The German Times, February 2010
While some Westerners view the Middle East as the epitome of intolerance and religious fanaticism, Damascus is proof positive of the opposite.
The rules of the media industry are quite simple. “When a dog bites a man, that is not news. But when a man bites a dog, that is news.”
This amusing maxim comes from Charles Anderson Dana, the former publisher of the New York Sun and author of the textbook, “The Art of Newspaper Making.” Budding journalists the world over have internalized Dana’s truism for more than a century. But the success with which “news” now dominates journalism cannot only be explained by fidelity to Dana’s sexy definition. The current slew of sensationalist news feeds our hunger for spectacle and horror, for distraction and stigmatization.
So of course when the Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to blow up an American airplane with 400 people on board on Christmas Day, it dominated the news worldwide. It did the same when Muslim terrorists in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, some 130 kilometers north of Luxor, used machine guns to massacre Coptic Christians during an Orthodox Christmas celebration on Jan. 7. Our perception of the world – and of what keeps the world going – is highly influenced by news, and by sensationalist news in particular. So it is only natural that many in the West see the Middle East as the epitome of intolerance and religious fanaticism, or even terrorism.
But when special events turn into mere everyday occurrences, the everyday can often surprise. Day-to-day life in Damascus, Syria is a little like this. Syria was seen as a Soviet puppet during the 1970s, then later as an anti-Zionist front and now, especially since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, as a hotbed of Islamist terrorism. But life on the ground does not match this media-peddled reality. A visitor can stroll undisturbed through the clean but not artificially prettified old city. As he makes his way through the Muslim part of the town, Arab women wink at him as he passes by caravan inns (here called khans) and mobile phone stores decorated at the end of December with pictures of reindeer pulling sleighs and blinking Christmas trees. He also passes by the Syrian council for the antiquities and hammams dating back to the Middle Ages.
In a tearoom, he reads about the belief system of the Druze, the religious community that also calls this region home. The Druze adhere to a religion with elements of Islam, Judaism and Christianity as well as other old philosophies. They believe in the transmigration of souls and formally ban proselytizing. As he reads, a muezzin sounds the call to prayer from the Umayyaden mosque across the way.
On his way to the Jewish quarter, the visitor repeatedly stops in front of Catholic shrines to the Virgin Mary tucked away in street corners and greets a passing imam. He crosses the Via Recta with its columns and arches dating to the time of Pontius Pilate and reaches the Christian neighborhood where a shopkeeper recommends a high-proof Arak (an alcoholic drink popular in Syria that tastes like anise). Then he pays a visit to the Ananias Chapel, where according to Christian lore a Jew named Ananias converted Saul to the Christian Paul.
At night on his hotel terrace, he hears the bells from a neighboring church intermingling with the sounds of cars packed with revelers. The cars seem like they’re jumping and honking to the same beat as the Arab disco music. During dinner in Naranj, the city’s most luxurious restaurant, the visitor is amazed at the self-confidence and modern-day views of Damascus women, whether they are veiled, wearing high heels, or both.
The next day, he takes a taxi to visit the cave where Cain is said to have killed his brother Abel. From there, he goes to the Syrian National Museum and listens to a Muslim guard proudly describing the design of an ancient synagogue – rebuilt here true to the original – which is seen as the centerpiece of the museum. Later, on his way to the Rotana Café, he walks past the Tekkiye Sulaimaniya, Syria’s first and most impressive Ottoman building from the 16th century.
If tolerance begins where understanding ends, then where does tolerance end? In Damascus, the expression – so important in the “enlightened” West – seems colorless and wishy-washy. In this city, tolerance seems to be just part of normal life and is taken for granted.
For thousands of years in Syria, cultural and religious communities have lived alongside each other, and often shared a common fate – if alas not always a peaceful one. Perhaps this long history makes co-existence a matter of course, and making appeals for multiculturalism or tolerance – or debates over a dominant culture or referendums against the Muslim call to prayer or minarets – seem somehow absurd and stuck in the past. Implausible as it may seem from a Western viewpoint, on closer inspection, this region has valuable lessons to offer.
There is even good news for those who are unable or unwilling to shed their idea that Syria is a hotbed of religious fanaticism. With a bit of luck, they will find a non-descript wrought-iron gate daubed with a white cross in the Christian quarter of Damascus, in a small street near the popular Haretna restaurant.
On some evenings, popular guitar and keyboard liturgical music drifts out from a parish hall hidden behind the gate. Inside, a couple dozen people sway to the music, ecstatically clapping their hands against their thighs. Mesmerized voices call out in response to the Korean-looking singer standing at the keyboard who, with an enraptured gaze, screams strident religious doctrine at her fellow Koreans in a voice completely lacking in melody and harmony. Damascus residents leave them in peace, with a nonchalance that might seem almost perplexing to Germans or Swiss.