Damascus Day Trip

The Friday night when we arrived in Damascus seemed to be jumping with excitement. There were throngs of people out; I noticed a preponderance of women wearing the hijab and long clothing. This was much unlike Beirut where even religious Shi'ite Muslim supporters of Hizbollah wear skin tight clothing. Damascus definitely had a mark of "Orthodox Sunnis."

Syria's population is between 70 and 80% Sunni Muslim, but they are ruled by the minority Alawite group who constitute no more than 11% of Syria's population. Many Sunnis, especially those in al Ikhwan (aka the Muslim Brotherhood) consider the Alawites to be heretical, regardless the Shi'ite clerics have accepted the Alawites as Shi'ite Muslims following Musa al Sadr's endorsement of the group in the 1980s.

We pulled into our hotel and were assigned room keys. My room was clean, but I heard other Americans had toilets missing seats or sinks that didn't work. I stored my insulin in the mini bar which looked a bit like a regularly used fridge in a frat house, bottled water, some chocolate, and some old unrecognizable food items were left around. In the lobby the waiters served "orange juice," or what we would call in the United States as "year old tang."

The group then went out to a meal in the Christian portion of the Old City of Damascus. The restaurant (as many other classical buildings in Damascus) was a mixture of black basalt stone and limestone or marble. There was a man playing Fairuz's Baalbek near a small fountain. I partook in Syrian beer, which felt like bitter corn syrup running down my throat and some native mezze (appetizers).

The next day we toured around the Old City. I acquired a painting of Damascus, a Damascene dagger, and a few other trinkets. I was especially interested in the Ummayad Mosque, built in the 700s over a destroyed church. The mosque was extraordinarily ornate. The floors were polished marble, there were columns with basalt and incredible Byzantine style mosaics. Inside the mosque there was the head of John the Baptist, and some body part belonging to Ali (the revered Mahdi or the Shi'ites).

The amount of Shi'ite Iranians was incredible in the area. It was easy to tell Damascus had great relations with Tehran just by the tourist traffic. There must have been six different groups containing Ayatollah Khomeniesque looking men. In the Damascus souk I heard more Persian than Arabic!

I also talked to an Armenian salesman by the name of Dikran. I asked Dikran if I could have one of his Bashar Asad posters (how many times in your life can you take a dictator who runs the Middle East's version of 1984 home with you?!), he suggested I go to the Baath party headquarters, and then wanted to talk to me about moving to Boston. Regarding the Asad posters, in Syria, they seemed as if they were a forced "product placement." In Beirut there was an actual outcry following Hariri's or Pierre Gemayel's assassination, as such people from the respective sectarian groups put up posters. However, in Syria (at the time Syria just had its "election." Bashar Asad won 97% of the vote), the posters were almost mandatory.

The other thing I noticed in Syria was the large amount of Hizbollah flags (I counted about eight in the old city), carvings of Hassan Nasrallah (Hizbollah's leader), even hand made leather trinkets featuring the aforementioned face were on sale. Under Hafiz Asad, Bashar's dad, Hizbollah was nothing more than a proxy militia, now it is a force to itself, and one force that is giving Bashar credibility. It seems as though the latest "Hizbollah victory" against Israel is also being accepted by Syria. At the very least Bashar Asad is standing side by side with Nasrallah and taking some of the limelight.



A video I made of Damascus's Ummayad Mosque.


Video I made of Damascus from a hillside near Asad's Presidential Mansion.

© All Rights Reserved; www.ArzelJabal.blogspot.com