Syria » Page 6

Category: Syria

Here we are free

I awoke this morning feeling fat and bloated with much too much Hummus in my belly. I’d rounded yesterday off with a big plate of Tabbouleh, Baba Ghanouj, and Hummus (again) oh dear… the burnt aubergine dish (Baba Ghanouj) was really great as was the bottle of Syrian rose wine I had with it. A meal for just over 3 quid, wine included!

Michael was supposed to call this morning at 5am along with a worker and a tractor to take us to his land but he never came.

So instead I made my way again into the pretty town of Safita and spent the day sitting with Adnan an English-speaking Syrian who had spent most of his working life as a construction worker in Kuwait. He has now retired back to Safita and is setting up his own little restaurant selling Hummus Falafel and a wonderful Zatar bread (a delicate mix of Sesame seeds and Thyme that they add virgin Olive oil to and spear on thin pieces of dough that is baked in seconds in front of your eyes, dangerously tasty). He has invited to the official opening on Saturday

Today is the first day of Ramadan I say in passing, no worries here Adnan smiles, “This is a Christian village and the only Muslims here are Alawite” (a less strict branch of the Shi’a, only found in Syria and Lebanon, here they are the dominant sect, ruling the government and military).

A couple of girls pass in low-cut tops, bright make-up, and tight jeans, these girls are Alawite Muslims Adnan explains, “Here you cannot tell the difference between us, here we really do live as one” Adnan says proudly.

– If I am honest I have to say that seeing some of the fully veiled women last week on the beach at Tartous did depress me a bit, but maybe that is purely a result of my western ignorance, my inability to simply ‘get it’, and maybe it is the woman’s free choice as I hear, maybe they do feel ‘free’ behind the veil, but, as I said, I just don’t get it.

Najat an artist who moved from Tartous to Damascus recently says his city was never like this, “Before women wore what they liked, years ago we had bars in Tartous but not today”.

As Adnan pours another coffee he reflects on the ‘good old days’ when women were freer in the Arab world, “Saddam was good for women he says now Iraq takes a step back into the dark ages for them”.

Sadly in my own life I feel I’m seeing history turn its ugly head, one always imagines that with time you always got progression not regression, but one thing that saddened me about the changes in Iraq was its move towards being a more religious state; one where (possibly because of continued male dominance in the Arab world) women invariably seemed to lose out.

Saddam was no doubt a murderous psychopath running a tyrannical state but I did see many progressive women groups on my visits to the country in 1995, no veils just powerful positive female voices. Sadly when I left Iraq for the last time in 2004 there was chaos all around and women feared being seen outside without a veil, Christians included. Ironically most of Iraq’s Christians have fled to Syria from the new democracy for safety in Syria’s dictatorship.

Last week whilst watching imprisoned lions, tigers, and bears, in one of Syria’s illegal and cruel travelling zoo’s I met a Syrian of Greek decent whose family had settled here at the end of the last century, he too was angry about veiled women, “It’s a fashion from Saudi” he says. We watch a ‘blacked-out’ lady follow a man wearing a baseball cap and t-shirt on the beach in temperatures of 45c, “It was never like this, it is a macho thing for some of the young ones, but if you look in the Koran Mohammed treated women as equals and valued their efforts not as subordinates like these young ones today”.

At night in Safita the young fill the streets with scantily clad girls looking for boys roaming like high season, no veils here far from it, beer, whiskey, arak, is everywhere. “It’s nice to feel at home in Syria” I tell the waiter as he pours my rose wine. “Here we are a mix of Christian and Alawite, you cannot tell the difference here by how people dress” he replied.

What makes Syria so interesting to an outsider is its apparent tolerance to the many religions here – areas of the country are very religious yet others more modern, western, and ‘open’. As Adnan pours yet another coffee he looks out in the quiet early morning street, “Here we are free, this isn’t like Kuwait or Saudi, here you can do as you like and be left alone”.

Pistachio heaven

The Pistachio season has arrived, fresh pink Pistachios decorate the streets and markets of Syria. Their look however is far more attractive than their taste, ‘fresh’ means raw un-roasted and unsalted. No matter however healthy you want to get (I guess you shouldn’t be even considering these little gems if you are watching your weight) a Pistachio has to be salted and roasted.

Today is not just any-other-day, it is an extra special one because I am in the Christian village of Safita – a sublime spot near the coast. I am waiting to meet up with Michael a character I’d met recently who had kept me entertained with anecdotes of Syrian life through the poems he had written – especially one called ‘I’m fed up’, and then others directed to the Queen and Diana – but today it seems this English-speaking Anglo-file is too busy to meet me. He said he may have to attend to his crop of olive trees; it was time to divide the takings on the oil between his family who own the land, and the workers who pick and crush the Olives to make the oil.

So instead I pass the day eating and sleeping. Hummus Fool for breakfast followed by a walk and a nap before waking for Falafel lunch or did I sleep then too? I can’t remember… However when I woke I decided to treat myself to some roasted Pistachios, it was either that or doing some exercise to work off my hummus belly. But with the temperature around 35c and this being a Christian village where booze is widely available there isn’t much chance of that.

So I approached the young boy selling the nuts. He didn’t speak any English and my Arabic is as good as my Japanese, so we danced around for a bit then I took hold of the smallest weight from the scales and said give me this much, the boy measured out a sizeable bag and I held out some coins and a Syrian 50 pound note (80p). At first the boy grabbed the coins then the note, the lot, then he looked up at me pitifully and handed one of the coins back, I couldn’t work out what the price was or should be and withdrew from deal immediately fearing the boy was ripping me off. He looked dejected pouring the freshly roasted nuts back into the jar.

It was only later when buying the same nuts from his father that I discovered that the true cost of the nuts was more than all the money I had offered the boy, but instead of asking for more money the boy gave me money back – pitying my situation. My superior-westerner-recently-ripped-off-on-the-coast persona had left me sad, sorry, and embarrassed because it is so rare to be ripped off in Syria.

The other day on route to the dentist in Damascus (great cheap dental treatment) my cab driver didn’t have enough change so we stopped at a shop where I got out to buy a can of diet 7up, the shop owner had no change and gave me the drink for free, so the driver and I strolled down the street looking for another shop to change the money, I can’t remember being in a place so safe and so honest and so friendly.

No Democracy Please

The park was busier than usual with people enjoying a drink in the summer night heat. The public consumption of alcohol is a rare sight in Islamic countries but this a “modern” Muslim state. Many of the people in the park are international students, here to learn the mighty Arabic language, some come on the one month programmes whilst others are here for a year as part of their degree. Such an influx has cultural effects on places like Syria and has certainly helped the Christian quarter in the old city blossom by night.

I join Ahmed a guy from the Golan and his friends drinking beer, he introduces me to his friend also called Ahmed, I tell them of being witness to a near fight the previous night and how impressed I was at how quickly the police responded. A drunken teenage American student had made the mistake of saying “I’m an American” in an arrogant way so as to belittle a local he was arguing with, it was then things turned nasty, or would have done if the police hadn’t arrived.

Of course the police sided with the American; such is the protection we westerners can take for granted in this tightly controlled society, no-one should offend a foreigner let alone hit one – even if they deserve it!

“We have no problem with Americans as long as they come here respectfully”. Ahmed comes from a seaside town called Tartus but now lives in Damascus because the job prospects are better. After graduating in engineering he now has a supervisor job at a DVD factory. “Really” he says, “I was so surprised that a country like Syria could have the technology to make DVDs”, me too I reply, adding that “I thought all this stuff was imported from china”… Is Syria so cheap that it can compete with the Chinese workforce?

I ask why the traffic police are so corrupt. Ahmed is quick to point out that their salary is only 200 dollars a month, and that taking bribes for minor road traffic offences can double or triple their salary. But if corruption starts at police level where or when does it end?

My questions seem to irritate Ahmed. He tells me Syrian society cannot be judged like a developed western democracy. “And by the way” he is quick to add, “We are not interested in having your democracy here either. We don’t see your democracy as real. It is a lie. Your government does what it wants or as it is told by those in the big financial corporations pulling the strings. Do you think you are anymore free then me?” He asks. “You protest against an illegal war in Iraq and your government still takes you into it. Is that democracy?”

“Before the war I had a naïve notion that I wanted to be free. I was drinking alcohol with my friends and looking to the West for answers wanting to be a democracy, but since the Iraq invasion we have one and half million Iraqi refugees fleeing this new democracy in Iraq for safety here in Syria – what you call a ‘dictatorship’.”

“Our president isn’t brutal like Saddam he is loved by the people here. Since he took power from his father 8 years ago he has given a number of freedoms. Talking openly with foreigners could never happen 10 years ago. And remember this is an Islamic society and I am a Muslim who no longer drinks but I don’t stop you drinking with me in this park. I can sit with you and treat you as my guest. What freedom do you want? Here we cannot scream ‘fuck the leader’ in the streets. So what? But here you can walk the streets at 3 am safely. Can you do that in London? Here we don’t have homeless roaming the streets helpless. What kind of freedom is that?”

“Before the war with Iraq many people believed in this democracy idea but when we see the chaos there now we are happy with what we have. Our leader has never had so much support from his people. He is genuinely loved by them.”

Around us I watch as Syrians drinking openly in the park and nearby bars. At 5am the call for prayer from the mosques will hail a new day in this peculiar modern Islamic state.

Unveiled

In her early 30’s she stands as a one woman crusade against the dominant Arab male culture and all its stupidity, “I want to make the man I love happy, I want to make his food and even clean his clothes, but when my brother beat me so bad, because I refused to make him food, that I ended up in hospital it was too much, my father never even supported me then”. Her father has always beaten his daughters, but never his son, her last beating was just 5 months ago (she hasn’t spoken to him since), “This is the Arab world” she says, “I hate Arabic men!”

Sitting opposite me is a beautiful women wearing make-up, and a brightly coloured low-cut top designed to cause a stir here, when we walk the streets I see looks of horror from veiled women and hear lewd comments from men.

To them she says she is seen as a ‘bitch’. A bitch here is a woman who has slept with a man before marriage – or in some cases just kissed one. She recounts the moment she kissed her first and only Arabic boyfriend, “The moment I let him kiss me he left me, calling me a bitch, because I’d let him kiss me I was a bitch, this is the mentality here”.

Today it is her life commitment to promote the rights of women, though she feels almost alone in her struggle, “Women should not be killed if they are not virgins when they marry but it happens here, and is accepted. Until laws are passed to protect women this region will always be in the dark ages”

A week ago I met a man whose ex-girlfriend had written asking him for financial help. She had fallen in love and was to marry but needed an operation to make it appear she was a virgin again, as this man had taken her virginity he felt obliged to help her with money for the operation.

On a day-to-day level Syria looks deceptively “modern”, bars, night clubs… in the street scantily clad women mingle with half-veiled and fully-veiled women. It is the mix of Christian, and Alawite Muslim (a Shi’ite offshoot that wears no veil and is allowed to drink alcohol – President Assad is Alawite) that makes Syria appear more open and modern than other Arabic societies.

But scratch the surface here and lurking beneath this modern facade is a very traditional Arabic society riddled with social mores and customs that always seem to favour men against women. There have been some small changes, a law passed recently makes ‘honour killing’ a crime, though it only offers a 2 year prison sentence – as with many Arabic countries the issue of women’s rights is one that will continue to plague it for a long while yet.

We walk through the streets unable to avoid the stares and whistles aimed towards her, finally I wave goodbye, and she walks defiantly into the night.

Democracy v Dictatorship

Ibrihim left Syria 37 years ago for Canada, but returns most summers. This time he has brought 2 of his kids with him and plans to stay for 2 months. He left at 20 to avoid conscription to the army, but remains fiercely patriotic.

After being what he calls a ‘wage-slave’ in the West for 37 years he says he wants his Canadian born kids to live here in Syria. “This is freedom here”, he says, “My brother works when he wants and has a life, in the West we have money but no life, here you have a life, if only George Bush knew that!”

Although he earns big money in Canada – up to and more than 1000 dollars a day as a building contractor (as well as being an Arabic singer earning up to 5k on a weekend), he says (looking around him) that this is the life he really wants.

Ibrihim even had a period running 2 Arabic restaurants in Montreal, but now looks forward to retiring, on his $1400 a month pension he plans to live 6 months here and 6 months in Canada. His mother is still here, she had her first child at 14 and had 6 kids by the age of 19.

Ibrihim took me to meet his brother who is working in the same carpentry workshop his father did. We sat and chatted for an hour and a half about the great western ideas like ‘democracy’ and what we in the West call ‘dictatorships’, I sensed Ibrihim had spent a lifetime in the West trying to tell his people about the life in the East, now here I am with my camera on what seems a similar mission.

When I told someone I was going to Syria they asked “Are you scared?” another said, “Is it safe?” I gave the same answer I used to give when I was asked the same question when visiting Saddam’s Iraq, “I feel safer there at night than I do on the streets of London”. Here, like in Iraq, for me, it seems totally safe – thanks probably to a combination of strong Syrian moral values as well as the type of security system that always comes with a dictatorship.

Ibrihim gets angry when he talks about Bush. “He came to show us democracy but in Syria there is more freedom than anywhere in the world!” He shows me a courtyard in an old house the size of a school where 30 families live. Each night the families share food on the courtyard floor all eating from each other’s offerings. “This is the life” he says, “What does Bush know about this kind this life, what does he know about us at all? Nothing!”

Is there hope for better relations with Obama? I ask, Ibrihim shakes his head, “His hands are tied”. The more I meet people over here the more I feel that they have given up on any chance for peace in the Middle East, as Ibrihim says, “The Americans just don’t want it”.

We walk through a beautiful part of the old city filled with the abandoned homes that look more like mansions. “This is the Jewish quarter, but the Jews all left – now their houses are left to ruin”. Ibrihim tells me that rumour has it that Ronald Reagan did a deal with the former Syrian president to re-house them all in America, “They didn’t have a choice” he tells me, “They had to go, now many would like to return but cannot.” As relations soured in the 80’s it was thought that the Jews would be safer in America, “But they were our good neighbours here, we all lived as one”.

As we look at the mighty dilapidated houses with vast courtyards falling-apart Ibrihim pulls out his Syrian ID card, it doesn’t mention any religion he says proudly – just that we are all Syrian! I notice the remains of the Star of David over the entrance to one house. We walk past two members of the secret police that Ibrihim points out, “They are here to protect the houses from being illegally occupied”. Maybe Syria is preserving its Jewish heritage in the old city; and in a way almost inviting its rightful owners to come back home one day.

As we walk the old city streets memories flood back to Ibrihim of his childhood, fuelling his dream that one day his grown up kids will settle here. This is more than a romantic attachment to a city, it is in his blood, and has never left his blood despite the 37 years away in the West, he still lives and breathes the East and revels in it here today. Ibrihim doesn’t have any hostility towards the West but I sense from many people I speak to that the Iraq War changed many things as the country united behind it’s President to support its injured neighbour, Iraq, which they believed was suffering too much in the chaos of it’s new found ‘western democracy’.

Ibrihim sighs, “Where did this idea come from? Bush doesn’t know how we live. Most people I speak to in Canada say ‘Where is Syria?’ The majority of people in the West were against the war in Iraq yet even after big protests it still happened. What kind of democracy is that? Here we don’t have parks full of homeless people or a society riddled with crime. The President allows us enough freedom for people to still be safe at night.”