{"id":315,"date":"2007-07-15T23:16:39","date_gmt":"2007-07-15T23:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=315"},"modified":"2007-07-16T00:00:55","modified_gmt":"2007-07-16T00:00:55","slug":"in-the-old-city-a-bohemian-rhapsody-by-oliver-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/in-the-old-city-a-bohemian-rhapsody-by-oliver-august\/","title":{"rendered":"“In the Old City, a Bohemian Rhapsody,” by Oliver August"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a fun article by Oliver August that came out in the Washington Post. He was just leaving Damascus as I was arriving. Damian Quinn of the BBC and now writing for Syria Today<\/em> arranged a dinner on the eve of his departure at the Journalists' Union Club, which was appropriate because Deborah Amos of National Public Radio and a few others journalists were there. <\/p>\n

Here is a photo I took at Leila's Restaurant which is on the roof of an old house overlooking the Umayyad Mosque. Oliver speaks of it in his article as having just acquired a liquor licence, which my wife and I discovered was true! We were quite surprised because the old city restaurants used to be divided between those that served alcohol and those that do not. The restaurants in the Christian Quarter of Bab Touma could serve alcohol. Those in the Muslim quarters could not – at least that was what everyone said. This was done in order not to offend religious sensibilities and to keep the delicate balance of the old city on the straight and narrow. You can imagine our surprise when we discovered that good Lebanese wine was suggested with our meal. Leila's is almost touching the greatest and oldest mosque in all of Syria and smack dab in the middle of the Muslim quarters. Too be fair, it must be added that before being converted into a mosque, it was a church. John the Baptist also has a tomb inside it, which is revered by both Muslims and Christians. So perhaps having a bit of wine along its walls is not such a novelty in the great span of things. <\/p>\n

\"Manar,<\/a>
Manar and Shaboula (three and a half years old) at Leila's<\/p>\n

Anyway, Manar had a suspicion about the reasons behind the change in drinking rules at the restaurant and wanted to test her theory. She waved to a few waiters who were standing by and asked them who the owner of the restaurant was. Before long they were all biyqaqiyying and doing the Coastal Mountain, which-village-are-you-from routine. Her theory was right. We got a free platter of fruit and coffee after our meal, which cost a little over $20 dollars a person including the wine; the tip was large.<\/p>\n

\"Leila's<\/a>
Leila's Restaurant next to the Umayyad Mosque<\/p>\n

Leila's is one of the most beautiful night spots in Damascus and it serves the best Kebab Halabi with spicy sauce in town. I dare say it is almost as good as the Aleppine original, but you have to go to Aleppo for Kebab with cherry sauce. It is also a favorite dinner spot of the President and his wife.<\/p>\n

In the Old City, a Bohemian Rhapsody<\/a>
By Oliver August
Sunday, July 8, 2007; B02<\/p>\n

DAMASCUS<\/p>\n

"Are you married?" the old lady asks, standing in our doorway at 8 a.m. She comes most days to check on who's spending the night in my house. I am her first Western neighbor, and probably also the first with a blond American girlfriend.<\/p>\n

The old lady and I have adjoining doors on a shoulder-wide dead-end alley in the Old City of Damascus. When I moved in last year, she stopped a dark-haired American friend in the alley one afternoon and told her, "He had a woman there yesterday. And he will have another one tomorrow." Since then, I've learned that my neighbor is named Nadia. She always wears a headscarf, but she has stopped warning women about me.<\/p>\n

I am reminded nonstop that I live among devout Muslims, many of whom were taught to distrust Westerners. Yet the reminders are increasingly drowned out by the boisterous transformation this city is undergoing. Despite American sanctions imposed four years ago, the Syrian economy is booming. Even alcohol is easy to find. A restaurant overlooking the Great Mosque, among the holiest places in Islam, just started serving drinks. This is no Iran or Iraq (even if my worried dad keeps mixing up Damascus and Baghdad on the phone).<\/p>\n

According to President Bush's original plan, Baghdad was to be the next Prague. Once Saddam Hussein was deposed, free enterprise and Bohemianism would sweep away the ghosts of the past. Four years after the arrival of U.S. troops, neither enterprise nor Bohemianism is much in evidence in the Iraqi capital. But next door in Damascus, newfound hedonism is facing Arab hopelessness head-on.<\/p>\n

The Syrian capital is enjoying something of a return to historical rank. In the 7th century A.D., it was the capital of the Muslim world, the seat of the first caliphate. Then, in A.D. 750, the capital moved to Baghdad and a rivalry was born, continuing into the 20th century and the establishment of rival Baath parties. With the seat of the second caliphate now brought low, the first is resurgent. Unemployment is still high and oil is in short supply, but Syria is calm. In the Middle East, that counts as good news.<\/p>\n

The Syrian government is still following the authoritarian Baathist ideology. And it has built an alliance with Iran that's straining relations with the United States. But Syria's shackled stability is a sign of hope to some in a time of vastly downsized expectations.<\/p>\n

Syria's neighbors are paying attention. They see that President Bashar al-Assad is the only leader in the region who's feeling more secure about his position now than he did a few years back, when analysts predicted his downfall after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Then, Syria was next on the neocon hit list.<\/p>\n

How different things look now. Regime change is less likely than at any time since President Bill Clinton left the White House. Assad began his second seven-year term on June 17 (Enrique Iglesias crooned at a post-inauguration party). Television images of Iraq's mayhem have made many Syrians cautious about swift political change. Rather than feeling emboldened by Hussein's fall, they're frightened. Stick with what works, even poorly, seems to be the popular sentiment.<\/p>\n

Assad has shrewdly capitalized on this by paying more attention to popular aspirations. He has eased restrictions on free enterprise and on international trade. One of the most isolated places in the Middle East until recently, Syria is importing consumer goods, exporting workers and hosting any cash-laden foreigner who wants in.<\/p>\n

There are Saudis — hedonists in the extreme under their white robes. Less welcome in the West after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, they come to the Four Seasons Hotel to find female company. There are also Iraqis, more than 1 million of whom have taken refuge in Damascus, a city of 3 million. Many are poor and uprooted by war, but others have brought in vast amounts of oil money.<\/p>\n

And then there are Westerners like me — language students, escape artists, volcano dancers, "Lawrence of Arabia" dreamers. We saw "Syriana." Perhaps we misunderstood the movie. Everything is connected, the poster said, intimating a conspiracy involving Gulf region princes, CIA operatives, corporate raiders and oil companies.<\/p>\n

Everything is<\/em> connected, just not in that way.<\/p>\n

Outside my front door in the Old City, where humans have lived continuously for the past 5,000 years, the giddiness is palpable.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago, I went to a concert in the new Damascus opera house. It's named after Assad, though he didn't show up to see the Algerian singer and her Gypsy King ensemble. But in front of me, a Syrian woman in short sleeves jumped up and started dancing in the aisle. The Chinese ambassador to Syria cheered her on as most of the 1,200 people in the audience followed suit.<\/p>\n

Pleasure-seeking is not only surviving the mayhem in the region, it's thriving. At Beit Jabri, a large courtyard restaurant, Saudis, Iraqis, Syrians and Americans are escaping the already oppressive summer heat. Beit Jabri was one of the first private manors to be turned into a business. Now a new boutique hotel, novelty restaurant or Internet cafe is opening every week.<\/p>\n

Syrians are rediscovering the Old City, and it's giving them what they have long lacked: a genuine spiritual but secular center. After decades of neglecting it, they are returning in droves. Here among square miles of bustling souks and car-free colonnades, it's easy to feel proud, and perhaps to forget impending doom. On evenings and weekends, the narrow alleys are choked with girls in skirts and men carrying cellphones with the latest ringtones. At Mar Mar, a new nightspot near the chapel where Saint Paul was baptized, the proprietor leaves the keys behind for die-hard revelers when he goes to bed at 5 a.m. "Lock up when you leave," he says and disappears.<\/p>\n

The rekindled interest in the Old City has doubled housing prices in the past year. Wealthy Syrians are restoring ancient houses to rent them to nostalgic aesthetes, many of them foreigners. The first moved in around the fall of Baghdad. Today, staff from most Western embassies live in Ottoman splendor, surrounded by stainless steel kitchens and 500-year-old vines.<\/p>\n

For centuries, Westerners have played the game: Which city is the Paris of the East? Beirut held the title once; so did Shanghai. But the game has changed. Now you ask: Which city is the Beijing of the (Middle) East?<\/p>\n

One might list Dubai and other emirates such as Abu Dhabi, or neighboring island states such as Qatar and Bahrain. But they don't have the hinterland, the historical roots or the diversity to be anything other than second Hong Kongs. Cairo is equally joyless, and Tehran is in a funk.<\/p>\n

Damascus, however, makes frequent public reference to booming Beijing.<\/p>\n

The Syrian government likes to invoke the Chinese Model: economic reform first. That may be spin for the benefit of Western investors. But it's also true — in many mud-brick alleys, there is a sense of possibility similar to what I saw in China, where I lived before moving to Syria.<\/p>\n

How long will it last? A monster meltdown of the region could still happen, with sectarian strife spilling over from Iraq. In the Old City, where Christians, Druze, Sunnis and Shiites live side by side, kidnappers, fanatics and throat-cutters are well-known staples of history.<\/p>\n

But for now, the Damascene are preoccupied. Even Nadia. Most days, she scuttles down our alley to help out at a store that sells electric nose-hair trimmers and massage sticks.<\/p>\n

Oliver August is the author of the forthcoming "Inside the Red Mansion: On the Trail of China's Most Wanted Man."<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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