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Syria
By Nicholas Wilson ’07

In the spring of 2006, CC student Nicholas Wilson (class of 2007) spent the semester in Jordan studying with the School for International Training (SIT).  Joined by ten other students from across the country, Wilson’s travels frequently took him off the beaten path.  The story below recounts part of a ten-day excursion into Syria.

His name was Iman and he was our “tour guide.”

Umayyad MosqueHe was tall and slim with dark hair and fair skin. The silver cross around his neck told us he was part of the large Christian minority in Syria and also stylishly accessorized the dark, professional looking coat he always wore. He was a grim fellow who never smiled and used only enough words to complete a sentence before falling back into total silence. Though it was never stated outright, it was understood that he was a Mukhabarat – one of many Syrian secret service officers that enforce the rules when least expected. The exact numbers of secret service officers in Jordan are unknown, but I am assured that if one talks about any sensitive issue within earshot of ten people, one will be immediately whisked off to a place ominously called “uncle’s house.”

While Iman was well aware that we were all American students, while in Syria, we were from Canada if asked. While Jordanians are very friendly towards America and Americans, the same could not be said for all Syrians.  Though I never felt as if my life would be in danger if people knew my nationality, I could tell it certainly would have invited some unwanted conversations – and given what I had been told about the Syrian Mukhabarat, these were not the kind of conversations that would have slipped below the radar.

Damascus The proclivity of the Mukhabarat to have their fingers in all sorts of cookie jars is largely indicative of the style of government it operates under, which is to say a paranoid dictatorship. Anti-government dissidents are growing and in response, the Mukhabarat sees its job as all the more important.  Though it seems the more dissidents are repressed, the more legitimacy drips through the fingers of the Syrian government.  The Assad regime is the most secular of any Middle Eastern authority, thus as state-backed repression against Muslim dissidents continues, the popular perception observes little more than religious persecution from an atheistic regime.  This perception, however, may not be far from the truth.  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hails from the pragmatic military wing of the staunchly secular Ba’ath party, which has been known for mercilessly persecuting Islamic political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood who have recently pushed for sweeping democratic reforms.  It is, however the regime’s position that the Syrian people are not ready for democracy and would benefit far more from economic reform instead.

The New CityDamascus is thought to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, but it wasn’t until I walked through the covered market at the heart of the city one morning that this became obvious.  Houses were built upon other houses, which themselves were built on the foundation of pre-Roman ruins.  Narrow alleyways clandestinely branched off the main market street leading the unwary tourist deeper into a maze of antiquity and wonder.  Amid the ancient character of Damascus, reminders of modernity persistently glared back at me: tacky neon signs, cell phones, motorcycles, but most poignantly, rows of banners in over ten different languages virulently denouncing the United States.

BannersOur group stopped to read the banners.  The English version was poorly translated, yet the statement “we refuse your democracy after what we had seen what happened in Iraq and Palestine and how your democracy build on people bodies which you bombed on civilians innocents,” however poorly constructed, easily made its point: America is not winning over the hearts and minds of Syrians, nor most other Arabs for that matter.  We exchanged knowing glances with one another and I began to open my mouth to comment when I noticed Iman in his shadowy trench coat materialize behind us.  And without a word, we pressed on through the bustling covered market.