Diana Darke, Middle East expert and author of Bradt’s Syria, returns from Damascus with an update on the situation in Syria and her travels there.
© Diana Darke 29 June 2011
Flying to and from London and Damascus
Viewed from the outside the situation looks really bad – so bad, I wondered if I should go at all.
Various seasoned Syria experts advised me against going and I imagined all kinds of ghastly scenarios. I took no laptop, no camera and bought an ultra-basic mobile with no photo capability. I flew in direct on 19 June, the day after the FCO had advised all Britons to leave. My Syrian Air (£280 return) London to Damascus flight departed at 10am, normal daytime, not through the night and via Beirut as bmi flights have forced to become. bmi, who fly to Damascus from Heathrow Terminal 1, have reduced their daily service to three times week. Syrian Air runs twice a week from Terminal 4. My flight was two-thirds full, with friendly and chatty Syrian families. Notwithstanding what is going on in other parts of the country, my arrival at Damascus airport was exactly as it has been on all my many visits over the last six years: no questions, no hassling, no military presence (neither on the way in nor on the way out), simply the standard airport security checks. My return flight back to London was near empty – no exodus.
The situation in Damascus
Central Damascus, especially the Old City, is outwardly calm, with people going about their normal lives. The souks and all the monuments are open as usual – just without tourists. Of course everyone is worried. People’s lives are being affected, especially those in the tourism sector, who have carefully built up businesses with their life savings and suddenly have no work. Many boutique hotels in the Old City have had to close and lay off staff and the few that are open are delighted to see anyone. Restaurants in the restored Ottoman courtyard houses are open but near empty, as even Syrians are going out a lot less – not for security reasons – but to save money in these uncertain times. Cafes remain bustling, with everyone discussing the latest rumours. Lawyers too have no work, as no-one is buying or selling, or initiating new projects. Only the big Aga Khan project, converting the trio of Ottoman palaces into a hotel, is going ahead as normal. Everyone is waiting to see what happens next, spending as little money as possible.
Tourism and travel around Damascus and Syria
Deserted garden of Damascus National Museum
At the 'Azm Palace, once residence of the governor of Damascus and now a museum, its three courtyards are still washed every morning and employees continue to sit in every room, delighted to see a foreigner. The only other visitors are local school children. At the National Museum cafe the tour guides commiserate with each other and meet with the museum director to discuss how to improve the museum layout in the future. Several people broke down in tears as they spoke to me about the tragedy of the situation. In normal times the Gulf Arabs start arriving from July to escape the heat and humidity of the Arabian Peninsula. They mainly drive north in their own cars. They, not the Europeans, provide Syria with its biggest income from tourism, staying two or three months, spending lots of money, and driving home with their cars laden. This year they are going elsewhere, mainly to Lebanon and Jordan. How will Syria win this valuable tourism back in the future? The only tourism unaffected by the political situation is the steady flow of Iranian pilgrims who come to visit the religious shrines in the city, but they are not big spenders. Most of the foreign cultural institutes have closed and left – the Germans left very early on. I met the director of the Danish Institute, who is determined to stay and arrange a programme of events starting in September as usual. He feels it is wrong of the Europeans to leave and abandon the country. Travel to Palmyra by road is still fine, but people fly between Damascus and Aleppo to avoid the main highway which runs past Homs and Ma'aret An-Nu'man. Land borders to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are currently functioning normally. The banks have raised the interest rate they give on savings accounts from 4% to 6% in an attempt to encourage people not to withdraw their money and to keep it in Syrian pounds.
Sources and the Syrian viewpoint
This information comes from what I saw myself in Damascus and from speaking on the ground directly to my friends and contacts, some of whom only speak Arabic. They are a diverse group of people in many walks of life whom I have known for many years. They refer to themselves as 'the silent majority'. They have relatives all around the country and in the army. They are normal people, not anti-regime protestors, or government stooges (all work in the private sector, and are mainly Sunni Muslim). They are very upset at how Syria is being dragged down by this in the media, with so much focus on the bloodshed, making them all seem to the outside world like violent and barbaric savages. Some of them have been told by members of their family in the countryside and provincial towns that they know people who have been paid to join anti-regime demonstrations. I was also told it has become fashionable among some young hoodlums to make 'competitive' videos, where they cover each other in fake blood (red paint) and act out being injured while being filmed, then upload it onto YouTube.
In Damascus this silent majority is stuck in the middle, with no voice. The situation is not black and white, not just goodies v baddies. They watch with horror the hours of coverage on Al-Jazeera Arabic with its gory images of dead bodies, along with Al-Arabiya and BBC Arabic. These Arabic channels give far more coverage to the violence than their English equivalents. People in Damascus don't know who to believe about who is doing what to whom. They hear from their friends that the people doing the shooting are sometimes in uniform, sometimes not. It is all deeply unclear. They feel everyone is lying. What they know for sure though is that the opposition activists are not organised and fear they will bring chaos on all fronts – economic, social and political. On Fridays people stay indoors for fear of getting caught up accidentally in a demonstration. I got caught up accidentally in the pro-regime demonstration on 21 June, as I just happened to be walking that way.
What the silent majority wants
Everyone is now talking politics, and what I think the silent majority in Damascus wants, for the sake of the country and its stability, is for Maher, Bashar's younger brother who controls the army, to be kicked out (like his father Hafez did to his brother Rif'at after the Hama Uprising of 1982) so that the killing and violence stops, and for Rami Makhlouf (Bashar's cousin, 'the big thief', as they call him) to be kicked out, so that the big corruption deals stop. They believe that Bashar would then, and only then, be able to introduce reforms. To sum it up, what every Syrian citizen knows and has always known, but is now able to talk about for the first time, is that Maher is destroying the country and Rami Makhlouf is milking the country. They want this to end, but do not want the collapse of the regime and all the chaos and further bloodshed that will inevitably bring in its wake. Destruction is quick and easy, as many people said to me, but to build things back up is slow and difficult. If Bashar could act rather than just talk, I believe that the silent majority would be happy to keep him as president until multi-party elections can be introduced. The trouble is, they know that Bashar is only about number five in the power hierarchy, after Maher, Assef Shawkat (his brother-in-law), and two intelligence chiefs, and if he tries to break away from the clan, he risks being assassinated. It is a highly complex picture.
The Syrian Regime
The regime incidentally is still extremely strong and is far from falling, again contrary to the media hype. The overwhelming feeling is that any army defections will generally be at low levels. New official posters have appeared with messages in Arabic like ‘Let us work together for the stability and security of the country.’ New posters of Bashar have also been put up. The regime is very keen to have retaken control by 1 August, as Bashar's 20 June speech indicated, because this is when Ramadan begins, and every day, when crowds gather spontaneously after the evening 'iftar', will be like a Friday.
The media and refugees
The media focus (Angelina Jolie etc.) on the refugees in Turkey also seems disproportionate to this silent majority. Syria, they reminded me , absorbed 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, and made no fuss at all, and absorbed thousands of Lebanese refugees in 2006, not to mention Palestinians. Syria got no aid money and no international credit, yet the extra numbers put a huge strain on its infrastructure.
While in Damascus I had a meeting with the new Minister of Tourism. What a job! She spoke about the importance of removing Article 8 (where the Ba'ath Party of the president has automatic superiority over other parties) from the constitution. I said that before anything could improve for Syria's image the killing would have to stop and the press would have to be let in.
Syria’s future
Ordinary Syrians did not choose this regime, but they have had to learn to live within it. During this stay I encountered nothing but the usual courtesy and friendliness and was able to walk alone at night on the streets the same as ever. I even bought myself a new camera quite openly in a shop on the main street, with full video facilities. Long may it stay like that, and may some miracle happen, so that life for ordinary hardworking Syrians can continue, long overdue reforms can be introduced and the country can start the difficult task of rebuilding itself and its image. If this can happen, and the killing stops, I think the silent majority of Damascus is praying that the situation can still be salvaged. Turkey's role will be absolutely key, as the only outside force with any real leverage, and as long as Turkey and Syria are still talking, there must be hope.
Now that I am back in England, I look again at the news coverage of Syria. All the focus is on the protesters and the killings – the silent majority still has no voice.