al-Adha. She prepared candies and began distributing them after prayer, while many others were also giving out sweets to the worshippers, some even giving treats to her children, which she joyfully recorded.
**#Borders_Are_Just_Dirt**
She explained that one lady gave her daughter a candy along with a map of the Arab world annotated with the hashtag #Borders_Are_Just_Dirt. She emphasized that she did not interpret the hashtag with malice; rather, she took a video showing the phrase and shared it on her personal accounts and her YouTube channel, which has thousands of followers.
However, after posting the video, she and her family were taken aback by a massive online campaign targeting her. The original video was cut, only showing snippets featuring the map with the stated hashtag, accompanied by phrases accusing her of adhering to the ideologies of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood.
She commented on the campaign against her, noting that while there are a few individuals seeking to stir discord between the Egyptian people and their Syrian guests, the majority of Egyptians have expressed love and support for their Syrian brothers amidst previous campaigns blaming Syrians for inflation and job scarcity in Egypt, as mentioned in some tweets on platform X and other social media outlets. Despite these accusations, there has been a strong backlash against such campaigns, leading to widespread anger and solidarity from Egyptians towards the Syrian community.
