" What’s crucial in this whole process is that you don’t matter. You as an individual—your aspirations, your ideas about what is right—mean absolutely nothing. And that’s when you understand why people get radicalized. I completely understand why somebody would join ISIS or al-Qaeda or the Assad regime or the Kurdish groups. You are in dire need for a narrative that can justify this futility. There has to be a point. So you become radical. This suffering has to be for a reason. Otherwise it’s too painful. "

― Wendy Pearlman , We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria