[Beyond the rather riveting journey through a terrain of multilayered and fascinating culture, peppered with rich and colourful bits of ancient, medieval and recent past, what is of overwhelming salience right at the moment is the final observation: "Syria's revolution was not provoked by an American-Zionist-Saudi cabal, as the conspiracists claim, but by these men in white socks, and their clumsy, casual brutality."]
http://qunfuz.com/2014/07/31/ten-things-to-remember-about-syria/ Ten Things to Remember about Syria *I edited the Critical Muslim's Syria issue <http://criticalmuslim.com/issues/11-syria>, which includes excellent essays by Amal Hanano, Rasha Omran, Itab Azzam, Maysaloon, Malu Halasa, poetry by Golan Hajji, prose from Zakkariya Tamer, and much more. I contributed an essay on Syrian culture revolutionised, and I wrote the following list:* [image: yerba mate] <https://qunfuz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/mate.jpg>In the old days Syrians were ready to list their ten favourite picnic spots, their ten favourite restaurants, or even ten of the sects participating in the imaginary happy mosaic. Today lists of traumatisation leap to the mind: the ten largest refugee camps, or ten major massacres, or perhaps ten of the numerous new militias. This list tends towards the positive (only number 10 is a bad thing - it's something that can't be ignored). It focusses on those aspects of Syrian reality that can't be destroyed by war, those things which will survive (with the exception, we hope, of number 10). 1. Maté Along with Turkish Coffee, Argentinian Yerba Maté is Syria's quintessential drink. Drink it strong and sugary in a gourd or a glass, through a silver straw from the Qalamoun region; keep the water hot for continual fill-ups; and you'll be telling Homsi and *muhashish* jokes all night. Maté connotes conviviality, and sometimes more specifically the Druze, Christian and Alawi mountain communities. When the martyred Free Army commander Abu Furat appealed to the Alawi community, he did so in terms every Syrian would understand: "I know the Alawis well. I've visited them in their houses. We've drunk maté together. We lived together before and we'll live together again, despite you, Bashaar." How did a South American drink become a Syrian (and Lebanese) staple? The answer is in the late 19th/ early 20th Century mass migration of Syrian-Lebanese to South and North America, the Caribbean, and west Africa. A couple of hundred drowned with the Titanic. The 'Street of the Turks' in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Macondo is so-called because the people were Ottomans when they arrived in Colombia, but they were Syrian Ottomans, Arabs. Today 20 million people describe themselves as Syrian-Brazilians. Guyana's richest family is the Maqdeesis. Carlos Menem, former Argentinian president, is of Syrian origin too. [image: Abdul-Qadir al-Jaza'iri] <https://qunfuz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/abdulqader.jpg> Abdul-Qadir al-Jaza'iri 2. Migrants Abdul-Qadir al-Jaza'iri led a long and heroic resistance against the French occupation of Algeria. Eventually captured and brought to Paris, he was given the choice of exile elsewhere in the Arab world. Abdul-Qadir chose Damascus, where he wrote Sufi poetry in the shrine of the mystic Ibn 'Arabi, who was an earlier migrant, from Andalucia. In 1860, when the Christian quarter of the Old City was burnt in sectarian rioting, Abdul-Qadir protected hundreds of Christians in his house and garden. The tomb of Ibn 'Arabi stands between two inner-city neighbourhoods climbing the slope of Mount Qassiyoun: 'Muhajireen', or Migrants, is so-named because it once housed Muslim refugees from the Balkans; and 'Akrad' means Kurds - still a Kurdish area, it was first built for the Kurds who came with Salahudeen al-Ayyubi (Saladin's) armies. Who else? Armenians, descendants of those who survived the forced march from Anatolia. Half a million registered Palestinian refugees and many more Palestinian-Syrians (Yarmouk camp in Damascus, Syria's largest Palestinian population, is nearly empty now - its population refugees for a second time, mostly in Lebanon). Over a million and a half Iraqi refugees until Damascus and Aleppo became even less secure than Baghdad and Basra. And in 2006, a million refugees from the Lebanese South (fleeing Israeli bombs), who were welcomed in mosques, schools and private homes. Syrians angrily compare the way they welcomed refugees with the way they are now (not) welcomed, in their hour of need. 3. Sufis Talking of Ibn 'Arabi... That most famous, and strangest, of mystics is by no means the only holy fool buried in Syria. The tombs of the friends of God crowd old markets, dot hilltops, sit next to streams. From Ghazali to Suhrawardi, some of the most prominent figures of both sober and drunk traditions of Sufism passed through the country, considering it a way station to Mecca and a holy land in its own right. 'Drunken' Sufis were still a common feature of Syrian streets until recent decades. Private *zikr* sessions and Sufi-influenced *nasheed* and *moulid* singing continue to play an important role in urban life. But Ibn Taymiyya was in Syria too. In Aleppo he decided the blame for the Mongol sack of Baghdad lay with Shi'ism and othersuch heresies. His anti-Shia, anti-Sufi theology led eventually to Wahhabism. Today the quietism of the traditionalist ulema - most notably Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun and the assassinated Shaikh Ramadan Bouti, both of whom preached loyalty to the regime even as the regime murdered, burnt and raped - has been a major factor in the spread of activist Salafism amongst Syrians. Other clerics of Sufi background, however, such as Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, who speaks intelligently against the regime and against sectarian extremism, have taken much more positive positions. [image: al-Maghut] <https://qunfuz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/magout.jpg> al-Maghut 4. Poetry And talking of Sufis... Syrian poet Adonis, in his wonderful book "Sufism and Surrealism", holds that ecstatic Sufi pronouncements as well as the self-consciously 'written' court poetry of the classical past represented a subjective counter-culture to Arab-Islamic literalism and orthodoxy. Over the centuries, Syria has certainly suffered no shortage of flamboyantly subjective poets, Nizar Qabbani and Muhammad al-Maghut the most important of the late twentieth Century. Tenth Century poet al-Mutanabbi (his name means 'the pretend prophet', because he made messianic claims while leading a Qarmatian revolt) came from Kufa in Iraq but spent his most productive period in Aleppo - before being killed by a man insulted by his verses. The eleventh Century blind poet Abu Ala'a al-Ma'arri was a vegan and an atheist. He witnessed religious war, including Crusader cannibalism in his home town Ma'arat al-Nowman. None of it endeared him to religion: 'Humanity follows two global sects: One, man intelligent, without religion, The second, man religious, without intellect.' Despite his unorthodox views, al-Ma'arri was highly respected at the time. But Salafist extremists beheaded al-Ma'arri's statue - to great local outrage - in 2013. The statue of the great ninth Century poet Abu Tammam was also executed in his southern hometown, Jassim. And the revolutionary poet Ibrahim Qashoush's vocal chords - flesh, not metal - were ripped out by the regime. Abu Ala'a al-Ma'ari provided a warning for today's desperate situation: 'But some hope a divine leader with prophetic voice Will rise amid the gazing silent ranks. An idle thought! There's none to lead but reason, To point the morning and the evening ways.' *5. Fatteh* Damascus and particularly Aleppo are famous for their haute-cuisine, and used to boast some truly world-class restaurants, but the 'working man's food' of Syria is just as good in cheap cafés. The queen of cheap dishes is *fatteh* - strips of bread and chickpeas soaked in oil and yoghurt, with hummus paste and pomegranite, sometimes with mince or even sheep's feet. It's supposed to set you up for solid work, but has the exact opposite effect on me. Syrian olive oil is good enough to drink neat, and some country people do. The eggs - I swear - are richer and tastier than eggs anywhere else, the chickens less bland, the fruit more juicy. Ask any Syrian, they'll tell you the same. 6. And *Makdous*. This is one of the things that makes exile so hard for Syrians - the makdous you find outside the country is never like the makdous inside. Like araq, makdous is best made at home. Most Syrian families know someone who knows someone who makes makdous - stuffing aubergines with nuts and peppers and pickling them in olive oil. Shingleesh, Syria's uranium (actually balls of strong rotten cheese impregnated with spices, best eaten with tomatoes, onions, and oil), is the same - best home-made, and never as good outside the country. *7. 'amiyeh* >From the Damascene drawl (*lek shooooooo? Waaaaaynaaak?*) to Beduin 'hasaniya', the various Syrian colloquialisms make up Syrian *'amiyeh*, the common speech. Textured with pre-Arabic Semitic, especially Aramaic, words and rhythms, and laced with endearments (men as well as women address each other as 'my dear', 'my moon', 'my life', 'o love of my heart'), polite formulae, gritty obscenities, and pepperings of poetry and scripture, it's no surprise the other Arabs prize Syrian Arabic in particular - a boon to the country's actors, poets and news presenters. Syria is also a great place to study Arabic - not only are the people hospitable, they'll even go out of their way to speak *fus-ha* (classical Arabic) to students. For that matter, it's a great place to learn some Kurdish, Armenian, Turkmen, Syriac, or Aramaic (which still survives in the Ma'aloula region) - there's just a little problem with bombs at the moment... [image: Umayyad-Mosque-5] <https://qunfuz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/umayyad-mosque-5.jpg>8. Upsidedown Writing in the Walls You can see Greek script upside down in the walls of the Umawi Mosque in Damascus. Before it was a mosque it was a cathedral (it still houses the head of John the Baptist); before it was a cathedral it was a Roman-style temple to Jupiter; before that, a temple to Haddad, the Aramean thunder god. Those ancient stones are beneath and around you as you sit in the prayer hall. Syria contains remnants of Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Greek, Roman, Persian, Macedonian, Umawi, Ayyubid, Zengid, Ottoman and French civilisations, among others. The world's best preserved medieval European castle - Qala'at al-Hosn or Krak des Chevalliers - is not in Europe but near Homs, on the edge of an old Crusading principality. The world's first alphabet (Phoenician) was excavated north of Lattakia. The country is pocked with *tells*, hills made of millenia of human habitation. The pebbles beneath your feet are not pebbles but the shards of ten million pots manufactured and discarded generation after generation after generation. 9. The Nowfara The Nowfara, for example, because it's the best-known of the traditional cafés, in Damascus at least. Here you can hear the *hakawati* (storyteller) roar and clatter his sword while you sip at your *zuhurat* herbal drink, puff the *argileh* water pipe, and watch the world pass. In every city and town there's a café on every street, a place where you (if you're a man, usually) can refresh yourself while reading the newspaper, playing games, or gossiping. There are bars and restaurants which serve *araq*, Syria's favourite spirit, and there are musical nights, either in a restaurant or laid on at home alongside someone playing an *oud*. Along with weddings, family visits and picnics, the Eids and Christmas, Syria's social life is rich. 10. Men in White Socks The antithesis of social life, the various branches of the *mukhabarat* or secret police, and their network of informers, were omnipresent in Assad's Syria. Some wear white socks and shiny suits; some leather jackets hoisted to show a gun. Some are enormous, and many Syrians have formative memories of their fists. Some drive the Mercedes 'Ghost' - and that's one origin of the *shabeeha* word used to describe pro-Assad death squads today, from *shabah*, 'ghost'. Many informers are taxi drivers, or school teachers, or the shopkeepers who stay open long hours, and at least one colleague in your office environment. You never quite know who might be writing a report... Syria's revolution was not provoked by an American-Zionist-Saudi cabal, as the conspiracists claim, but by these men in white socks, and their clumsy, casual brutality. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
