I’ve fallen a little behind in my Middle East series. Though now a little out-of-date, this is the Syria post. I was there in the middle of February, so this will give you an excellent idea of how quickly things have changed there. Then, things were quiet. Now, things are spiraling out of control. Assad refuses to initiate reforms and there is evidence of widening sectarian divisions. Soon I’ll write another post about Syria, but still to come: Jordan and Turkey.
– – – – – – –
We were only in Syria for two days. Most of that time was probably spent rug shopping. It’s a lot of fun, and Syrian rug dealers love talking about their rugs, history, culture, and much else. They’ll talk forever if you let them. And they love Americans.
The Syrian government’s relationship with America is a different story. During a walk around the Umayyad Mosque on our first morning, we were photographed and followed by a guy who must have been with the police or security services. At first he stood a hundred yards away, taking pictures of us, then the mosque, then us, then the courtyard, then us again. He didn’t try very hard to disguise himself. Later, he was waiting for us on the threshold of the prayer hall as we reclaimed our shoes. He held his digital camera not more than two feet from my face, set to movie mode. My friend was behind him, looking at my face on his camera. He filmed me for perhaps six or seven long seconds, then panned to get a shot of each of us.
That was one of two interactions we had with the Syrian authorities. We also bought phone cards, which turned out to be quite a serious endeavor. First the phone guys put the cards in the phones to made sure they worked. Passports were scanned, checked, and our details entered into the computer. Not done yet, though. They also needed to scan our fingerprints. This seems like a lot of work for a phone card. But now the phone company had a very thorough record of who we were, when we entered the country, and what our fingerprints look like. And who controls the phone company? That night, when we called the U.S., we could hear a complicated series of clicking as the call connected. Hello Syria.
Our drive into the country was thrilling. We and our luggage were crammed into a tiny Hyundai with a chain-smoking, potato chip-eating, generally nice but slightly crazy driver who must have imagined himself on some racetrack in the desert with no one else on the road. He paid no heed to cars or trucks in his way. At several points on the highway up the mountains outside Beirut, we drifted into oncoming traffic and flew around some slow-moving traveler. I suppose they could paint lanes onto these highways and enforce one or two traffic laws, but then the drive would have been way less exciting.
We stopped briefly for the driver to buy more chips. I took a photo of those wonderful diesel Mercedes that are everywhere in Lebanon. I think this one was dark red.
When we crossed the Syrian border, posters of President Bashar al-Assad welcomed us to his country. We were going to see a lot more of his face over the next few days. It was plastered on shop windows, along roads and highways, and his portrait even hung in many homes, restaurants, and market stalls. He is a nice looking president, with a tie and trimmed mustache. Unfortunately, his welcoming appearance doesn’t carry over to his politics.
Bashar and his father Hafez, both Alawite Muslims have ruled Syria since 1971. Though largely stable, the Assad era has witnessed various periods of rebellion and conflict. In the 70s and 80s, the Muslim Brotherhood carried on a rebellion against the Ba’athist regime. Guerrilla attacks by the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood against the government were fairly common, and the violence culminated in the mobilization of the army to avenge the death of dozens of senior Ba’athist representatives in Hama, a picturesque city north of Damascus on the Orontes River. Fighting between the Sunni rebels and the army, led by Hafez al-Assad’s brother Rifaat, continued for several weeks. Tanks bombarded the old city, destroying many historical buildings. Estimates of the death toll range from 10,000 to 40,000. When Fisk visited the city in 1983, “the old city – the walls, the narrow streets, the Beit Azem museum – had simply disappeared, the ancient ruins flattened and turned into a massive car park.”
The tight control of Syrian society by the government continues to this day. The people are withdrawn and uncomfortable talking about politics. Modern Damascus is monotonous in appearance and activity. Everything looks the same. The buildings are all the same tone of gray. Many city blocks are filled with dilapidated buildings. The streets are crowded with traffic, the taxis are falling apart, and most stores sell clothes or bootleg computer programs or shawarma.
I took this photo from the window of our hotel room. It could represent more than just a neighborhood. Large parts of Syrian society are broken, held together only by a strong and repressive government in Damascus. There was almost no development or construction to speak of. We saw several large, half-constructed buildings that stood completely empty, with no current construction; who knows for how long they had been like that.
Before our visit, protests against the government fizzled and died. The wave of rebellion that has swept North Africa had not taken hold here, even though Syrians have many of the same grievances as Egyptians and Libyans – repressive governance, brutal security forces, poverty, and economic disparity. Last week’s Economist notes the preventive measures taken by the Syrian government to head of public discontent: “consumption tax cut on coffee and sugar, reduced customs duties on food, more money to the Social System Fund for the poor, and increased wages and heating allowances for the civil service.”
Will it be enough? Syrian citizens seem less passionate about achieving new social freedoms than their regional brothers. Calls on Facebook to incite a Syrian revolution achieved 13,000 “likes,” but the protests themselves fell flat. Perhaps it is because many Syrians remember how the Assad family deals with revolt.
