Thursday, November 06, 2003
Here's part two. Amazing it's Friday again already. I'm knackered from catching up work after going down to london at the weekend. Saw some presentation about master's courses. Did you know it cost something like 11 thous pounds to study at LSE? In my dreams maybe.
--Amr Diab. Don't know which track yet..
2 - Love in Damascus
Even when you first come to the Syrian capital, Damascus, you get the idea that something’s rotten in the state of relations between the sexes.
On the one hand, you have girls, faces almost shrinkwrapped in makeup, shimmying down the street arm in arm, wearing bras stuffed full of foam and trained at an angle that, occurring in nature, would be nothing short of a victory against gravity; and bejeaned boys in gangs on street corners waiting for girls to come by, hissing and whistling and muttering obscenities and even going for a feel if they can manage it.
But on the other, you have tight familial controls, arranged marriages between teenagers, and all-concealing burka-like clothes.
So with all the cold brashness of the first example of inter-sex relationships, and the conservatism of the second, it came as a surprise to me to discover that Valentine’s day is enormous in Damascus – particularly in the more western-influenced Christian quarter.
Shops that sell useful things at other times of the year (the drapers, the grocery shop, the glass cutter) strip their premises of everything that is functional in order to absolutely stuff them to bursting point wth a gaudy stock of inflatable hearts, that have
“love is a heart glows specially”
or some other frilly nonsense stamped across them.
I suspected at the time that they really must have overestimated the demand, unless each girl over 12 was destined to receive three fluffy hearts, two icky cards and a lamp saying “you light up my life” apiece; and indeed, the sorry inflatables were still deflating slowly in windows by May.
However, seeing as the whole local economy did not collapse, there must have been a huge interest.
I was baffled at first as to who these people might have been that were too absorbed with thoughts of love during the festive period to think about wanting anything so mundane as some glass cutting, or a kilo of apples.
However, as I came to know more Syrians, a common, wildly romantic streak became evident. This romance is embedded in Arab culture, going back before the time of Islam to the ancient Arabic love poetry, which many modern Syrians, including taxi drivers, shopkeepers and students, know off by heart. This beautiful and passionate writing may be described in two parts according to the Cornell Library:
a) a fleeting glimpse of the beloved's face on a deserted campsite, allowing one just enough time to compare her eyes to those of a cow; followed by
b) a hair-raising ride on one's camel with one's tribe to try to forget how beautiful she is.
You don’t see any camels in Damascus nowadays, though the Mercedes is quite well esteemed. But even the toughest looking kid can tell you with ardent eyes about the secret love he once had at school – typically, they passed notes via friends, but didn’t actually exchange above a few words in person - before they were torn asunder by various fates, including familial objection.
Some of the more earnest young men will tell you sadly that this tragic parting from the girl they had planned to marry was the time at which they decided to “go bad”.
Such sincere romantics are fantastically refreshing to meet. Occasionally it works out that an innocent young couple have become smitten with each other, been faithful to each other secretly for years, and then at a later date managed to marry and live happily ever after. But this is a rare story.
For the great majority of Syrian society as a whole, the idea of dating is frankly not on in any form, and in some families a girl may not have any sort of acquaintance with a man outside her family until marriage. But in the capital, among the university educated middle class, and in the other large urban centres of Syria, dating is taking its place in the lives of the youth. However, as so many of the western innovations which have pushed their way in all at once, it has not settled altogether comfortably.
The sexes mix at the universities, but are observed by all, and rumour is a powerful weapon in Syrian society. Nobody dares hold hands, though sometimes you might see a couple sharing the two handles of an ostensibly heavy bag. There are nightclubs, and they have Valentine’s discos, but you never find “nice” Syrian girls there – they’re mostly foreigners and prostitutes. Girls who have the time and wealth to hold up a social life outside of their families go out to juice bars, fast-food restaurants, ice cream parlours and cafes, but are always home before dark, or accompanied by a male relation, or given a lift by parents.
And in the new dating arena, girls find themselves distinctly at a disadvantage. Despite the fact that more and more girls are receiving higher education and aiming for employment, it’s still commonly felt that a lady’s real aim is to get married, and everything else is only a complement to this. A boy may be forgiven for a couple of flings, but for a girl it could spell the end of a hope of marriage. It’s still common for a boy to swear love to an unsuspecting girlfriend, in order to sleep with her and talk about it to his friends, only to dump her for somebody “innocent” when he feels the time has come to get engaged. A girl who considers herself to be “modern” is stuck wondering what on earth she should be doing, and has to be extremely cautious before following her feelings.
Young Syrians can tell you any number of tragic stories about love. But one thing’s for sure, if we exclude the small minority of idiots that are bound to crop up in any population – they do know about it.
Looking at it optimistically, there’s amazing potential there for a synthesis in their new dating world, although it’s currently just pumped full of the western ideal of having as much sex as you can manage before you get stuck and have to settle down.
But with a unification of economic and social freedom plus the old Arab romanticism, and the doctrine of personal integrity and respect which comes from their various religious traditions – the young people of Damascus could live to see it become haven for a massive renaissance of Romantic Love.
---Amr rounds it off.
--Amr Diab. Don't know which track yet..
2 - Love in Damascus
Even when you first come to the Syrian capital, Damascus, you get the idea that something’s rotten in the state of relations between the sexes.
On the one hand, you have girls, faces almost shrinkwrapped in makeup, shimmying down the street arm in arm, wearing bras stuffed full of foam and trained at an angle that, occurring in nature, would be nothing short of a victory against gravity; and bejeaned boys in gangs on street corners waiting for girls to come by, hissing and whistling and muttering obscenities and even going for a feel if they can manage it.
But on the other, you have tight familial controls, arranged marriages between teenagers, and all-concealing burka-like clothes.
So with all the cold brashness of the first example of inter-sex relationships, and the conservatism of the second, it came as a surprise to me to discover that Valentine’s day is enormous in Damascus – particularly in the more western-influenced Christian quarter.
Shops that sell useful things at other times of the year (the drapers, the grocery shop, the glass cutter) strip their premises of everything that is functional in order to absolutely stuff them to bursting point wth a gaudy stock of inflatable hearts, that have
“love is a heart glows specially”
or some other frilly nonsense stamped across them.
I suspected at the time that they really must have overestimated the demand, unless each girl over 12 was destined to receive three fluffy hearts, two icky cards and a lamp saying “you light up my life” apiece; and indeed, the sorry inflatables were still deflating slowly in windows by May.
However, seeing as the whole local economy did not collapse, there must have been a huge interest.
I was baffled at first as to who these people might have been that were too absorbed with thoughts of love during the festive period to think about wanting anything so mundane as some glass cutting, or a kilo of apples.
However, as I came to know more Syrians, a common, wildly romantic streak became evident. This romance is embedded in Arab culture, going back before the time of Islam to the ancient Arabic love poetry, which many modern Syrians, including taxi drivers, shopkeepers and students, know off by heart. This beautiful and passionate writing may be described in two parts according to the Cornell Library:
a) a fleeting glimpse of the beloved's face on a deserted campsite, allowing one just enough time to compare her eyes to those of a cow; followed by
b) a hair-raising ride on one's camel with one's tribe to try to forget how beautiful she is.
You don’t see any camels in Damascus nowadays, though the Mercedes is quite well esteemed. But even the toughest looking kid can tell you with ardent eyes about the secret love he once had at school – typically, they passed notes via friends, but didn’t actually exchange above a few words in person - before they were torn asunder by various fates, including familial objection.
Some of the more earnest young men will tell you sadly that this tragic parting from the girl they had planned to marry was the time at which they decided to “go bad”.
Such sincere romantics are fantastically refreshing to meet. Occasionally it works out that an innocent young couple have become smitten with each other, been faithful to each other secretly for years, and then at a later date managed to marry and live happily ever after. But this is a rare story.
For the great majority of Syrian society as a whole, the idea of dating is frankly not on in any form, and in some families a girl may not have any sort of acquaintance with a man outside her family until marriage. But in the capital, among the university educated middle class, and in the other large urban centres of Syria, dating is taking its place in the lives of the youth. However, as so many of the western innovations which have pushed their way in all at once, it has not settled altogether comfortably.
The sexes mix at the universities, but are observed by all, and rumour is a powerful weapon in Syrian society. Nobody dares hold hands, though sometimes you might see a couple sharing the two handles of an ostensibly heavy bag. There are nightclubs, and they have Valentine’s discos, but you never find “nice” Syrian girls there – they’re mostly foreigners and prostitutes. Girls who have the time and wealth to hold up a social life outside of their families go out to juice bars, fast-food restaurants, ice cream parlours and cafes, but are always home before dark, or accompanied by a male relation, or given a lift by parents.
And in the new dating arena, girls find themselves distinctly at a disadvantage. Despite the fact that more and more girls are receiving higher education and aiming for employment, it’s still commonly felt that a lady’s real aim is to get married, and everything else is only a complement to this. A boy may be forgiven for a couple of flings, but for a girl it could spell the end of a hope of marriage. It’s still common for a boy to swear love to an unsuspecting girlfriend, in order to sleep with her and talk about it to his friends, only to dump her for somebody “innocent” when he feels the time has come to get engaged. A girl who considers herself to be “modern” is stuck wondering what on earth she should be doing, and has to be extremely cautious before following her feelings.
Young Syrians can tell you any number of tragic stories about love. But one thing’s for sure, if we exclude the small minority of idiots that are bound to crop up in any population – they do know about it.
Looking at it optimistically, there’s amazing potential there for a synthesis in their new dating world, although it’s currently just pumped full of the western ideal of having as much sex as you can manage before you get stuck and have to settle down.
But with a unification of economic and social freedom plus the old Arab romanticism, and the doctrine of personal integrity and respect which comes from their various religious traditions – the young people of Damascus could live to see it become haven for a massive renaissance of Romantic Love.
---Amr rounds it off.
Monday, November 03, 2003
Here's my brother's blog. The best bit:
"My new bicycle, which I just collected, is a thing of great beauty. It's strictly one speed, pedal backwards to stop, but it has working lights front and back powered by a dynamo, and a bell, which is required by German law. Very cool indeed. It's also blue, and quite clearly intended for girls. I'll take a picture of it before it gets stolen."
"My new bicycle, which I just collected, is a thing of great beauty. It's strictly one speed, pedal backwards to stop, but it has working lights front and back powered by a dynamo, and a bell, which is required by German law. Very cool indeed. It's also blue, and quite clearly intended for girls. I'll take a picture of it before it gets stolen."
Friday, October 31, 2003
Ahhhhhh... so that's how you post. You think that once you've pressed one button you've pressed 'em all, but no.
Everything is ok with me, anyway. Today I read this on the university radio, at about 1 and 2/3 the pace of Alistair Cook:
--strains of Dalida's "Helwe Ya Baladi".. sing along...
Next in the firing line
The peripatetic war on terror could soon be coming in the direction of Iran and Syria.. These two countries, which have been linked in the headlines since well before the recent Iraq war, are often presented as choice targets, as nations running amok under the influence of inscrutable fanatics, sponsoring mass murder and sheltering mass murderers.
But what about the people of these countries?
We all know a reasonable American who can convince us that their country’s raging imperialist stance does not represent all of its people.
But we don’t generally have the advantage of similar exposure to reasonable Syrians and Iranians.
With the visa regulations being as they are, we’re much less likely to meet up with a native Syrian or Iranian. Although we may in the near future be rubbing shoulders with them in the intimacy of war – by which I mean sitting and watching guiltily on TV whilst they get bombed - we know very little about them.
This is a shame, because if we could hear past the belligerent political shouting going on above our heads, we might even get on.
So for the next few weeks, turn to this slot for the lowdown about what our counterparts in Syria and Iran are getting up to. I’ll be concentrating on some of the quirkier ways that the humanity of ordinary people in Syrian and Iranian cultures shows itself, from a young girl in Iran who’s changed her name to “Michael Owen” to a Granny in Syria who wrestles visiting Americans into the sea.
As for this week, it’s time to get in a bit of groundwork.
First, Syria. Syria’s president, the young, British-educated Bashar al-Assad, came to power following his father’s death in 2000. He looked promising at the time, and there was a period of comparative freedom of expression. People began to demand an end to military rule, corruption, and the setting up of a genuine democratic process. However, freedom diminished, and the flickering light of democracy was dimmed.
But after his fellow Ba’thist, Sadaam Hussein in Iraq, was unable to motivate his people to take part in full scale defence of the regime against American attack, the big question for Assad is whether his current, low-profile program of government reforms will be sufficient to bring his people behind him, and to convince the world that an attack on Syria would not mean the overthrow of a despot, but rather a representative government.
So why pick on Syria now?
Well, the Assad government sponsors groups on the USA’s terrorist list. Organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose militias undertake attacks on Israeli civilians, have occupied offices in Damascus for some time.
Many have now been closed in response to US demands, but the additional demand of expulsion for members of these groups has not been met.
And of course it’s now suggested that Syria has its own horde of forbidden weapons, leading to (or being used to justify) the threat of US economic sanctions.
Syria is still influential in Lebanon, and supports the Hizbollah guerillas who fire missiles at Israeli settlements near the Lebanese border. These Hizbollahis were largely responsible for causing Israel to withdraw from its 18-year occupation of Southern Lebanon in 2000.
But what about Iran, and how did it get connected to Syria?
It’s not even an Arab country – Iranians are Persians.
Perhaps the link has been made because it funds Hizbollah. Why does it do this? Partly through zeal for Islam, partly because Israel and the US are so close – Israel is seen as a sort of American colony on Islamic lands.
Even besides that, the US and Iranian governments revile each other.
(Iran’s people, at least, are on the whole in favour of a rapprochement, but nobody listens to them).
The Islamic Revolution came about as the result of popular resistance against the US-backed regime of the Shahs, and in the aftermath some Iranian students took American embassy staff hostage. The US felt the humiliation of this badly.
On the other hand, a trigger-happy US warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane full of people; and the sorry list goes on through the kidnapping of journalists and others in Lebanon and far beyond.
There is also the matter of Iran’s nuclear reactors, which the Americans claim are for military purposes – inspections are under way, but there’s no guarantee that they will meet with US approval. Which doesn’t comfort the average Iranian, scanning the horizon for a stray B52.
It’s just too easy to think that the Middle East sprang into existence yesterday, with a horde of Kalashnikov -toting dictators at the head of an anonymous brainwashed mass. These lands have long histories, going back before Islam to great Persian and Assyrian civilizations, and then later as regions of the enormous Islamic empire which once spanned across North Africa and reached the borders of China.
This Islamic empire was composing sophisticated poetry and pushing forward the bounds of Philosophy, Medicine and Science even as Europeans were still digging around in their ears and wondering if the result would be nice to eat.
When we look at places like Iran and Syria perhaps we need to take a step back.
So next week at this time, I’ll switch from international politics to an individual tale of love and fear in the streets of Damascus…
---Dalida re-emerges and then succumbs to an interview with an animal rights campaigner.
Can't be bothered to go out, not even with the chance of meeting a ghost. I'm broke, my student loan doesnt get here until 3 days. I'm trying to get a few hours a week in the college library, or being a waitress at Newnham. Newnham is a scary college, with many doors, but none which seem to lead to the exit.
Kay then. Now I know what to do.
Everything is ok with me, anyway. Today I read this on the university radio, at about 1 and 2/3 the pace of Alistair Cook:
--strains of Dalida's "Helwe Ya Baladi".. sing along...
Next in the firing line
The peripatetic war on terror could soon be coming in the direction of Iran and Syria.. These two countries, which have been linked in the headlines since well before the recent Iraq war, are often presented as choice targets, as nations running amok under the influence of inscrutable fanatics, sponsoring mass murder and sheltering mass murderers.
But what about the people of these countries?
We all know a reasonable American who can convince us that their country’s raging imperialist stance does not represent all of its people.
But we don’t generally have the advantage of similar exposure to reasonable Syrians and Iranians.
With the visa regulations being as they are, we’re much less likely to meet up with a native Syrian or Iranian. Although we may in the near future be rubbing shoulders with them in the intimacy of war – by which I mean sitting and watching guiltily on TV whilst they get bombed - we know very little about them.
This is a shame, because if we could hear past the belligerent political shouting going on above our heads, we might even get on.
So for the next few weeks, turn to this slot for the lowdown about what our counterparts in Syria and Iran are getting up to. I’ll be concentrating on some of the quirkier ways that the humanity of ordinary people in Syrian and Iranian cultures shows itself, from a young girl in Iran who’s changed her name to “Michael Owen” to a Granny in Syria who wrestles visiting Americans into the sea.
As for this week, it’s time to get in a bit of groundwork.
First, Syria. Syria’s president, the young, British-educated Bashar al-Assad, came to power following his father’s death in 2000. He looked promising at the time, and there was a period of comparative freedom of expression. People began to demand an end to military rule, corruption, and the setting up of a genuine democratic process. However, freedom diminished, and the flickering light of democracy was dimmed.
But after his fellow Ba’thist, Sadaam Hussein in Iraq, was unable to motivate his people to take part in full scale defence of the regime against American attack, the big question for Assad is whether his current, low-profile program of government reforms will be sufficient to bring his people behind him, and to convince the world that an attack on Syria would not mean the overthrow of a despot, but rather a representative government.
So why pick on Syria now?
Well, the Assad government sponsors groups on the USA’s terrorist list. Organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose militias undertake attacks on Israeli civilians, have occupied offices in Damascus for some time.
Many have now been closed in response to US demands, but the additional demand of expulsion for members of these groups has not been met.
And of course it’s now suggested that Syria has its own horde of forbidden weapons, leading to (or being used to justify) the threat of US economic sanctions.
Syria is still influential in Lebanon, and supports the Hizbollah guerillas who fire missiles at Israeli settlements near the Lebanese border. These Hizbollahis were largely responsible for causing Israel to withdraw from its 18-year occupation of Southern Lebanon in 2000.
But what about Iran, and how did it get connected to Syria?
It’s not even an Arab country – Iranians are Persians.
Perhaps the link has been made because it funds Hizbollah. Why does it do this? Partly through zeal for Islam, partly because Israel and the US are so close – Israel is seen as a sort of American colony on Islamic lands.
Even besides that, the US and Iranian governments revile each other.
(Iran’s people, at least, are on the whole in favour of a rapprochement, but nobody listens to them).
The Islamic Revolution came about as the result of popular resistance against the US-backed regime of the Shahs, and in the aftermath some Iranian students took American embassy staff hostage. The US felt the humiliation of this badly.
On the other hand, a trigger-happy US warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane full of people; and the sorry list goes on through the kidnapping of journalists and others in Lebanon and far beyond.
There is also the matter of Iran’s nuclear reactors, which the Americans claim are for military purposes – inspections are under way, but there’s no guarantee that they will meet with US approval. Which doesn’t comfort the average Iranian, scanning the horizon for a stray B52.
It’s just too easy to think that the Middle East sprang into existence yesterday, with a horde of Kalashnikov -toting dictators at the head of an anonymous brainwashed mass. These lands have long histories, going back before Islam to great Persian and Assyrian civilizations, and then later as regions of the enormous Islamic empire which once spanned across North Africa and reached the borders of China.
This Islamic empire was composing sophisticated poetry and pushing forward the bounds of Philosophy, Medicine and Science even as Europeans were still digging around in their ears and wondering if the result would be nice to eat.
When we look at places like Iran and Syria perhaps we need to take a step back.
So next week at this time, I’ll switch from international politics to an individual tale of love and fear in the streets of Damascus…
---Dalida re-emerges and then succumbs to an interview with an animal rights campaigner.
Can't be bothered to go out, not even with the chance of meeting a ghost. I'm broke, my student loan doesnt get here until 3 days. I'm trying to get a few hours a week in the college library, or being a waitress at Newnham. Newnham is a scary college, with many doors, but none which seem to lead to the exit.
Kay then. Now I know what to do.
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