Marwa al-Sabouni is a Syrian architect who watched her home city of Homs destroyed during the Syrian conflict between 2011 and 2014. Out of that experience, she penned an intensely moving and haunting account of what the idea of home means. She writes of how the dwellings we live in are intimately connected with our own sense of self:
‘Our homes don’t just contain our life earnings, they stand for what we are. To destroy one’s home should be taken as an equal crime to destroying one’s soul.’
It’s a statement that echoes the biblical vision of every person able to ‘live in safety, under their own vine and under their own fig tree.’ Yet it’s also a sentence that also haunts me whenever I go near Grenfell Tower or spend time with its survivors. It should also resonate with the hearts of Conservative politicians, as they promote the benefits of home ownership, expressing themes such as the importance of place, personal responsibility and individual enterprise.
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