Stranger to History

by Aatish Taseer

  I had come to Syria searching for the world of men like Butt and Abdullah and I had found it, but I had also found something else: confirmation of what about them had interested me in the first place: only thinly hidden behind the curtain of faith were the problems of the real world. The issues raised at Abu Nour were modern, directly related to what Abdullah described as the ‘world system’. Kuftaro spoke of feeling robbed culturally and coming under the influence of foreign ideas; the Grand Mufti, of modern genocide seen on television sets; Fuad, of racism, of the clutter of modernity – being bombarded by emails and adhering to drab routines – of children from mixed marriages, and of loss of identity, resulting from the large-scale migrations of the last fifty years, in his case from Pakistan to Britain. They were scenarios the entire world faced, that I faced; they defined the modern experience; there was nothing about them that was particular to Islam, and they made the Book seem like an unrelated solution.

  Walking back through the souk, I felt a flatness that was like frustration. It arose from a stifled desire to express myself, from the mosque raising important issues and smothering them with prayer. I’m sure there were spheres of faith in which people find refuge from the troubles of the material world, but Abu Nour was not that. Abu Nour was political. It fanned a sense of grievance and, as it could only ever do, offered retreat as the answer. But, unlike other religions, the retreat on offer was not that of the hermitage or the ashram; it was of the physical completeness of the faith, an alternative world on earth, equipped with sanctified history, politics and culture: ‘the widest kind of peace.’ It sought to restore believers to a pure historical and political world-order, free of incursions from the modern world. Syria was seen as a good place to begin because it was closed and depressed, with an autocratic ruler who allowed neither a free economic nor a free political life; it was much easier to shut out the world here than it was in Britain or Turkey. But many of the international Muslims I knew in Syria didn’t find it pure enough and drifted south to the lawless wilderness of Yemen in search of greater purities and an Islam closer to that of the Prophet’s.

  In the meantime, the mosque, in its effort to engage the real world, to re-create the time when temporal and religious power were one, dirtied its hands in dealing with bad regimes and cosying up to dictators. Because the faith was such a negative force, because it didn’t matter what kind of Muslim you were, just that you were Muslim, because there was never any plan to offer real solutions, only to harness grievance, and because its sense of outrage had much more to do with the loss of political power than divine injunction, it could even find room, as certain decayed ideologies can, for men like my father, who were ready to participate in its grievances but who were also professed disbelievers. It was in the mosque’s use of grievance, the way it could make Assad’s problems seem like Islam’s, but more importantly, the way it could use modern problems to reignite the faith that its great violence was to be found.

  And at the end of that cold, tense winter, filled with international fears, what could be easier than to inflame a country in need of release?

  Nail Polish

  It was a misunderstanding of giant proportions. I first heard of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad over lunch with my Norwegian friend, Even. They had been published in Denmark, and then republished in Norway. We hadn’t seen them, but they were said to be generating great anger across the Muslim world. Syria and Saudi Arabia had recalled their ambassadors to Denmark. Religious leaders called for a boycott of Danish products. Within days a painful cycle had begun in which every republication of the cartoons elicited more anger, which in turn made the story bigger and forced republication, if for no other reason than to explain what the fuss was about. Rights and, more importantly, the separation of press from government, unknown or hazy to most of the Muslim world, made the offence seem as if it came from the entire country rather than from a single newspaper, an individual cartoonist or editor.

  Damascus that Friday morning was like a city under curfew. There were hardly any cars in the street, the shops were closed and the busy road that ran parallel to mine was so empty it could be crossed at an absent-minded stroll. The rain, which began the day before, had stopped but dark, wandering clouds drifted over the city. Their deep colour and low, predatory movement over Mount Qassioun made the mountain seem bigger and paler than I had seen it before. The hoary, Biblical mountain, with its petticoat of shanties, seemed that morning to have regained some of the grit and thunder of old days.

  Even had mentioned he wanted to come with me to Abu Nour so I stopped at his flat on the way. We walked there through a souk that was much emptier than normal. We arrived at the translation room to find it full, and as I had come regularly over the past few weeks, I now recognised many faces. We had come quite late and the sermon had begun. Kuftaro stood alone at the pulpit.

  ‘Believers, we are living in total darkness,’ I heard, as I put on my headphones. ‘The enemies of Islam have been conspiring against the Islamic nation. They are trying to suppress the values of our nation. With the beginning of this century, the enemies of Islam have occupied Iraq . . . and now we have the blasphemous drawings. It is war against all Muslim people! They want to destroy our nation and our faith with all the weapons they have.’ Even and I glanced nervously at each other. ‘Under the pretext of democracy and freedom, they are spreading such blasphemous drawings! Our Lord demands that we be strong, and our strength comes from our love for our faith and for Prophet Muhammad. We call for good speech, but when our sanctity is oppressed, we are all sacrificing our spirits for your sake, O Prophet. We will sacrifice our souls, spirits and bodies for you, O Prophet!’

  When he had finished speaking, it almost seemed strange to pray, like trying to sleep after a heated argument. The mood in the translation room was charged. Kuftaro had made a call to arms. It was hard to believe that, after so fiery and shaming a sermon, the vast congregation of young men in the chamber below would do no more than go home and refuse to eat Danish cheese. Kuftaro would not have risked disturbing the peace without the express permission of the regime, and if he was making a sermon like this, other mosques were too. It was the mosque performing its role of infusing temporal power with divine sanction, and we sensed that some bigger response was brewing.

  I went up to Brother Rafik when I saw him come in. I asked him if he ever minded the anti-Western and anti-American stance of the sermon. ‘No, because as a Muslim,’ he said, as if recalling a principle, ‘I am first a Muslim, then an American. Even before I came here I had stopped thinking of myself as American.’ Brother Rafik had not met Even before and I introduced them. When he learnt that Even was Norwegian, he became solemn and asked how everything was in Norway, in the way people do if there’s been a natural disaster.

  ‘It’s fine, but there’s not much understanding,’ Even said. ‘People haven’t quite figured out why everyone is so upset.’

  ‘You have to remember,’ Rafik said, becoming lively, ‘that this is offensive not just to Muslims but also to Christians and Jews who, if they went back to their books, would see that they are forbidden to make graven images.’ He seemed to enjoy those last words and spoke them with the power they held for him. ‘They are so removed from their books that they don’t know they are forbidden it. If you make or replicate creation, you are producing an idol and, inevitably, someone to knock it down. So it’s not just offensive to Muslims, it’s offensive to everyone.’

  But it wasn’t offensive to everyone. Rafik meant that it ought to have been, and that it wasn’t, was a failing on the part of Christians and Jews. That week, Rafik, born and bred in America, along with others who had grown up in the West, was in a unique position in Syria. He could explain to many of the people around him, including some of the senior leaders of Abu Nour who were in the translation room at the time, something they genuinely didn’t grasp: that the offending cartoons did not come from the Danish government or from Danish companies and that they were powerles
s to stop their publication.

  ‘Do you feel the response is appropriate?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, they got their response, didn’t they?’ he said. ‘If it’s a response they wanted, they have it. There are men sitting outside their embassies with AK-47s. That’s the response. I’m not saying it’s a good one, but it is a response.’

  ‘Do you think it’s outside the parameters from which the offence came?’

  Rafik understood my question to an extent most Syrians would have found hard. But he felt it was more important to educate Even and me about the sin of making graven images. ‘You see, for most people in this region,’ he said in a quieter voice, ‘the newspapers are the government so they can’t understand how the paper can print the cartoons without the government’s permission.’

  I asked why he didn’t offer this analysis to the people around him.

  ‘We know that the West has technology and democracy, or whatever else turns your crank,’ he answered, ‘but they don’t have a lot of wisdom. There was no wisdom in publishing those offensive pictures just because you have the right. Well, who gave you that right except God Himself? In the West there is constant movement. You’re moving without even knowing why. There is no time for reflection.’

  Black rainclouds slipped over the souk like a lid. Its narrow streets were packed with worshippers leaving the old Mamluk mosques. When, at last, rain and thunder broke over the souk, trenches of water formed in the tented entrances of shops. The filthy souk cats were drenched and the mud floor ran like weak dye through sloping streets to the city below. The commotion the rain caused was followed by marvel as fragments of exploding hail beat down. Even and I stopped trying to make our way back and gathered under a rain-filled awning.

  The stall behind us served corn soup in white Styrofoam cups, which came with such speed that they were hardly optional. The men who gathered round us were mostly in their twenties. There was a smell of worn winter clothes and cigarettes about them. They were well-built, with prominent eyes and noses, and attentive to fashion. Their facial hair was carefully shaved, their jeans and sweatshirts close-fitting with haphazard masculine touches – a motorcycle, an eagle, bits of fake fur on the collars.

  When the hail stopped, we made our way out of the souk. Even picked up some vegetables, saying he was cooking at home, and invited me to join him.

  At his small, airy flat, the doors and windows were open and a moist breeze came through. He was on the top floor, and from his terrace it was possible to see cemented rooftops and fields of satellite dishes, like sunflowers, with poised, vacant expressions. Their presence, illegal, but tolerated by the regime, perhaps unavoidable, along with the numerous internet cafés in the city, always full of young people, stood out as the most obvious sign of dissent in a system that had depended on controlling information.

  The lunch turned out to be a small feast of eggs, an aubergine and tomato stew, and beef with fennel and salad. We ate sitting on the floor.

  We had finished, and a kettle was on the stove, when the response of which Rafik had warned rose up from the street. The cheer of lunch had made me forget the tension in the mosque, and as I had never seen the slightest disturbance in Damascus’s streets, the sudden loud chanting came as a surprise. It took the form of the Muslim declaration of faith: ‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet. Lail-la, il-allah, Muhammad-e-Rasul Allah.’ That sentence, with its short, deafening music, audible to believer and non-believer alike, and amplified by the many voices from which it came, reached us like an echo. It came alone, again and again. The first time we heard it, our conversation stopped. The second time we listened from where we sat. The third time we ran on to Even’s balcony. From where we stood, it was possible to see the entire sweep of the inclined road.

  At the bottom, a small but angry crowd was making its way towards us. Far behind them, the remains of the storm settled in a punctured heap of black clouds, bringing out the green and white colours of the biggest banner. They were a mixed group – fifty to a hundred people – of veiled women, children and young men, like those we’d been with moments before at the soup stall. Turbaned sheikhs, just out from Friday prayers at the city’s mosques, led the protest. They carried satiny Islamic and Syrian flags. We watched them pass Even’s building and stop no more than fifty metres ahead outside the French Embassy. Days before, France Soir had republished the cartoons and its editor had been sacked.

  The crowd’s shouting grew louder, and Even and I ran down to the street. The demonstrators collected outside the steep, curved walls of the embassy. A few red police cars surrounded them and the officers, who stood at a distance, watched calmly.

  Now that they had reached their destination, they seemed unsure of what to do next. Even and I stood still at the edge of the demonstration. There was a little scuffling at the front with the embassy guards, but the protestors lacked the momentum to storm the embassy. For a while, they yelled, ‘Get out, get out,’ in English, and someone threw a sweet wrapper and a milkshake at the embassy wall. Pink liquid dripped down from the point where the milkshake had hit the wall. There were no speeches, no signed declarations, nothing but anger and frustration. And the message was so simple that a young child in a pink sweatshirt led the slogan in a shrill voice: ‘La-il-la, il-allah, Muhammad-e-Rasul Allah’ and ‘Allah hu Akbar’ again and again. There was no response from the embassy, just stony indifference to the angry mob. The street was still wet from the morning shower and a light breeze coming off the mountain threatened to blow away their fury.

  Just then, a familiar face appeared from the crowd. It was Basil, a Syrian friend of Even, who had followed the demonstration from the Danish Embassy. He pushed his way through to us. He was in a merry, joking mood and was excited by the afternoon’s events. He gave Even a big hug and teased him about being Norwegian. He offered to take us deeper into the crowd. We followed him along the edge of the protest, closer to the front, but at that moment, the protestors pushed harder at the barricades outside the embassy. I felt the squeeze and stopped, but Even and Basil pressed ahead. Within a moment, I had lost them.

  The commotion at the front had made me uneasy, but now separation from Even brought on a wave of panic. The mob was searching for a focus at which to direct its anger. I was scanning the crowd for Even when suddenly I heard Basil address the demonstrators in Arabic: ‘This is my friend,’ he said. ‘He is Norwegian and a good man.’ Then he raised Even on to his shoulders and said to him, ‘Speak for your country.’ Not a sound came from the crowd and the new silence chilled me. Now they have an object for their rage, I thought, feeling all my worst fears answered. Even, if he was scared, showed no sign of it. He took in the crowd, his natural repose undisturbed, and then addressed them in Arabic. ‘This is just an embassy,’ he began, his face still and serious, his hand raised slightly so that the index finger met the thumb in a gesture suggesting precision. ‘It is not actually the country. I think that this conflict is caused by lack of understanding. In Norway we don’t know much about Islam, and there are not many Muslims there. Norwegians need to learn about Islam, and through knowledge of Islam, we can learn to . . .’ He stopped and bent to ask Basil for the right word. The crowd listened in stunned silence. ‘. . . respect Islam, and live together peacefully. Inshallah, inshallah, in-sha-llah!

  ’ At the time I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I tried later to imagine the impact of his words: the surprise of them from a foreigner, their clarity and volume, the classical Arabic in which they were spoken, and the simple, helpful message, the only one, so far, that had been more than a cry of hysteria. The words that came so easily to him, words of sympathy and diffidence, keen not to blame but comprehend, clichés in the West, resounded with freshness on the Arab street.

  A roar of approval came from the crowd. Someone yelled, ‘He accepts Islam!’ A small, withheld smile formed on Even’s lips. Hands reached up from all sides to shake his; others took his picture with mobile phones; a TV cr
ew squeezed to the front to interview him. His speech brought the demonstration to an end. I knew a great sense of relief; it could have gone so wrong. I thought that Basil had seriously endangered him, but Even didn’t see it that way: he felt it had been an act of trust on Basil’s part.

  Back at the flat, Basil, in his white cap and over-excited manner, was saying that the Israelis were to blame. They had planted the cartoons to poison the close relationship between the Arabs and the Danes. He heard in the mosque that morning that Muslims themselves were to blame because they had failed to tell people in the West how great a man Muhammad was. He took me aside to tell me of the greatness of the Prophet, his flight to Medina, and how Islam was a religion for all people.

  ‘How do you feel?’ I asked Even.

  ‘I wish I could have said more,’ he replied, the adrenaline still strong in his voice, ‘but I didn’t have the words. What I really wanted to say was “We know you’re angry, but we still don’t know why.”’

  On Saturday, we knew less. The cartoons had filtered through outraged governments and clerics to the people. And now the street was on the boil. For the first time since I’d arrived in Damascus, nearly a month ago, I felt unsafe. There was something especially unnerving in watching so controlling a state loosen the reins.

  I had just had lunch with an American writer friend, Bartle Bull, and was recounting the events of the day before when cries from a new demonstration rang out. We were walking through a small park in a quiet residential neighbourhood when we heard them. Bartle, as if picking up a scent led us in their direction, out of the park, down a main road and finally on to a wide avenue with palms in the centre. Traffic was diverted because thousands and thousands of demonstrators were marching down the avenue. The crowd here was of a type: angry, available young men, unshaven, sullen, with shiny faces and greased-back hair. This was a different, more orchestrated demonstration than the one the day before: young girls and older men marched too, but at its heart was a large group of the dissatisfied young men that all police states have at their disposal.