In 1995 I visited Syria for my first and only time. I had traveled overland through Greece, Bulgaria (with my friend Marie and a study
abroad group from De Paul University) and Turkey (with my friend Troy). After a few days in Turkey’s Kurdistan we
headed south from Sanliurfa where be crossed the border from Akcakale Turkey to
Tall al-Abyad Syria. It was a remote border crossing point that was seldom used
by tourists. As I showed my passport to the Syria border soldier I could see
that he was stuck on my Cyrillic written Bulgarian visa. I had traveled enough
in the Middle East to know that Syria would not let people into its country if
they had an Israeli stamp in their passport. I figured that the solider was thinking
that the Cyrillic script was Hebrew script and that I shouldn’t be allowed to
enter. Wanting to avert such an outcome, I mustered up my best Arabic and
explained that the stamp of puzzlement was from Bulgaria. I could see a light
go on in his mind. It wasn’t Hebrew. He was visibly relieved. He wouldn’t have
to turn me away. Allowing someone who had visited Bulgaria to enter would not incur
the wrath of the anti-Israeli regime.
Harvested winter wheat south of Tall al-Abyad. Prolonged drought in this region compelled many Syrians to migrate to the refugee of cities. There in frustration with the non-helpful regime they took to the streets.
Tall al-Abyad (White Hill) was not
much of a town. It was a Friday morning and the one place to change money was
closed. We had Turkish lira and U.S. dollars, but no dinar. The bus to Aleppo
was ready to go but we couldn’t buy a ticket. Finally after explaining our
plight—“I’m a geography professor from the United States coming to learn more
about Syria”--the bus driver took pity on us and consented to take our dollars.
The title
ustaz (professor) commands
greater respect in Syria than it does in the U.S. We boarded the bus and found
seats on the last row. Once on the road the kind driver sent back, via his
ticket taking assistant, welcoming cups of Arab coffee as a sign of hospitality
for the American professor and his friend. We politely declined only to then
have the driver send back cigarettes for us to enjoy. The only way to
convincingly explain why we were rejecting such hospitality was to explain that
we could not drink coffee or smoke cigarettes because they are forbidden in our
religion. That was all the driver, his assistant and all the curious passengers
needed to hear to then know that we were not rejecting the almost sacred act of
Arab hospitality.
Aleppo Suq (Market)
St. George Church with minaret of neighboring mosque.
From Tall al Abyad (currently
controlled by Kurdish forces) we traveled south to ar-Raqqah (current strong
hold of ISIS) and then on to amazing Aleppo. Aleppo is a wonderful city to
explore. It is a classic “Islamic City” with a citadel, baths, markets, central
Friday mosque and religious quarters. One evening we set out to explore the
large Christian Quarter. It was May, the month of Mary. Each church we passed (Armenian
Orthodox, Armenia Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Maronite, Roman Catholic, Greek
Catholic and Greek Orthodox) was full of worshipers, mainly women, who
gathered each evening to honor the mother of Jesus. At the western end of the
vibrant quarter, just down the street from St George’s Greek Catholic Church, a
new mosque stood with shiny silver dome. Unlike the Christian quarter of Damascus,
the Christian quarter of Aleppo was without perforating mosques. To me the building
of a new mosque on the edge of the quarter rather than right in the middle of
all of the churches was a sign of religious tolerance. Christian Arabs and
Armenians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s population. In all of my travels
in the Middle East, the Christians of Syria seemed to be the best treated and
the most secure (something William Dalrymple also observed in his interesting
book From the Holy Mount).
Central Hama with Assad iconography
Also on our itinerary was a stop in
Hama, the city where in 1982 Hafez al-Assad wiped out thousands of opposition members
of the Arab Brotherhood, Sunni nationalists who resented the oppressive regime
headed by a minority Alawite. In a noticeable act of presenting a positive outward
appearance, the one-time rebel city now boasted some of the most prominent Assad
iconography, including the image of Assad in the center of red heart. It felt as if no one dared not be an Assad supporter. As if in
competition to demonstrate the greatest loyalty, every city and village in
Syria displayed statues, posters and paintings of President Assad and his
chosen heir Bassel (who died in a 1994 car accident)--which opened the way for
his ophthalmologist brother Bashar to become president in 2000 when his father
died.
On the road to Palmyra (Bassel and Hafez)
Palmyra
We visited famed Palmyra (aka
Tadmor), an oasis in the middle of the Syrian Desert that fed and watered
countless caravans. It may have even hosted wisemen from the east. Many of its
magnificent Roman ruins have since been demolished by ISIS.
Crac des Chevaliers
We visited the well preserved
Crusader castle of Crac des Chevaliers, that over looked a main route to the
Mediterranean Sea. It stands as a reminder of a time when European Christians
came to conquer and control, something that has not been forgotten in the Arab
World. While there we met a group of women sight-seers from the coastal city of
Tartus. This was the mid-1990s and they were coiffed with big hair similar to
the fashion of the day in America. When I asked why they were not wearing a
hijab or scarf they noted that doing so was a choice and they chose to go
uncovered. No one challenged them.
Damascus
Entrance to Old City of Damascus
Umayyad Mosque
Street called Straight
Finally, we explored Damascus.
There from the hill-top where both Mohammad and Mark Twain looked down on the
long inhabited oasis, we could look across to another hill top crowned with the
well-protected royal palace of the Assad family—up and away from any
opposition. We visited the grand Umayyad Mosque built in place of a Byzantine
basilica. Inside a shrine houses the head of John the Baptist. That mosque has
taken a beating in the on-going civil way. Its square minaret is no-longer. I
visited the ministry of tourism where a generous official loaded me up with a
set of tourism posters showing some of the best of Syria’s many historical antiquities.
Those posters now decorate the walls of the class room where I teach Middle
East geography. We walked the Street called Straight where Paul walked two millennia
ago. There, in a brass shop where I bought a souvenir canister, I asked the
twenty-something clerk who helped us where she was from (something this
geographer always likes to ask). When she answered with Safad (an Arab/Jewish
city in the Upper Galilee) I surprised her by saying that I had visited Safad
(now called Zefat by Israelis) several times. She inquisitively asked what it
was like. A strange request about someone’s hometown. She then explained that
her parents had fled Safad in the 1948 war. She had been born in their city of
refuge, Damascus.
Ten days travel in Syria was not
enough. There was plenty left unseen and undone to warrant future trips. It pains
me to know that much of what I saw has been changed forever, much of it
destroyed. What pains me even more is knowing that the kind bus driver, the devout
Christians, the free-spirited Muslim women, the accommodating officials, the
homesick refugee and all of the hospitable drivers, clerks, waiters and
merchants I met are now having to live in or flee from a country torn asunder.
I had hoped that the Arab Spring would bring a more open and free society to
Syria, one where people didn’t live in daily fear of what happened in Hama and
to so many others who challenged the regime. Unfortunately, the Assad regime
has been unwilling to relinquish control, the rebel groups have fractured, and
ISIS has moved in from its seed bed of Iraq and unleashed a whole new type of
terror and theocracy in what had been a functioning and tolerant society of
mixed religions and ethnicities.
The Syrians I met do not deserve this
current hell. They do not deserve to be vilified and marginalized. They deserve
food, shelter, safety and protection. They also deserve the same warmth, welcome
and hospitality that this guest once experienced in their land.
Some of us chose to follow the entire spiral to its center, while others did not. Over the years rocks have settled and sand and salt have filled in so the jetty is no longer as rocky and prominent as it once was.
