Damascus' punishment

Damascus is probably one of the cities in Syria with the most support for the regime and therefore, it remained relatively untouched over the past 15 months since the situation began. As I said before, I was able to roam freely and I never encountered any problems. Once, I was driving around with a female friend of mine. A Syrian girl. It was midnight and we were drinking in her car and another car started following us with two guys in it. They were obviously interested, we were not but it was still funny to mess around. I never trusted my opinion of whether guys were hot in their cars or not, because I am quite tall and Arabs tend to be quite average height so it would be embarressing if they were shorter than me and when I'd had a few drinks, I tended to tell them so! So anyway, we lose that car and another one follows us. A blacked out merc and we know it's the secret police, but they were young, wearing leather jackets and they stopped to talk to us. In Arabic first but when I started speaking English, because I can't speak Arabic, one of them tarnsformed into perfect English, which was suspicious! I remember telling my friend do not say ANYTHING about the president - her views were of the opposition and she got quite outspoken. I don't think she would have realised they were police if I didn't tell her because they looked our age. (late twenties). So this guy asks me what I am doing in Syria. I told him I was there for love and he looked satisfied with that. One of my students and good friend was a foreigner working at one of the European embassies. One day, on my way back from his house I got in a taxi and he told me all the drivers are secret police! I said, don't be ridiculous, but as I got in, I noticed the driver was wearing a leather jacket. It dawned on me that my friend was right as we passed through Muhajreen to get to my house, past the police station and he nods at a policeman at the door! I din't know that until almost the end of my stay there! The leather jackets really give it away! It's the uniform!! Anyway, going back to Damascus as being the central hub of support for the president, back in January a protest formed in Mezzah which was massive in number apparently. A friend said there were thousands of people there which I find hard to believe. So, anyway, the police came and dispersed it using whatever means, and that night it began. In the dead of winter - the coldest winter - even colder than a British winter. The government began switching off our electricity. In a city where people live very comfortably. Where people are always using technology and have hot water and love TV and internet. It was an absolute nightmare for me and my friends. The worst thing was of course, how cold we were in our houses designed for boiling weather. I could barely move with cold. My electric was three hours on, three hours off. Three hours on. Three off. For weeks on end. It was obviously a 'punishment' for the people of Damascus, and a way to show how they had the control and we didn't. It was too much of a coincidence to not put two and two together like that. When I look back, it was like a dream. I can't imagine myself being in that situation. Being someone who is from London, where the only power cut I have experienced was during the hurricane in the eighties when I was a kid! But also what people don't understand is that Damascenes aren't used to living like that either. Syria is interesting in terms of social class because so many middle Eastern countries are made up of two classes. high and low. But Syria has a middle class too. They are not all used to lacking things. They work hard for everything they get and they keep it in the family, making sure even extended family are fine. Things are better now in that area, with only two hours a day of no electric, but I know it was hard for them last winter. The shortage of oil and gas had a horrific impact too. They just aren't used to it. What a horrible punishment it was.

My personal truth about the infamous Secret Police

Well I suppose I should explain a little more about how I came to be in Syria to begin with and what I have been doing there, and how I survived without being arrested because it is the biggest risk, paranoid as they are about foreigners. I was recruited to Damascus to teach English, from London where I am from and I stayed there for two years. The organisation I was working for catered for the rich and famous and important. It was there that I met the wealthy friends I speak of in my posts and many influential people in government and in the secret police, which are the most important of all. Soon, I couldn't go anywhere in Syria without being recognised! I was a young (or so they thought), single, independent girl (still am! LOL) and don't look too bad for a thirty year old (double LOL) and I guess mixed with the fact I was a foreigner, I was a source of intrigue for a Syrian guy. In other words they thought I might sleep with them. Travelling to Palmyra during my holidays, crossing at the border into Lebanon on weekends, random people and security would say aren't you so and so from so and so, and I would say 'yes' and go red in front of these supposedly 'menacing' guys in leather jackets. Personally, I never had a problem with the police. In fact I have come away with the opposite feeling than you may have heard before. I felt protected. I knew that they were watching my every move on my way home from work most nights. I knew they wouldn't let anything happen to me. Maybe you will be quite shocked at me saying that. However, I still have the number of the chief of police in my phone after he personally gave it to me because I had a run in with a couple of weirdos. During my interview, when the chief took my version of events down, he turned and said "Syria is very safe. It is a safe country". If anything bad ever happened to a foreigner out there at that time (2009) when they catch that guy, they will lock him up and throw away the key. They don't want to discourage tourism from their country anymore than any other country would. Yes, as a foreigner you are being watched constantly. But, it was also, in my opinion, one of the places where I felt safest. Even when I returned in September 2012, at the airport, even though I was the only foreigner in the entire place, the security guy stamped my passport, smiled at me and said "welcome in Syria"!!! I mention some influential people I knew, not to show off :D but because they were how I got around the country so freely. At one point, at the beginning of this year, a good friend of mine was best friends with the head of the ministry of interior. When I worried about renewing my Visa to stay longer, he dragged me there, sweating in fear, only for the guy to say "visa??? you don't need a visa! If you get stopped at a checkpoint, just call me!!" (the checkpoints which were set up by the army, asked people for ID). My Syrian friends were horrified and in the end he called his friend, the general, who worked at the immigration office, to stamp my passport. As I said, I roamed freely around Damascus, even up until I left to return to England in May this year. Getting takeaway cocktails with my friends in plastic cups and driving around until 4am just chilling out. I travelled to Sednaya in a bus alone and everyone thought I was mad. They all thought I was strange because I wasn't afraid. But I guess I just feel differently about life than they do. I don't really believe in death because I think I live on in my spirit. I took my spiritual beliefs everywhere with me on this journey and I wouldn't have gotten through without them.

The top 3 most ridiculous Syrian laws to keep the people in check

In response to the state of affairs in Syria, the government passed a few pretty ridiculous laws to try and keep a hold on the people. Sometimes I think they are treated like naughty children that need punishing and whose every move needs dictating.

Number 3
The ban on Facebook/Youtube/Skype/Twitter/Yahoo mail for some random reason/anything in google search that contains the word 'Israel'

This has always been in force but I count it as ridiculous because we just used servers from Saudi instead. We changed IP addresses. But anyway, people get around these things somehow. It was just highy annoying at the time and pretty pointless.


Number 2
Late last year, a ban was imposed on I-Phones. Apparently, if a policeman caught you with one, it would be confiscated and they were actually made illegal! A difficult law to enforce I should think, but apparently the reason was the cameras. They didn't want too many pictures and videos leaking out!


Number 1
In around March this year, a law was enforced stating that any Syrian man under the age of 35 would not be allowed to leave the country. The government said that they were needed to fight and they didn't want them fleeing the country or they would have no army left! Surely the most ridiculous law of all, exemplified by the fact that it lasted all but 24 hours. The parents of sons in Mezzah - an affluent rich area with many military people affiliated with the president and supporters of the regime - were in uproar, so much so that it was repealed the next day!
They didn't want their sons dying in battle. Money pays for a lot more than a car in Syria.

So that's it basically. It's like a child moving pieces in a doll's house.

6 things you wish were true about Syria at the moment, but aren't....

If we look at the actual achievements of the president and not at all the killings, I have to admit that I don't really know, if this was two years ago, whether Syria is good under his rule or if it was in a bad situation. I don't know anything about politics and don't claim to. I am just reporting what I personally saw and felt whilst living there for the past few years.


So that brings me to the six things you wish were true about Syria at the moment, but aren't....

Number 1, everyone is against the government.

No. There are people who have strongly included the assad's into their own political beliefs. I know a guy who is so strongly in favour that he was willing to report anyone he knew to the police, who were against the regime. How do I know? Because he posted a website created by the secret police asking for people to come forward with information, onto his Facebook page!
Basically, anyone who wants these Syrian people to 'wake up and smell the coffee' is asking for a lot. For two years I lived next to a Syrian public school. Every morning I was woken by children chanting that they would remove their right eye and stamp on it before they let their president die. When you come from that kind of brain washing, all your life, how can you be expected to just snap out of it. The media are expecting miracles with that one.

Number 2, this is a revolution.

No. This is a war.

Number 3, this is all about getting the president to 'step down'.

No, it's about religion now. Muslims who are against the president hate the Christians because they think they are supporting him. Actually, this is an uneducated, broad sweeping statement or belief because I knew a typical Syrian girl. Perfect hair and make up. Loves fashion. Christian girl. At night she put a bandanna around her face and chanted slogans against the government with a bunch of university students.
I didn't think it was right to paint people with one brush because of their religion and often argued with friends who made those kind of comments. I know best friends turned against each other now because one is Alawi and the other is Shiite with one making a public Facebook comment that all Alawi's should be killed. These are educated, wealthy women, turning against each other and talking about murder.
I remember on my first day in Damascus, I got told off for asking a man his religion. He said that Syrians don't live their lives around this issue and in the only country in the middle east where people of all religions live in the same block of flats, and where girls who wear headscarves mix with those who don't (unlike Turks to name but one), it's particularly sad that this is the way things have turned out in this amazing, tolerant country.
I even know a Buddhist Syrian family!

Number 4, the people are out in the streets, protesting.

Errrr not so much because then they would be dead and they know that.
The millions of people that you see gathered in the street are from rallies organised by the government to prove the support that they have. A way to notice this would be that they are holding the current flag. People who oppose the regime have reverted back to the one held before the Assads.
There are definitely genuine supporters joining them because I have a few friends who went of their own accord and I also know a couple who were forced into it by their managers because they clash with work days. If you refused to go someone could report you and it would be obvious why you didn't join. So there was definitely a mix of people.

Number 5, People are being slaughtered, left, right and centre. 

I am sure that you don't want this to be true, but the media would have you think it.

In a few cities, maybe. In Damascus, no. I lived my normal everyday life and so did everyone else. Occasionally I wondered how they could sit and drink coffee in cafes and get their hair done and buy shoes. After all. There is a war happening. However, they felt that there wasn't much that could be done. They just had to carry on living. I think they are right.

Number 6, Syrians don't want foreign intervention.

Actually, most that I spoke with seem to. Since September, they have been expecting it because of what they saw in Libya but obviously they don't realise that Obama and co are loving every second of their plight. The country that wouldn't follow their lead. Wouldn't interact with them. Wouldn't come running like a puppy dog and wouldn't grant visas to their citizens a majority of the time. And this country, over the past few years under Bashar's rule has been growing in power with some serious best friends! The White House are just sitting back and enjoying the show.....

And so that's the main run down of what I heard with my own ears and saw with my own eyes!
The media love to manipulate the Syrian issue and try to portray it in the same vein as the other 'uprisings'. However, there is such a complex situation in the country due to religion and position within it's region, that it never was going to be the same thing.

I remember in 2011, February, I was walking down a Damascus street with a very good friend of mine - Armenian Syrian - who whispered that a revolution could never happen there, reason being that her fellow country men and women, didn't know what they really want. I don't know if that's true but when we look back at the time when the Lebanese got rid of their government, in a similar uprising known as the Cedar Revolution, as we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt, the young people who were so excited to vote, chose practically the same government again! Syrians have never been able to imagine a world in which they had a democratic system and so I think, if the government were to step down, and a new one voted in, people will need to be educated in some way in order to get the best out of the process for themselves and for their country.

Sanctions on random rich people ?!?!

A good friend of mine and her wonderful husband are newly married. She is a children's book illustrator and published children's book author in Arabic. Her books contain such beautiful, perfect Arabic writing forms that they are being used at the Harvard university Arabic language programme. She is 29 years old. He is 35. A respected and wealthy business man, with a heart of gold. Syrian through and through.

However, his company, dealing in exports and imports, are being sanctioned by the EU, for no other reason than that they are wealthy and they 'assume' he is with the government.

He actually grew up in England because his parents were forced to flee during the seventies/eighties. Does that make sense to you?

Just throw a few sanctions here and there. Let's show the world we're doing something.

Yeah. Something that makes no sense.

Why is his business suffering? Why did he have to let go of a few hundred people? I fail to understand how, if people are dying everyday and nothing changes, why the president might suddenly say,

'Ohh the economy is failing. I should really step down now'. The guy don't care. He and his family already have millions!!

What a joke.

And once again, the good people suffer. And the amazing business minded people get affiliated with a regime for no reason.

Money doesn't always equal evil.

Bassell

Last year I completed a two year teaching contract in Damascus. I returned to the UK, only to hear a couple of months later, in September 2012, that a dear, dear friend of mine was killed in the violence there. He was 21. A student at the university. I absolutely loved him. I am a few years older than him and I was in a relationship with his brother at the time, so we used to have long conversations about love and life in front of the fire at their villa on the road to Sednaya.

His dream was to study in the USA, and to really fall in love, as he put it. I gave him a pink quartz crystal in the shape of a heart and he put it on a necklace and I just was so inspired by him. His amazing English, his caring nature. When my contract ended and I returned home, he took my kitten and promised to look after him. He loved that cat. He was a dream brother to have and I loved him so much.

When I heard he had been shot and killed, my whole life seemed to stop and I was so ...... confused. I wanted to understand. To know how and why this happened. I ran and ran outside my house in London and through the forest behind my house, crying out loud. I couldn't stand to be so far away. So, despite the danger, I returned to Damascus a week later.

I just wanted to be there. To see for myself. A video on Youtube showed his brother - my old boyfriend - carrying his coffin in the village of Mneen, in a daze.

And the rest is history.

I don't think I will ever get over Bassell's death. I have lost special people before, but I suppose the unfairness of it is what kills me inside and I risked my safety many times without anyone in my family or circle of friends back in England, knowing where I was, except one, who I told so that she could inform my parents if anything happened to me. I told them I was livng somewhere else, and pulled it off for the entire time. (Yes, I feel guilty, but it was neccessary for my own spiritual journey, to do whatever it was I there for).

I remained there for seven months during this situation and lived and travelled around Damascus and the suburbs as I pleased, narrowlly avoiding passport checks by soldiers, because I was a woman, because I have Arabic features, being half Turkish, and because I travelled with people with ID cards from the region.
And anyway, most of them are just kids, following orders.

I wasn't afraid. I was just..... surviving I guess.

Sanctions on the country meant that there was not enough gas or oil to go around. The winter of 2011/12 was the coldest I have experienced in the Middle East and we all lived with no warmth or electricity for a majority of the time.

Sometimes we didn't have bread in the shops. The flatbread that Syrian people mainly eat.

I think that is just the beginning of what horrific consequences sanctions can have on people.
They have to wake up and realise they don't work. 

British Embassy in Jordan

My student is 22 years old. She is one of the most intelligent, hardworking and driven individuals I met in Damascus. Working for the UN, achieving a 7 in her IELTS exam (necessary for studying in the UK and not often achieved by Syrians who have minimal contact with foreigners in their country), and ultimately being accepted by a prestigious university in England to study for her masters, she finds herself unable to apply for a visa at the British embassy in Amman. The reason for this is that the online process asks for online payment. Due to the sanctions placed on the Syrian people, they are not able to perform any kind of bank transfer. They do not have access to visa cards. So, please tell me how they are expected to apply through this visa process?

Disgusted, I wrote to the embassy to complain, advising them to be more flexible during this difficult period in their region. The Syrian people are entitled to equal rights in that they have the right to apply for a visa to the UK. The system needs to change to cater to them.