A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria

Epilogue: Of Hubble Bubbles and Cell Phones

Epilogue Of Hubble Bubbles and Cell Phones A decade has passed since I began fieldwork in Damascus, and many of the phenomena I wrote about have since proliferated. Visits to Syria from my new base in Beirut in the years 2002–2004 reveal an intensification of the cleavages and tensions I examined in the early 1990s. Issues of social distinctions have become more salient, but they remain sensitive. So it was with great apprehension that I shared my published work on these topics with informants in Damascus . Yet my two articles pleased those in the restaurant and television industry, who now see my early interest in their work as justified , both by their own subsequent success and by seeing their words printed in an academic medium. While Syrians had hoped the new regime would loosen the restraints on freedom of expression, the expectations raised during the final days of Hafiz al-Asad’s leadership, and Bashar al-Asad’s presidential honeymoon, have largely been disappointed. From the relaxations granted in 1999 and 2000 emerged the beginnings of a legal opposition. For nearly a year, social and political life was enlivened . Calls for democratization were featured in a weekly lecture held by the Organization for Economic Sciences (Jam>iat al->Ulum al-Iqtisadiyya), with the state’s approval. The first series, held in 1999 at the Damascus Arab Cultural Center, bore the title “Reform and Change.” My informants, now cynical, point to the posturing these gatherings elicited: “It was a great opportunity for all those seeking new positions to show off their reformist ideas.” Numerous other intellectual forums (muntadayat) sprang up in houses all over Damascus, and people attended these once forbidden gatherings ostensibly to discuss art and culture, but inevitably to debate politics and reform. Among the sensitive topics openly debated was the role of sectarian groups in the Syrian polity. The infamous Mezzeh political prison was closed, and hundreds of long-imprisoned dissidents released. An opposition press sprouted, and eminent political cartoonist Ali Farzat won the Dutch Prince Claus Award for achievement in culture and development for his satirical weekly The Lamp Lighter (al-Dumari). Intended, as Farzat put it, to “bring light to the economic, political, and social situation” in contemporary Syria, The Lamp Lighter sold out in the morning of its first day of publication (Whitaker 2001). The tabloid criticized official corruption, naming high-ranking targets. But like Syria’s other new expressive cultural forms, al-Dumari has had to endure peaks and troughs of official favor. A backlash in 2001 again silenced numerous opposition voices. Many dissidents were rearrested after demanding democratic reform too stridently for the regime’s comfort. As Farzat told a foreign reporter, “We are like someone in the bathroom who finds the water is hot one minute and cold the next” (Hammond 2002). While Damascus does enjoy a more relaxed atmosphere and greater access to the outside world than it did in the 1990s, for many Syrians, impatient to leave behind decades of repression, these modest changes do not go as far as they would like. The slow pace of political reform and the backlash against criticism of the regime have left many despondent. As one Damascene intellectual commented: Change is there, but it has been overshadowed by what remains the same. In 2000 a new attitude emerged: respect for individuality, creativity, and innovation. This was promoted in many different ways and means. People thought there would be freedom of expression. Then all of a sudden, it was changed, just like that. Now life in Damascus is very dull, compared to the expectations we had. Global trends also seem not to have spurred the transformations many predicted. Satellite political debate shows like those Syrians now watch on al-Jazeera TV at first seemed revolutionary, but have failed to engender political reform (Salamandra 2003). And while satellite television stations now reach a growing number of Syrian homes, local television continues to flourish. The spread of pan-Arab television has enhanced Syria’s local industry, whose products sell to numerous Arabic satellite stations, and even attract the interest of the American press (Lancaster 1998; Peterson 1997). Television seems to go where other cultural forms cannot, and many programs retain their satirical edge. Comedian Yasir al->Azma’s Mirrors (Maraya), continues to amuse audiences around the Arab world with gentle Epilogue 159 gibes at Arab politics and society. Mirrors targets both official corruption...