A country at war with itself. Bombs and civilian massacres. Yet, in Damascus, the music plays on.
At the Dama Rose Hotel, the young elite parties hard—despite the signs of war. (Kate Brooks for Newsweek)
By
the pool, glistening, oiled, and muscular bodies gyrated to a juiced-up
version of Adele’s “Someone Like You.” Atop huge speakers, a Russian
dancer swayed suggestively in front of the young, beautiful Syrian set
drinking imported Lebanese beer with salt and lemon. Behind them,
columns of smoke were rising—signs of car bombs and explosions, of an
encroaching war.
One
woman in a tight swimsuit playfully squirted a water gun, joking that
she belonged to the pro-government militia, the Shabiha, meaning ghosts
or thugs, which is believed to be responsible for a recent massacre of
more than 100 people, many of them women and children. “The opposition
wants to kill us—they even announced it on Facebook,” the woman said,
and blithely went back to spraying herself with water.
The pool party at the Dama Rose Hotel in Damascus was just getting started.
For
15 months now, Syria has been engaged in increasingly bloody fighting,
pitting antigovernment rebels against the brutal regime of President
Bashar al-Assad, costing the lives of at least 10,000 people, according
to the United Nations. What began as a protest against his autocratic
rule has developed into a violent conflict with sectarian overtones that
now threatens to spill into neighboring countries.
For
journalists, Syria has been difficult and dangerous to cover, and many
dispatches have focused on the rebels’ fight to overthrow the dictator
in cities and villages such as Homs and Houla. Life in the capital among
the pro-Assad elite is less known to the outside world. What emerges
from a recent trip to Damascus, and conversations with dozens of people
there who say they still support the government, is a deep sense of
dread, kept at bay by distraction and, perhaps, delusion. Damascus has
long been a stronghold of Assad supporters who count many Alawites and
Christians but also (mostly secular) Sunnis. To them, Assad is a
guarantor of stability. And many express fear that if the rebels win,
they will turn Syria into a more conservative religious country, along
the lines of Saudi Arabia or Yemen. But with government forces unable to
quell the uprising, the scariest scenario now also seems the most
likely: continued fighting widening into a civil war.
For
days, I listened to the thumping music and watched the beauties in
their fluorescent Victoria’s Secret bikinis partying at the pool at the
Dama Rose Hotel, where I was staying. (More than once, I thought of Nero
fiddling as Rome burned.) Syria, I realized, has become a schizophrenic
place; a place where people’s realities no longer connect.
On
one hand, there are the (in Damascus, largely invisible) activists who
are trying to bring down Assad. By the time I arrived, shelling,
gunfire, and a spate of “sticky bombs”—handmade bombs taped to the
bottom of a car at the height of rush hour—had spawned fear in the
capital and solidified anger against the opposition, which the
government claims is supported by “foreign interventionists.”
There
were daily clashes in suburbs such as Douma and Barzeh, and, according
to human-rights groups, there are currently as many as 35,000 people
being held in Syrian detention.
On
the other hand, there is a class of Assad supporters who go about their
daily business—pool parties included—while the skyline burns. As if the
war is happening in some other place, people drink champagne in the
Damascus neighborhood of Mezzah and partake in glamorous fashion photo
shoots and go shopping for Versace and Missoni at the luxurious
boutiques that line the Shukri al Quatli Street. Despite armed
checkpoints and the threat of kidnapping, some still go out at night,
attending the opera, meeting friends for dinner, and hosting elaborate
wedding parties at the upscale restaurant Le Jardin.
“I have more work than ever,” says Dima, a television star who was being elaborately made up to be photographed by Gala Magazine.
“I would love to work in Lebanon or the United States, of course, but
at the moment, there is a lot of shooting here.” She laughs and lets the
makeup artist—the best in Syria, she points out—apply another layer of
purple eye shadow and tease her long, dark hair into a high chignon.
The jeunesse dorée
of Damascus seem not to see that they are at war. Despite reports of
civilian massacres by government fighters, the uprising has, thus far,
not tainted their lives, and they don’t intend to let it. “Look, I still
get my hair done when I go to a big party, which is about twice a
week,” says a young woman I met. “I still get a manicure every week. I
am still alive! Either you choose to be afraid all the time or you
choose to live.”
Four
years ago, Damascus was chosen as the Arab world’s Cultural Capital by
UNESCO, and some people seem determined to hold on to that sobriquet,
despite the many dead. Indeed, at the Damascus Opera House, the
orchestra’s musicians believe it is their noble duty to keep playing.
“People say that we should not make music while people are dying; I say
it is imperative to give people hope,” says one violinist. “Even to have
the house one quarter full in these times is a great achievement.
People have to drive at night through dangerous checkpoints to get here,
and most people just want to stay home and be safe.” A female musician
agrees. “I don’t want to give the impression that we are like the Titanic—the
orchestra plays on while the ship sinks,” she says. Her fate in
Damascus has more in common with the Russian musicians who kept playing
during the German siege of Leningrad, she says. “Music and art, in times
like these, fuel the soul.”
One
night I attend a classical concert at the elegant boutique hotel, Art
House, in Mezzah, an area dominated by chic boutiques, gilded
restaurants, and diplomatic villas. Built on the site of an old mill,
the hotel has water streaming over glass panels on parts of the floor
and would not be out of place in the Hamptons or Beverly Hills—except
that, before the program begins, everyone rises to pay homage to the
“war dead” with a minute of silence. The 34-year-old violinist and
director general of the opera, Maria Arnaout, and a pianist then perform
pieces by Bach, Gluck, and Beethoven for the select audience of
bohemian-looking men in sandals and chinos and fashionable women in
evening dresses and spiky shoes by Christian Louboutin, the French
designer who keeps a summer residence in Syria and whose shoes are
favored by the first lady, Asma al-Assad. Arnaout, in a strapless red
silk dress and high heels, gets a standing ovation.
Afterward,
as everyone files out to the hotel’s open-air restaurant, sipping
champagne, I overhear hushed conversations about what has happened that
day in Damascus; of bombs and fighting. This part of the city, a wealthy
neighborhood of mixed ethnic and political persuasion, has been a
particular place of tension. Lately, residents have noticed the sound of
explosions, machine-gun fire, and helicopters in the sky.
A
few days later, I’m standing with an architect on the balcony of her
elegant, Italianate villa, watching people line up for gasoline down
below. (International sanctions have created severe economic
problems—even for the wealthy.) As we hear the ominous choppy noise of
helicopters overhead, she comments, “This is the music we live by. And I
fear this will be our symphony for the next few years.”
Bashar
Hafez al-Assad, 46, is something of an enigma. Rarely seen in public,
his long face is ubiquitous: portraits of the president hang on most
government walls, and giant posters of Assad are displayed from downtown
buildings.
Shy
as a child, he was said to have had no intention of following his
father, Hafez, into politics. Instead, he studied medicine in Damascus
and London, specializing in ophthalmology. But when Bassel, the heir
apparent, was killed in a car crash in 1994, Bashar was called home. In
2000, he inherited the presidency from his father and married Asma
al-Akhras, a British-Syrian beauty who had been brought up in the U.K.
To many it appeared that Asma modeled herself on Princess Diana and
tried to win the hearts of the people through charity work and
understated glamour. “She was really loved until this started,” one
activist told me. “People admired her greatly.” Rumor in Damascus has it
that, at one point during the early days of the uprising, Asma tried to
flee the country with her children but was prevented by Assad’s
brother, Maher, who commands the Republican Guard.
But
gauging the truth is hard. As in neighboring Iraq under Saddam Hussein,
or in Libya during the days of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, even ardent
supporters of Assad worry about speaking their minds about the dictator
for fear of retaliation and torture, and most of the people I meet only
speak on the condition that their names not be printed.
The
secret police, the Mukhabarat, hover in hotels, restaurants, and cafés.
They bug telephones and hack into people’s emails, trying to weed out
those who may not sympathize with the regime, clouding everything with
suspicion.
One
steaming Saturday morning, I drive to Barzeh, one of the hotspots
around Damascus, where protests, arrests, and shootings are frequent.
It’s also the home of a large military hospital, and on this morning I
watch as men silently load the mangled bodies of 50 government
soldiers—disfigured and broken by car bombs, explosives, bullets, and
shrapnel—into simple wooden coffins. They drape the coffins with Syrian
flags and march in procession into a courtyard to the sound of a
military marching band. Here, the soldiers’ families and members of the
regiment stand in attendance, most of them weeping. It’s an acute
reminder of how hard Assad’s forces are getting hit by the opposition,
whose guerrilla tactics are proving fatally successful. The hospital
director, who refuses to give his name, says around 100 soldiers are
killed every week.
On
the seventh floor of the hospital, Maj. Firas Jabr lies in a hospital
bed, his anxious fiancée standing attentively nearby. His right leg and
right arm have been blown off.
At
the end of May, the 30-year-old Alawite soldier fought the rebels
during a battle in Homs; he says he was ambushed by “foreign fighters,”
including men from Lebanon and Yemen. “After I lost my leg and hand, I
knew I was wounded, but I kept on shooting until [government forces]
came to evacuate me,” says Jabr.
His
favorite story, he says, is the story of King Arthur and the Knights of
the Round Table. “This is Camelot,” he says. “Assad is King Arthur, and
I am a knight.” Despite the fact that much of his body is gone, Jabr
has a huge smile on his face. Like nearly all the Assad supporters I
meet, Jabr says he believes in the Syrian dictator, and he will continue
to fight, he says, once he gets his prosthetics. “I have two loves,” he
tells me, trying to lift himself up: “My fiancée and Syria.”
It’s
a common belief among the elite that the bombs and chaos spreading
throughout the country are caused by a “third element”: an influx of
foreign fighters with radical Salafist beliefs who want to turn Syria
into an oppressive and conservative state. After one car bombing during
my stay in Damascus, the paranoia of the regime supporters was suddenly
on full view. “Our only friend is Russia!” one well-dressed man shouted,
his face contorted with rage, at the site of the bombing that left the
smoking skeleton of a car but injured no one. “These are foreigners that
are exploding our country! Syria is for Syrians!”
Maria
Saadeh, a political novice who was recently elected to Parliament, is
among those who doesn’t believe Assad or his cronies are behind any
atrocities, despite mounting evidence of regime forces massacring
civilians in Houla and destroying the Baba Amr district in Homs. “Do you
think our president could put down his own people?” she asks
incredulously. “This is the work of foreign fighters. They want to
change our culture.”
Educated
in France and Syria as a restoration architect, Saadeh lives in Star
Square in the old French section of Damascus, in an elegant 1920s
building that she helped renovate. Sitting on the roof terrace of her
chic apartment—a Filipina maid serving tea and her two children, Perla
and Roland, peeking their heads through the windows—she looks like a
model in a lifestyle magazine: tall and blonde and successful, a yuppie
member of the elite. When I ask her about regime change, she simply
says, “Now is not the time.”
One
night, over dinner with an affluent family in its villa in Mezzah,
which has several terraces and elaborate shrubbery in the garden, the
17-year-old son lays out his firmly pro-Assad views. “Look at what
happened in Tunisia, look at what happened in Libya, look at the results
of Egypt,” he says. Ahmed, who wears a pink Lacoste shirt and faded
jeans and trainers, is about to do his military service; after that, he
plans to study political science at a university in the United States.
Like his mother, grandmother, aunt, and cousin, he is educated,
multilingual, and the holder of two passports. He doesn’t believe that
everything Assad does is right, but he is 100 percent behind the
government because he believes, like Saadeh, that the time isn’t right
for change. And, he says, in any case, change shouldn’t be imposed by
other states, some which may not be democratic themselves. “Why should
we take democracy lessons from Saudi Arabia, who arms the opposition?”
he says, helping himself to hummus. “They don’t even let women drive!”
Outside
on the streets of Damascus, there are gas lines and rising inflation,
with the price of some imported goods rising almost 60 percent.
The
sprawling bazaar of the historic Old City, once teeming with tourists,
now rarely gets visits from travelers. The beautiful, old Talisman Hotel
is without guests, empty and quiet except for birdcalls and the sound
of running water in the fountain.
Still,
a certain class of Damascenes lives life untouched by the violence, in
beautiful, spacious homes, hosting grand dinner parties underneath
glistening crystal chandeliers, seeing friends during the balmy summer
evenings on outdoor terraces fragrant with jasmine—too stubborn or too
afraid to see their world has irrevocably changed.
“I’m
still jogging and swimming every day,” says Wael, a wealthy businessman
who’s eager to argue that this isn’t a civil war or a sectarian
conflict. He is a Shia but members of his family are Sunni, and his list
of friends includes Christians, Armenians, and Alawites, he says. “This
is not a war. Our regime is strong. Seventy percent fully support
Assad.” His wife, Nadia, who wears a headscarf and goes to the opera as
often as she can, says the rebels threaten people—telling them to close
their shops and join the protests. If they refuse, “they burn them
down,” she says. “This is why I am supporting the government.”
When
I ask them if they’re afraid, they deny it. “Not at all,” says Wael.
“Last week we had a party of 20 people on our balcony. We were all
relaxing and smoking the nargila,” the water pipe. “We heard gun shots
in the background—but it seemed a long way off.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/08/champagne-flows-while-syria-burns.html
Compared with places such as Homs, Hama and Deir al-Zour, where bombardments and battles are commonplace, Damascus is still relatively calm. No longer, however, can the government boast that the capital is an oasis of tranquility or that a silent majority of its residents are loyal to the regime.
The city now feels pregnant with rage, and ready to explode.
Anti-regime graffiti are scribbled on the walls in almost every neighborhood. At night, the sound of shelling in nearby suburbs that have fallen under rebel control echoes through the streets, disturbing the sleep of rich and poor alike. Flying — or tayara — protests, in which small groups stage sudden and swift demonstrations, are increasing even in some of the more upmarket neighborhoods of the city. And recent strikes by merchants of the renowned Damascus souks have eroded perceptions that they still support the government.
On Thursday, the violence came even closer, with government forces firing shells into fields adjoining the long-restive neighborhood of Kafr Souseh on the southeastern edge of the city, sending plumes of smoke rising into the sky and sounds of explosions reverberating through the streets.
One reason for the shifting mood is the influx of people who have flooded into Damascus in recent months, seeking refuge from the fighting elsewhere in the country. The United Nations estimates the overall number of displaced people in Syria at 500,000, and although no one knows for sure how many of those have made their way to the capital, the city’s population has tangibly swelled, with families crowding into hotel rooms, renting cheap apartments and descending on the homes of relatives.
They have brought with them stories of pain and injustice, infecting Damascenes with some of the anger that has sustained the uprising elsewhere for about 16 months.
“The presence of the refugees made us live the tragedy, not only hear about it or read about it as if in a book,” said Samer, 30, a Damascus-based activist who took in a family of 10 from the Bayadeh area of Homs in March. One of them, a woman, wept as she showed him photographs of her son stored on her cellphone, he recalled. The son had been torn apart by shellfire in Homs.
“I was speechless and felt that it was me who wanted help at that moment,” said Samer, who, like others interviewed for this article, requested that he be identified only by his first name because he fears for his safety.
Most of those seeking sanctuary are women and children whose husbands and fathers have been killed or have remained behind to fight or to protect their property.
But activists have come, too, along with their enthusiasm for staging the kind of anti-government demonstrations that have so far taken place only on a limited scale in the capital.
“I came to Damascus because I want to protest,” said Ahmad, an activist displaced from the besieged Khalidyeh neighborhood of Homs, which comes under near-daily bombardment by government troops seeking to dislodge the rebels who control it. “I miss protesting,” he said.
Ahmad used to own a clothes shop, but he has lost his livelihood and his home in the uprising. Since June 20, he has been living with his family in the southern neighborhood of Sitt Zeinab, alongside an estimated 7,000 former residents of Homs. He spends his time mingling with local residents, sharing his experiences of the revolt in Homs and encouraging them to organize protests.
Merchant-class discontent
There are also other indications that discontent is growing among native Damascenes, notably the Sunni merchant classes whose silence has long been interpreted as tacit support for the Assad regime. The May 25 massacre of at least 108 people in the village of Houla, outside Homs, marked a turning point, triggering the first concerted display of defiance by the merchants of the Damascus souks, the storied bazaars in the city center that are the hub of the capital’s commercial life.
Three days after the killings, the merchants closed their stores in protest, responding to a call by activist groups. Several shop owners said, however, that the strike followed a visit to the souk by two men who threatened to burn the shops of those who did not comply with the call. Nonetheless, the shop owners said they were relieved to be given an excuse to express their anger, as well as an excuse to offer the security forces when they roamed through the souks trying to force the merchants to reopen.
“We were actually hoping for that to happen,” a store owner said, referring to the strike.
A second strike, last weekend, was more widespread, affecting several Damascus neighborhoods as well as the souks. The authorities tried to prevent it, sending out text messages urging people not to participate, then dispatching security forces armed with machine guns and hammers to force open the shutters of those who did.
Shop owners clustered near their stalls, ready to open them quickly when the security forces appeared.
Clashes in the capital
Still, Damascus has not witnessed the kind of large-scale protests that convulsed many other Syrian cities in the earliest days of the revolt. Many activists attribute this to the large minority population in Damascus, notably of Christians and Shiite-affiliated Alawites, many of whom still support the regime and fear the growing influence of what is perceived as a mostly Sunni uprising.
However, as city dwellers with relatively high living standards, there is also a sense that even those Damascenes unhappy with the regime are not willing to endure the levels of violence witnessed in those parts of the country that are in open revolt.
Whether they will have much choice is in question. A string of bombings in recent months has spilled blood on the capital’s streets. And the rebel Free Syrian Army is increasingly making its presence felt.
Several clashes between the rebels and the government forces have been reported in Kafr Souseh, which is home to some of the capital’s fanciest shopping malls and key security headquarters. The shelling there Thursday seemed only to signal the extent to which parts of the neighborhood have begun slipping out of government control.
Last week, a new Free Syrian Army battalion announced its formation in a video posted on YouTube. Calling itself the Miqdad Ben Amro battalion, the group of about 50 armed and masked men said it had been formed to fight in the city center. The regime, said the statement read out on the video, “knows, as everyone knows, that its end will come in Damascus.”
This story was reported by a Washington Post special correspondent in Damascus whose name is being withheld for security reasons. Liz Sly in Antakya, Turkey, contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/with-influx-of-refugees-syrian-rebellion-reaches-deeper-into-heart-of-damascus/2012/07/12/gJQACBHVgW_print.html
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/08/champagne-flows-while-syria-burns.html
With influx of refugees, Syrian rebellion reaches deeper into heart of Damascus
By Special Correspondent
DAMASCUS — The revolution that has engulfed much of Syria in bloodshed is now encroaching on the capital in ways that challenge long-held assumptions about President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power even in the city presumed to be his stronghold.
Compared with places such as Homs, Hama and Deir al-Zour, where bombardments and battles are commonplace, Damascus is still relatively calm. No longer, however, can the government boast that the capital is an oasis of tranquility or that a silent majority of its residents are loyal to the regime.
The city now feels pregnant with rage, and ready to explode.
Anti-regime graffiti are scribbled on the walls in almost every neighborhood. At night, the sound of shelling in nearby suburbs that have fallen under rebel control echoes through the streets, disturbing the sleep of rich and poor alike. Flying — or tayara — protests, in which small groups stage sudden and swift demonstrations, are increasing even in some of the more upmarket neighborhoods of the city. And recent strikes by merchants of the renowned Damascus souks have eroded perceptions that they still support the government.
On Thursday, the violence came even closer, with government forces firing shells into fields adjoining the long-restive neighborhood of Kafr Souseh on the southeastern edge of the city, sending plumes of smoke rising into the sky and sounds of explosions reverberating through the streets.
One reason for the shifting mood is the influx of people who have flooded into Damascus in recent months, seeking refuge from the fighting elsewhere in the country. The United Nations estimates the overall number of displaced people in Syria at 500,000, and although no one knows for sure how many of those have made their way to the capital, the city’s population has tangibly swelled, with families crowding into hotel rooms, renting cheap apartments and descending on the homes of relatives.
They have brought with them stories of pain and injustice, infecting Damascenes with some of the anger that has sustained the uprising elsewhere for about 16 months.
“The presence of the refugees made us live the tragedy, not only hear about it or read about it as if in a book,” said Samer, 30, a Damascus-based activist who took in a family of 10 from the Bayadeh area of Homs in March. One of them, a woman, wept as she showed him photographs of her son stored on her cellphone, he recalled. The son had been torn apart by shellfire in Homs.
“I was speechless and felt that it was me who wanted help at that moment,” said Samer, who, like others interviewed for this article, requested that he be identified only by his first name because he fears for his safety.
Most of those seeking sanctuary are women and children whose husbands and fathers have been killed or have remained behind to fight or to protect their property.
But activists have come, too, along with their enthusiasm for staging the kind of anti-government demonstrations that have so far taken place only on a limited scale in the capital.
“I came to Damascus because I want to protest,” said Ahmad, an activist displaced from the besieged Khalidyeh neighborhood of Homs, which comes under near-daily bombardment by government troops seeking to dislodge the rebels who control it. “I miss protesting,” he said.
Ahmad used to own a clothes shop, but he has lost his livelihood and his home in the uprising. Since June 20, he has been living with his family in the southern neighborhood of Sitt Zeinab, alongside an estimated 7,000 former residents of Homs. He spends his time mingling with local residents, sharing his experiences of the revolt in Homs and encouraging them to organize protests.
Merchant-class discontent
There are also other indications that discontent is growing among native Damascenes, notably the Sunni merchant classes whose silence has long been interpreted as tacit support for the Assad regime. The May 25 massacre of at least 108 people in the village of Houla, outside Homs, marked a turning point, triggering the first concerted display of defiance by the merchants of the Damascus souks, the storied bazaars in the city center that are the hub of the capital’s commercial life.
Three days after the killings, the merchants closed their stores in protest, responding to a call by activist groups. Several shop owners said, however, that the strike followed a visit to the souk by two men who threatened to burn the shops of those who did not comply with the call. Nonetheless, the shop owners said they were relieved to be given an excuse to express their anger, as well as an excuse to offer the security forces when they roamed through the souks trying to force the merchants to reopen.
“We were actually hoping for that to happen,” a store owner said, referring to the strike.
A second strike, last weekend, was more widespread, affecting several Damascus neighborhoods as well as the souks. The authorities tried to prevent it, sending out text messages urging people not to participate, then dispatching security forces armed with machine guns and hammers to force open the shutters of those who did.
Shop owners clustered near their stalls, ready to open them quickly when the security forces appeared.
Clashes in the capital
Still, Damascus has not witnessed the kind of large-scale protests that convulsed many other Syrian cities in the earliest days of the revolt. Many activists attribute this to the large minority population in Damascus, notably of Christians and Shiite-affiliated Alawites, many of whom still support the regime and fear the growing influence of what is perceived as a mostly Sunni uprising.
However, as city dwellers with relatively high living standards, there is also a sense that even those Damascenes unhappy with the regime are not willing to endure the levels of violence witnessed in those parts of the country that are in open revolt.
Whether they will have much choice is in question. A string of bombings in recent months has spilled blood on the capital’s streets. And the rebel Free Syrian Army is increasingly making its presence felt.
Several clashes between the rebels and the government forces have been reported in Kafr Souseh, which is home to some of the capital’s fanciest shopping malls and key security headquarters. The shelling there Thursday seemed only to signal the extent to which parts of the neighborhood have begun slipping out of government control.
Last week, a new Free Syrian Army battalion announced its formation in a video posted on YouTube. Calling itself the Miqdad Ben Amro battalion, the group of about 50 armed and masked men said it had been formed to fight in the city center. The regime, said the statement read out on the video, “knows, as everyone knows, that its end will come in Damascus.”
This story was reported by a Washington Post special correspondent in Damascus whose name is being withheld for security reasons. Liz Sly in Antakya, Turkey, contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/with-influx-of-refugees-syrian-rebellion-reaches-deeper-into-heart-of-damascus/2012/07/12/gJQACBHVgW_print.html
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