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Tag: freedom

The Return

Returning from a short break in the UK to Syria and I find that the ‘word of mouth’ rumours that visas are to be issued at the airport are true.

A special trip to a small back-room and I am questioned as to why I am visiting. “Tourism” I say. Just like I said a couple of weeks earlier. “Address in Damascus?” asks the stern, serious looking man wearing a smart uniform perched on his chair under a picture of his president, “The 4 Seasons Hotel” – my standard answer, how anyone could afford 12 nights there is beyond me but it always works and I am safely though.

The airport is bustling at midnight just like the packed flight was. It is summertime and Syrians from all over the world are heading home. On the plane I got talking to a second-hard car dealer living in Chicago, he comes back to see his parents for 2 months every summer, they tried living in the states with him but only lasted a month, “They hated it” he tells me.

But he loves it, I ask him about the prickly relations between Syria and America, he doesn’t answer, I tell him that with the election of Obama I was full of hope for the Middle East and how dismayed I was that he has continued the economic sanctions against Syria started by G.W Bush. “I don’t talk politics” he tells me. I wonder if he genuinely doesn’t speak politics or if he is just remembering that he is on his way back to Syria where such talk isn’t accepted by authorities.

Actually it is… As long as it is directed against the West you are free to speak anything – just make sure you don’t criticize the Syrian government. The man suddenly perks up deciding to engage in conversation. “I love Obama” he says. Well there you go I think, at least he’s returning like a good American. Maybe there is little difference between East and West after all. This man, like all Americans, is free to speak but doesn’t care to as do most Syrian I meet.

I turn my attention to group of religious men dressed in great colourful clothes with bright hats. I am told that they are part of an ‘exchange’ with Britain where radical extremist Imams are taken to Syria to be trained to follow a more moderate path. Ironic that the extremists are sent from Britain to this ‘axis of evil’ country to be shown the right path.

Outside the airport I am greeted by Lukman. He’s been waiting 1 and a half hours for me and looks tired. We force our way past the taxis which monopolize the airport (a company apparently run by the presidents brother), and who have fixed the fare into town at a steep 1500 Syrian pounds (£22), I push my suitcase 100 metres down the road to a petrol station where we can get a cab for 300 Syrian pounds (£5). but, as we make our way we are stopped by a guard with a gun who won’t let us pass. A 20 minute discussion takes place, we offer a bribe and miss one, two, three, cabs before the man with the gun finally relents. A 50 Syrian pound bribe sees us safely on our way, we hail a taxi and from the back seat I see the shimmering eastern lights of dusty old Damascus beckoning me once more.

My final night

A cousin enters into the ‘goodbye’ party laid on for Nizam. “Hey gran” he says in Arabic, “Why you wearing your veil, Sean is part of our family now? You don’t need to wear the veil for him”. “I do I do…” his gran insists, “Since visiting Mecca I feel I must follow a strict religious code”.

Another aunt had turned-up at the party without a veil, Nizam was shocked. “Whenever my family meets strangers they always wear the veil, my aunt must feel very easy with you Sean”.

This family gathering begins around 1am and will go on till 5 or 6am, I’ve got used to the nocturnal existence here. We sit and talk and play with the kids whilst eating fresh juicy watermelon, handmade biscuits, and drinking thick black Arabic coffee served regularly to keep everyone going. And of course plenty of smoking; In these religious families there is no alcohol, but lots of cigarettes, it seems their only vice.

I talk with another of Nizam’s aunts. She is a fun lively woman who lost her husband a few years ago and now works hard to bring her 5 kids up alone. It isn’t easy she said, “The rent is around $200 a month and we have to survive on the same amount of money for the month”. Despite her struggle she has the most wonderful family, full of life and funny, they all speak good English too.

Arbady is in his late 20’s, as the eldest son he must now be the man of the house, he has just lost his job and now struggles to supplement his income. “He isn’t lucky in life” his mother laments. Arbady looks confused as Nizam shares his dilemmas about bringing himself and his family back here to live. For them the dream is to leave for the West like Nizam did 10 years ago, and the best way for them to do this is to study abroad. Travel is a great thing I say, I love it. But nothing can replace home and I sense this is Nizam’s quest now. He is finding it more and more difficult to see the West as his home.

It all feels confusing to me too. Here I see a simple uncomplicated life, but an affordable one, the dreams in the West are so out of reach at times. I wonder if Arbady realises this. Later, I’m talking with his sisters aged 16 and 18. They complain that their mother won’t let them go jogging in the park “We dream of doing simple things like running in the park but here it is difficult for women, and my mother is afraid”.

By their very nature dictatorships have streets which are generally safe and secure, and Syria is no different. “I can’t believe you don’t let your daughters” out I say… “After my husband died there is only me to look after them so I feel very protective towards them both. When they marry then they are free to go out because they will have a husband to protect them.” “Free, after marriage!?” I question, “Surely their husband will stop them jogging alone as soon they are married?”. “Yes, yes” the sisters say. “I can’t imagine this happening in England” I say, and our parks and streets are far more dangerous then yours.

I am constantly fascinated by the notion of freedom when I travel, what it is that we call freedom, and how it differs from that of other societies and cultures, but here, on my last night in Syria, as a visitor in the warm embrace of a loving family, I feel free and I feel safe.

The Piano Lesson

Samir is giving two children a piano lesson in their home. I sit talking with the parents. We get off to a slow start, they seem afraid to speak their mind. There is a sadness in the face of the children’s mother. She looks tired and I sense angry. I am curious to know how Iraqis feel about their life now, over a year after the fall of Saddam. They both look over to their children, “We are tired, tired of it all, you know each day we take our children to school, all day we wait outside in the heat for them to leave..” I know why. The kidnapping of children has been an underground industry in ‘new lawless Iraq’. Ruthless gangs even have offices on the main shopping street where you go to pay the ransom. The couple are dignified like all educated Iraqi’s, and although they have little money at the moment they want their kids to have their piano lessons. Culture has always been important to Iraqi’s. This house has two pianos and beautiful artwork all around. Samir teaches the kids as I talk and drink coffee with their parents.

“The sanctions have destroyed the Iraqi people, ‘they’ needed to do this to us so we could appreciate ‘their’ invasion, ‘their’ gift of freedom.” This couple were so happy a year ago, they were jumping with joy when Saddam fell. They never expected that 14 months later life would be worse than under the crippling days of the sanctions. Then, for 13 years they had no money and food to eat, now they do but without any security. “This is not freedom” the proud mother speaks. Like most parents they take their children to school each day and wait outside the gates all day. They both look at me, “Tell us what do you think? will thing gets better?”

I feel sad. I want to be optimistic but I can’t. I can’t lie to these people who’ve shown me such honesty. “We cannot speak like this to anyone.. we are afraid to express our opinions now. if we support the former regime we are a target and if we support the Americans we are also a target.” Some kind of freedom in new Iraq.

This couple worked together in UN headquarters narrowly missing death by 10 minutes when a suicide bomber blew the place apart nearly a year ago. They haven’t worked since. They have many job offers, as good English speakers they could earn big money with the Americans but they are too afraid. The daily targeted killings are the consequences of earning big bucks. “We have struggled for years now.. we are tired .. we need a break…” they want to visit family in Spain and are thinking of leaving Iraq. They know little of the struggles they will face in Europe. I look around their beautiful house, the great art, books, and pianos. How will these educated, cultured people fare in the west? I fear to think.

“Iraq is not like Afghanistan.. here we are educated, cultured.. we had everything in the 70’s and 80’s, the sanctions starved us and killed more Iraqi’s then all the wars put together. But it did something else – it starved us of books, periodicals.. We were isolated culturally and emotionally from the outside world for 13 years. a first world nation destroyed into the third world and kept there by these crippling sanctions. Saddam never felt the sanctions, he had everything.” Like all Iraqis they are pleased he has gone but cannot trust the future. It is held in foreign hands, hands that have betrayed them before and are capable of doing the same again.

Freedom

I was filming the road at night, surprised that it was so busy when we missed our turn off to Samir’s home, something you don’t do on Iraq’s most dangerous road… the road to the airport. It’s a one-way road so we crept nervously along until we arrived at 4 narrow aisles heading to the airport checkpoint. We took the second aisle and drove down and found ourselves facing the bright headlights of a U.S tank. I was waving my BBC card frantically.. ‘BBC… don’t kill… don’t kill…’ I know how these tanks had squashed numerous civilian cars in the past year, but luckily these kind soldiers let us pass. We made a U-turn and were on the road back. Samir said a prayer. We held our breath, and hoped for the best, and drove the same dangerous road back. Difficult to know danger on an empty road at night. Samir was scared, I knew that because he wasn’t speaking. He spoke only to shut me up. “The danger is out there, it is around us always Sean. You just don’t realise it.” I couldn’t see anything. On each side of the road were the remains of houses and palm trees that had been hacked down by the American’s after the resistance had hidden and fired from there.

We get home safely to Samir’s and hit the whiskey. He was panicking. “Do you realise what could have happened there? We could have been killed by both sides.” Samir worries a lot in this dangerous troubled land. We relax and he opens up to me about his past. He tells me horror stories of his time on the front line in the war with Iran. He still has nightmares, waking up screaming in the night. He cannot forget the face of the young Iranian man he killed. The young mans eyes are still vivid in Samir’s mind, as he sliced open his throat. “Imagine a pianist doing such things. I want to make the world more beautiful with my music not kill people.” On the news we hear that a Bulgarian man has been beheaded by his captures. Another beheading is planned tomorrow.

Saga, Samir’s daughter enters the room looking distraught. Her lovely aunty, Samir’s ex-wife’s sister, has breast cancer. It starts Samir ruminating over his own possible cancer, but he is too afraid to have it checked out. He lights a fag from his 3rd packet of the day. We smoke, eat, and drink whiskey. Saha is flicking through the satellite channels, surfing the 200 readily available stations. I try to imagine the Saddam times when there was only two state channels. “It must be so much better now?” I ask. Saha shakes her head, “No, there are 200 channels but there is nothing to watch, only some music and a food channel.” Samir sits up, “This morning I turned the television on, it was the erotica channel, I couldn’t believe it, there were two men having sex! What is this?” “Freedom?” I suggest. Saha sits up, “No .. this is not freedom, this is dangerous, it is going to devalue our society… Saddam protected it.”

“But surely the Saddam channels were just propaganda?” Saha agrees. “Yes of course they were, they were there to protect him, but they also protected our culture, and the values of our society. Who will protect that now?” Saha flicks through the channels shaking her head. “I will never allow my children to watch this. That is why my sister Rita, will not send her children to school in America. She says it is like a jungle there. Is that freedom?”

“But surely it is better than before?” Saha shakes her head. “Not for me it isn’t. Before I had a job. Now I don’t. Before I had security, could go visit my friends, wander the streets whenever I liked, now I can’t.” Saha sits down opposite me. “Saddam was a dictator but we knew the rules. If you obeyed the rules you could do almost anything you liked. I never needed to have a gun in those days either. In a way that was freedom to me.”

Suddenly the electricity goes out, we continue the conversation in the dark. “Look, they’ve been here for more then a year now and we still don’t have electricity for more then 6 hours a day.” The bedroom is hot and sticky without any power for the air conditioning, the temperature was 50c+ in the shade. Over breakfast we hear a big bomb blast, later we find out it was a suicide-bomber, aiming for the Americans, but killing more innocent Iraqi’s. Saha looks at me. “So this is freedom is it?” “No it isn’t freedom. Freedom takes time.” I reply. Saha looks at me smiling, “Freedom takes time.. Look how long the Americans
been waiting..”