Itravelled to Damascus from Heathrow Airport to start my year abroad in Syria, leaving behind my university, a goldfish called Tony, my girlfriend and a cherished Nectar card. Having accepted the lack of in-flight entertainment offered by SyrianAir, I resigned myself to watching the flies in the plane dance around each other and wondered if they had come on board at Heathrow and they too were going to be surprised by what they would find in Syria. As I pondered the future, the words ‘Islam’, ‘dictatorship’ and ‘axis of evil’ floated politically-incorrectly in my mind.
The first thing that struck me, though, when I reached Syria was the fashion clash, the totally different clothing styles. On the one hand, there was the sea of beige worn by traditional Syrians, blending into the yellowness of the land, the noisy taxis and the dusty architecture. The aura of blandness was even more marked amongst the women, who wore beige or grey trench coats – a la Ian Curtis – or black robes leaving only their faces, their eyes or nothing at all to reveal the individual within. But these same women can be seen shopping in Syria’s many raunchy lingerie shops (revealing all of Victoria’s secrets) – one can’t judge a Burka by its cover.
However, in areas such as the Damascus University or Bab Touma in the Old City, the Syrian fahionistae sport the famous Syrian ‘wet look’ that makes Danny Zuko’s hair in Grease pale in comparison. In these fashion hot spots, Syrians arm themselves with fake D&G tank tops, large fly-eyed sunglasses, and jeans so tight that one wonders whether the men are concerned at all for their fertility.
The conflict between Islamic culture and ‘the West’ is also noticeable in the attitudes of Syrian men in Damascus towards foreign women. There exists in Syria a very distinct form of sexual tourism, allowing Syrian men to indulge in otherwise forbidden sexual practices with female visitors before settling down with their locally-bred virgin brides. The sheer number of Syrian men on the market means that foreign students have a very wide range of good-looking Syrians from which to select a temporary partner with whom they could perfect their Arabic. This version of East meeting West does not help to overcome the prevailingly negative male attitudes towards Western women, as they indulge in a complicated Syrian version of doublethink allowing them simultaneously to find both welcome relief from the rigidities of their own society and evidence that their society is superior to the moral decadence of the West. And of course woe betide any Syrian woman rash enough to have an affair with a foreign student.
Another interesting phenomenon in Syria is the striking amount of physical contact between men. Being a homosexual in Syria can lead to prison. However, on a social level, contact between men is more than accepted; the sight of soldiers holding each other’s hands, and their AK-47s, and of boys caressing each other in the street, laying soft kisses on each other’s cheeks, is commonplace. In the Hammans (baths), men wipe each other down with sponges and lather each other up with soap. The strong sensuous current of such exchanges sits oddly with the strongly religious nature of Syrian society, and allows a level of public same-sex contact which would look out of place on the – supposedly – more liberal streets of London.
The Syrian state’s unrelenting attitude towards homosexuality is a stark reminder of some of the darker sides of the country: the phone tapping, the censoring of the press and internet and the infamous secret police.
However, there is no point coming to Syria and being shocked by the lack of Western democracy – whatever that label means. Syrians do live under dictatorship, but – as it was explained to me – it is their dictatorship. Ever since Al-Asad took over the country in the bloodless coup of 1970, Syria has enjoyed a remarkable period of stability. Bars and nightclubs have popped up around Damascus and the internet is more available than ever before. I also struggle to imagine how democracy would function in a country such as Syria, where France’s colonial ‘divide and rule’ policies did not help to unite the disparate Alawi, Muslim and Christian denominations.
Talking about politics with Syrians, however, is difficult. Little news filters down into the streets. It’s hard to believe that during my time in Damascus, Israeli air planes bombed what appears to have been a secret nuclear site and the assassinations of a Hezbollah leader and a senior Syrian general took place. In any case, when word of any such events does get out on the street, Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) is the presumed culprit.
I probed some Syrians about politics and the only answer I could get was – “it’s different here.” This at first felt like a way of avoiding the conversation, but they may in fact have revealed something important. Many Syrians are very conscious of both their country’s flaws and the failings of the West. What, they would ask, is the point of democracy when Tony Blair was still able to drag England into Iraq despite most of his electorate thinking it was a bad idea? Where does Guantanomo Bay fit into democracy?
Fair point, I suppose.
East met West on the Syrian rugby pitch, but even there the gap was much in evidence. During the course of the year I played for a rugby team known as the Zenobians (which rather pretentiously presented itself as the Syrian national team). In the build up to a game against the Lebanese team, our French coach from Toulouse gave a motivating pre-game talk, saying, in a very heavy southern French accent; “There is no questioning the outcome of the game. We will win”. One of the Syrian players said “In shaa’ Allah”: (God willing). The coach responded “No, we WILL win this game.” He then asked the translator to communicate the certainty of victory to the players; the translator said emphatically – “We WILL win this game.” But then he paused, and himself added an instinctive “In shaa’ Allah”. Luckily for us and the coach, Allah did want us to win that day.
When I returned to England, I was shocked by the warmth of my response to everything that England offered: the Tube, the ordered queues and page three. (For the first time, I really did want to know what luscious blonde Debbie from Watford had to say to the troops in Iraq). Above the sound of busy Londoners commuting, the buskers and the screeching of the Tube brakes I could hear an anonymous voice asking me “Please mind the gap”. And you know what?
I did.
