Sean McAllister » Page 10

Author: Sean McAllister

Documentary Filmmaker from Hull, England, specialises in giving the voiceless a voice

Nightcap

“What’s that word again?” Lukman asks as the night draws to a close and the Arak finally makes its appearance, “Nightcap” I tell him. He laughs and pours the final drink of the evening. “Nightcap… I love that word.”

I have been having regular nightcaps with Karen the American woman I’m staying with in Damascus, we sit on her terrace and have a last local aniseed drink in the dusty early hours.

Karen talks easily of a life of travel, her conversation flows seamlessly between subject topic and tale, she pauses only for a puff on her fag and a slug of her Arak. She reminds me of Gina Rowlands the fantastic actress in John Cassavetes films. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up with her comical rants but she does keep me thoroughly entertained.

Her conversation moves from sadness to anger as she recounts tortured tales with ‘The fucking donkey’; a relationship with a local Syrian guy who took her 25k savings. “The bastard stole my money.” “Even his own family has disowned him” she rants… lighting another fag.

It is 3am and the street below is busy, filled with a noisy mix of car horns and people shouting, the dusty warm air helps keep me focused but my eyes start to open and close as the warming Arak takes hold.

Soon my glass is empty and it is time for bed.

Karen continues talking unaware that my eyes are closed. Tonight with the Arak and without her glasses on everything has become a blur.

Park life, pt2

The park comes alive around midnight. In the distance on a bench two boys are hugging each other as if they were performing on a stage, they both clearly love the attention they are creating, hugging each other ever more wildly the more stares they get.

I am talking to a 24 year old Kurdish man who has a 22 year old Swedish wife ‘outside’ waiting for him, and, like Nazeem my Iraqi friend who is trying to join his wife and kids in Canada, this man cannot get to his wife in Sweden. Out of the blue the man picks up his Kurdish guitar and starts to serenade me…

Nazeem points to a brand new BMW as it drives-by, he tells me it is the same model that he drove in Iraq – such was the good life he had under Saddam. Nazeem is always well dressed.

He heads off to the shop to buy us all a beer. The three of us drink together listening to the hum of the accents – American, Australian, British, and Arabic. I wonder aloud how long the authorities will tolerate all this drinking in public in this Muslim country, someone says that they won’t stop it because it is mainly Westerners, but more and more I see Syrian’s also enjoying a late-night drink in the park. The nearby shops have started selling a dangerously strong beer 12% and 14% strength sending some kids reeling late into the night. But most evenings pass off without us even seeing a policeman never mind needing one.

To an outsider Syria feels a safe and sensible country, or perhaps there are invisible hands at work stopping people from going too far, I often wonder where the secret police are, are they watching us, or are they here among us? I am assured that ‘as long as you don’t plot or plan against the government you are free to do and say most things just like in any European country’.

The night dusty air breezes around us. The young boys leave holding hands and smiling at us, Nazeem is dreaming of a new life in Canada and of his old life long gone in old Iraq, and the Kurdish man continues singing his song about his Kurdish homeland whilst looking longingly into my eyes. It must be a bizarre and funny sight.

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Park life

So here I am, it has finally happened, I am sitting on a park bench on my own drinking Arak, ‘Down and out in Damascus’. Actually it is very beautiful, the park is off the tourist souk and Straight Street which runs through the heart of the old city and lies between the Christian quarter (hence the ease and openness with drinking alcohol in public) and the astonishing Jewish quarter which lies just behind us.

These days most of the properties in the Jewish quarter are empty – empty, deserted, and abandoned by Jews fleeing to Israel I assume but a local tells me not… “They went to seek their fortune in New York” he says.

Since the ‘smoking ban’ came in the park has become even more popular, here people are free to smoke and drink in public. I watch a mix of young lovers cuddling, some old ladies chatting and looking up at the stars, and a gang of youngsters getting drunk on the super strong 14% beer sold in the local store… I’ve taken to drinking ‘Arak’ – the local booze, a mind blowing 55% proof – it makes you see the world in a different way! The Arak makes me not want to move (unlike most other alcohol which generally has quite the opposite effect), but I must, because tonight I have been invited to an Iraqi wedding.

I am very curious to see the district of Damascus which is home to up to 2 million Iraqi’s who fled their new found ‘freedom and democracy’ in Iraq for safety in Assad’s Syrian ‘dictatorship’. How funny the world really is. But the Arak has taken hold of me and I simply cannot move.

By chance I meet an Iraqi who is also drinking in the park, a well dressed and dignified man who had left Kirkuk in the north of Iraq after the fall of Saddam, “They not only killed our leader but they killed our country” he says, “We had everything under Saddam; as long as you didn’t threaten him you could be free!”

Here this man survives on rent sent from property he still owns in Kirkuk. Fleeing the destruction that followed the fall of Saddam he managed to get his wife and 3 kids to Canada but failed somehow to get there himself. He recounts a bizarre story in which he spent 15,000 dollars on a round-the-world-trip that was supposed to take him from Syria, to Cuba, from Cuba to Mexico, from Mexico over the border to America and from America over the border to Canada.

But, he only got as far as Cuba; he didn’t speak Spanish or English and found himself stranded there for a week unable to move on. Defeated, he returned and now drinks beer and eats nuts in the park waiting for his wife to make the application through a lawyer in Canada. “It is only a matter of time” he says, “but my main aim was to get them there and give them a chance in life”. I sit and watch this man and think to myself that it is indeed a man’s world. There is so much negativity written about the role of men in the Middle East but here is one shining example of a man prepared to sacrifice his lot for the women in his life.

Alas, I do not have his strength, and for now the Iraqi district must wait, I cannot make it to the wedding, the Arak has me completely under its spell and I am unable to move away from this beautiful Damascus park… so I continue to sit with this stranger, listening to his stories, and wondering.

Back to Arabia

It’s the Arab world again; I’m almost there but not quite, I’ve booked a dangerously cheap ticket on an unknown airline, Syrian Arab Airways… I love an adventure and a bargain so what the heck.

I call to pay for the ticket but they don’t accept credit cards ‘cash only’ comes the reply and I fly tomorrow. They will accept a bank-transfer but require the paying-in slip faxed as proof of payment, but I don’t have a fax, I ask if I can scan and email them the paying-in slip but they say they can’t receive emails. I begin to wonder if they have any computers.

This is a slow step back to the Arab world. Fortunately my bank is very understanding, not only did they include my request for a veggie meal but they also faxed the paying-in slip for me. Finally, my ticket is secured, but what about my flight?

Bizarrely… the airline that could not receive any emails – email me my ‘e-ticket’.

The recorded announcement on Syrian Arab Airways says that all flights (just 2 a week) leave from Terminal 2 at Heathrow but, when I arrive I discover that they actually leave from Terminal 4. “That is an old message” I am told by a member of staff.

At check-in I watch a fat Syrian man who is 8 kilos over on his luggage; the airline is trying to make him pay. He is dancing around stroking the face of the manager, he kisses his hand and head, strokes his face and manages to have his fine reduced by 5 kilos. My observations are preparing me for my step-back into Arabia.

At check-in I am told there is no veggie meal, “It takes 4 days to order”. Before booking I’d checked twice to make sure that they served vegetarian food and had a complimentary bar with booze, this was confirmed twice, now I face a flight without any food. Well at least I can have a drink I think to myself… so I go and get a sandwich to take on board.

As I enter the aircraft I ask again, just in case, about the veggie meals, “No worries sir, we have plenty” – I am both confused and delighted by the reply. I make myself comfortable in my broken seat with no front table and a broken foot rest. The plane has a musty old smell to it, with décor to suit. No bright Virgin colours here, or the tight restrictive leather seats, these ones are twice as big and twice as dirty and feel real and comfy.

My veggie meal arrives – it is great. An Asian curry of lentils and salad. Then shock, horror, no booze on the drinks trolley. I ask the Arabic air-hostess for “wine with the meal?” She looks to her boss on the other end of the trolley, he says “Sorry no wine”, but his answer didn’t feel absolute; it was as though he couldn’t quite be bothered…

Then I notice a couple of men chatting whilst another member of crew brings them what looks to me like whisky on the rocks. I stop the man, “Can I get a whisky?” “Sure sir”. A whisky on the rocks arrives covered in a paper towel. Later I make my way into Business class, an area just as tatty as economy class apart from the dirty curtains that divide us. “Is there any wine?” I ask? “Wine… I will need to ask…” the hostess says I need to ask at the back, I tell her the man has already refused me, she takes the phone and makes what looks like a concerted effort to fix this problem and I go back to my seat. A few moments pass and the trolley arrives full of cheap nasty fake soft drinks, I feel a hand coming over my shoulder with a bottle of wine wrapped in paper towel from the man who’d refused me originally. “Would you like ice with it sir?” “Why not” I reply.

This is the Arab world, a place that seems full of rules, but in reality everything is negotiable, you have to navigate your way through it whilst never accepting anything at face value. You will always get to where you’re going but not always in the way you intended. If you are prepared for this then you are ready to hit the Arab world.

The landing of this shabby plane was one of the smoothest I’ve ever experienced. On-time we all disembark leaving London and the ‘free west’ behind us and walking excitedly into Syria, a closed dictatorship and part of George W Bush’s infamous Axis of Evil. My cab takes me to Straight Street, the Christian quarter of old Damascus, where I meet Karen an American woman living and working here and whom I will be staying with. She is with hundreds of others who are all outside and who are all drinking openly in the park, beer, wine, Arak, you name it… Music thumps out from a nearby disco. “Welcome back to Syria” Karen says, offering me a choice of beers from her carry-out bag.

A Dave new world

I have to book a flight for Damascus to fly tomorrow but British politics finds me hiding from the world deep under the sheets in my bed. The news announces “Today we wake to a new day in British politics…” but I feel as depressed as I did in 1979 when the iron cow took office and proceeded to wreck the country.

The thought of having an out-of-touch toff from Eton leading us sends me back to sleep. I want to sleep for 5 years to avoid seeing these rosy-cheeked plums ‘leading’ a country they know nothing about.

The election result could also be the beginning of the end for documentary on television. David Cameron spoke about his plans to get rid of BBC3 & BBC4 if he took office. Can the usually spineless Lib Dems protect us from David in this flimsy coalition? What British TV network will there be left for serious documentary film making if BBC4 goes? Does David care, did the Tories ever care?

When I was 16 I left school and fell straight into Thatcher’s unemployed underclass. Thanks to the Tories we saw hordes of homeless walking the streets, communities were wrecked, people were cast aside, the sick and elderly were ignored and left to die alone at home. Industry was privatised and so was the individual. People took to the picket lines – I was politicised thanks to Margaret, she made me want to pick a camera up and record what was going on; as a force for change, maybe I should thank her.

My only hope today is that David will also help politicise the millions of new poor displaced working class members of British society who are going to be punished by his policies to ‘reform’ this country left bankrupt thanks to the lies of New Labour and the greed driven behaviour of their friends the bankers.

Now in office David has offered inheritance tax allowance up to a million pound to his wealthy friends whilst promising public sector cuts and evictions for the poor. How does this help anyone in my home-town of Hull? Only those like John Prescott – ‘The fat leisure class’ which emerged as a result of the deceit of New Labour will benefit.

And so today I struggle to pull myself from the sheets feeling fear and sadness for my country and anger at being let down by a Labour party that became ‘New’ to attract a middle class vote but in doing so got rich and corrupted by power, and the thrill and desire to stay in power, so much so that the working class once again have been betrayed and compromised – no wonder many of them didnt bother to vote, allowing the Tories in again!

In a glimmer of hope I make my way to the bathroom for a pee contemplating the Labour party now in opposition. I feel there is a chance for it to regroup and rethink and re-kindle core Labour values.

As desperate days under Tory rule take hold and wage freezes / cuts throughout the public and private sectors become reality, and the homeless return back to the streets again in ever growing numbers I for one hope for 1970’s style strikes across Britain again, and riots like the ones I that I grew up with in 1980, to help fuel a fire for change from within, from the voiceless working classes, from the people who are being forced to suffer because of the actions of others, so that after these 5 years of hell we can make a positive change for Britain again, with Labour hopefully representing the poor as its core value.

I only hope BBC4 is around to commission filmmakers to make the hard hitting documentaries that will illuminate this country as it teeters on the edge of change and revolution. But for now I must escape the depressing landscape of a Tory Britain to find freedom and fun in Damascus, Syria, an authoritarian dictatorship where I’m trying to make a film and where the Tories thankfully don’t exist.