"I am not desperate yet, but I am less hopeful"

These are the disheartening words of Hatem Ali, a well known Syrian film director, commenting about the state of the arts in Syria in an artcile in the NYT today. 

A Not So Brief Taste of Prison

This is my first post in the last six months. It is triggered by a long comment left two days ago by Sammy on one of my old posts from 2006 titled A Brief Taste of Prison.  Reading his comment sent a chill down my spine as dark memories, twenty four years old, were brought back to life.  Sammy had it much worse than me but both of us were extremely lucky.  To those who wonder why bring up such stories from the past, I say: these are recurrent stories, from our past, our present and, unfortunately, our forseeable future. I am not one to dwell on the past and always ready to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but are things really different in Syria now than they were a quarter of a century ago? Ten years on from the promise of the Damascus Spring and the hope of a new leadership, is Syria's government any less opaque or its citizens any freer than they were a half century ago? The gloves are now made of silk but they still hide an iron fist; autocracy-lite is still an autocracy. 

With Sammy's permission, I repost his story:

My story is a magnified account of yours: I was studying in the U.S (TAHT EL ESHRAF). I came back to visit my family in Beirut after 2 years absence during which I neglected to renew my military service deferral paperwork.One day we were riding our motorcycles through Bhamdoun and got pulled over at a Mukhabarat checkpoint. I produced my Syrian passport to the spick mounting the checkpoint and was asked about DAFTAR AL ASKARIEH (military service booklet). I told him it was not in order. He told me to get off the bike and told my friends to get lost. He then put me in his mercedes and took me to a nearby detention centre. I was shown to an empty room with few blankets on the floor. Later I could hear the guards hurling insults at a few guys they had pulled over. Then the screams started. The guards were beating up whoever they had in that room. I kept thinking that I was going to be next. Later that day I was taken to Ramlee Al Baida. Level 6 for interrogation and then taken down to the same cell Abu Kareem was taken to except when I walked in I counted at leat 50 inmates. It was August, the room felt like an oven. I walked up to one of the walls and banged my head against it. The sudden loss of freedom left me completely dazed. Floor space was so tight we were unable to sleep on our backs: we each slept on our side effectively being sandwiched between the guy in front and the one behind. Dinner consisted of one super bowl filled with rice and another filled with some red stew. It was put in the middle of the room for everyone to fight for their share. The next 5 days were a repeat of the first but I managed to strike conversations with the other inmates which helped pass the time. One day the guard comes in and asks me to go up with him to level six. I went in and found my parents waiting for me. We chatted for a while and before leaving my father whispered in my ear that things are being taken care of and I should be out of there soon. Before leaving they handed me a roast chicken with salad. I went back to my cell and sat on the floor ready to devour the chicken. I looked around and I saw couple of dozen eyes staring at my feast. I felt shame and asked them to join me. They all obliged. Anyway, the next sunday a few of us were told that we will be moved to a detention centre on the lebanese-Syrian border. The building was effectively the customs building. All the offices had been turned into holding cells. On my first night, they shaved my hair and interrogated me. Conditions here were a bit better,we were at ground level and had natural light. By that time I had accepted my fate: 4 to 5 years in the army, no going back overseas, no degree. I learned that the only way I am going to make it out of there in one piece is to socialise and stop thinking about my loss of freedom. Every inmate had a story to tell (most of them are interesting). I think I was the youngest in the wole building (I was 19) and some of the inmates took it upon themselves to cheer me up and point out the bright side of things. Another bonus was that I did not get beaten up by the guards in any of the 3 detention places. Finally, on saturday (14 days into my ordeal), a guard comes in and asks me to accompany him. I was taken to an office where I saw some of the officers I'd already seen, my father and a decorated officer.Him and my father walked up to me and asked me if I was OK. The officer then pulled me to the side and asked me if anyone had beat me. My father then came to me and told me it has all been sorted out and I should be out of there in the next day or so. Next day (sunday) I was woken up at 6 in the morning and taken to the office where I was given back my posessions and shown to my parents' waiting car. The feeling of being free was truly undescribable. One week later I was back in the U.S. It took me fourteen years for me to set foot in Syria again.


You got to feel for those incarcerated in Syrian jails. I imagine their lot is not much better off. No wonder most who get a chance, end up living in western countries: the smart and the not so smart.


The part that upset me the most was when my father told me the price he paid for my freedom: 5000 lebenese liras or the equivalent of USD1200.00 in those days. That covered three ranking officers and their side kicks. The top officer on the take had his own demands: he told my father thst he needs to buy him a fridge, a washing machine and the use of the family's Volvo for a month (which later dragged on for more than 3 months and was only returned after my father escalated the issue through our neighbour who was a colonel in the lebanese army). I could not beleive that a measly 5000 liras could buy so many officers. How on earth can such an army win any war?

The Zeitouns: From Jableh to Post-deluvian New Orleans

(This article is co-written by Abu Kareem and Abufares and posted simultaneously on both blogs)

by Abu Fares

There's a tomb at the far end of the Cornishe in Jableh, Syria. It is the resting place of 23 year old Mohamad Zeitoun (1941-1964), by far the most accomplished Syrian athlete of all times. Mohamad died in a car accident while on his way to the Suez Canal in Egypt to participate in the International Canal Swimming Race.The Zeitoun family came from Arwad, a small island off the coast of Tartous and the only inhabited one in Syria. The father, Haj Ahmad, was a master sailboat builder. He had witnessed family and friends perish in the treacherous waves of the unforgiving sea and wanted to offer his offspring an alternative life. Accordingly he moved to Jableh where he worked hard as a mason and brought up his sons into the business. The main concern of this simple man was to keep his family safe and away from the sea but fate, as it is often inclined to, had other ideas up its sleeve.

Mohamad Zeitoun, Syrian long distance swimmer, went on to become an international legend as 3 times World Champion (1960, 1961 and 1964). In 1959 his winning of the 40 km Nile Race in Egypt was nothing short of historic as he completed the final 10 km using one arm only due to injury. His 1961 world record in the Capri-Napoli International Swimming Marathon remained unbroken for many years as he swam the 38 km in 8 hours and 45 minutes, one full hour ahead of his nearest competitor. He crossed the 50 km Suez Canal Race in 12 hours and 3 minutes in 1963. Mohamad, who never had a coach, went on to win every single international event he participated in during his short-lived career. His brother Abdulwahab, a retired general, recalls how his father sent Mohamad to work as an apprentice blacksmith at 16. His boss had to make a custom 15 kg sledgehammer for him with a steel handle because he invariably kept breaking those made of wood. He was a powerful man who ultimately defied his father's will and couldn't keep away from the water. All of Jableh, including the father, gathered around the radio when Mohamad was racing and waited for the good news. A huge celebration would erupt upon the announcement of the expected result and the proud father would delightfully cry: Abaday, Allah Ywaf'o in his provincial Arwadi accent.

In 2005, 41 years later and halfway across the world, Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, Louisiana. Another son of Haj Ahmad Zeitoun makes the headlines and becomes an American Legend. Heroism runs in the family evidently but why not continue reading about this fascinating story through the words of my friend Abu Kareem of Levantine Dreamhouse.

By Abu Kareem

Few books published in the United States since 9/11 have sought to understand those on the recieving end of the war on terror. Always on prominent display at bookstores are books with sensational titles written by self appointed Middle East "experts" with ulterior motives or an axe to grind. Such books fed the national paranoia and along with the popular media provided cover for the Bush-Cheney years.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (see side bar for link to book) shatters that mold.  The book is a biography of a Syrian immigrant, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, living in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina devastated the city.  Abdulrahman, a native of Arwad and Jableh, steps onto dry land  in Houston after a ten-year wanderlust sailing the seven seas on commercial ships.  He makes his way to New Orleans where he settles down, marries an American woman and establishes a thriving business as a painting contractor.  A couple of days before Katrina strikes New Orleans, Abdulrahman sends his family away to safety and stays behind to look after his properties and his business.  After Katrina's passage over New Orleans, the levies break and Abdulrahman's neighborhood is flooded. He retreats to the second floor of his house and retrieves an old canoe from the garage. Setting out by canoe intending to check on his business and properties, he instead finds himself rescuing eldery people trapped in their houses and feeding dogs abandoned by their owners. He wife's pleas to leave the city go unheaded as he feels duty bound to stay behind to help out. As Abdulrahman's American story unfolds, Eggers weaves in anecdotes from his past in Arwad and Jableh.  We learn much about his family of seafarers, his childhood in Arwad, the moonless nights he spent sardine fishing off the coast of Jableh and his attachment to his older, now deceased, brother, a world champion swimmer.  These anectdotes help the reader understand Abdulrahman's character, his inner strength and resolve bordering on stubborness, his gentle piety, his devotion to his family, his dreams and ambitions and his deep sense of fairness.  One cannot help but like this man.

The first half of the book recounting Abdulrahman's history is hopeful and heartwarming: an honest and hardworking immigrant thriving in his adoptive land.  Even in the midst of New Orleans' apocalyptic floods, our spirits are lifted by Abdulrahman's good deeds.  Soon, however, this American dream turns into a nightmare.

Instead of mounting a campaign to rescue the stranded citizens of New Orleans, the Bush administration, in true war-on-terror style, sets up a military seige of the city.  Thousands of heavily armed soldiers and private security guards -mercenaries in effect- are sent in.  As hundreds of citizens perish, the soldiers' first priority was to build a makeshift prison at the city's train station. Abdulrahman and three companions, two Americans and a Syrian, all of whom stayed behind hoping to ride out the storm, are arrested on suspicion of looting by overzealous soldiers armed to the teeth.  The Syrians are singled out as possible terrorists and all are detained in conditions that are a cross between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.  Claustrophobic and nightmarish, the second half of the book is a powerful indictment of the Bush administration and the militaristic attitude that permeated everything it did and where national security paranoia trumped even the most basic civil rights of its own citizens. Perhaps what is most shocking about Zeitoun is how the horrific treatment of detainees in post-Katrina New Orleans went completely unreported by the national media at the time.

Eggers is a compelling storyteller and a careful journalist.  He researched and cross checked all the facts of the events described in the book.  He even traveled to Syria several times to meet the Zeitoun clan and learn about the coastal towns of Syria.  As a good journalist should, he avoids sentimentality, though his admiration for Abdulrahman, his wife Kathy and the whole Zeitoun clan is hard to hide. Abdulrahman comes across as an admirable human being, fair and idealistic, almost to a fault.  Even after his arrest and mistreatment, he stubbornly refuses to think ill of his fellow human beings, assuming that it is all a misunderstanding that will soon be resolved.  It is perhaps this quality that also made him so liked among his neighbors and why so many New Orleanians were ready to come to his defense.

Even after Bush's departure, the perception of a "clash of civilizations" lingers and ignorance and suspicion of Arabs and Muslims remains an issue in the United States. I therefore take it as a hopeful sign that Zeitoun, a book with a fairly narrow focus, made it to the New York Times best seller list last year.

References:

Lecture Abdulwahab Zeitoun 2008 (Arabic)
The Guardian: The Amazing True Story of Zeitoun (English)
Nass MBC Net (Arabic)

The Tragic Tale of an "Overqualified" Diplomat

Too funny to pass.

From: Foreign Policy, by David Kenner; Feb 3, 2010. 
Despite having served for years as a distinguished Pakistani diplomat, Akbar Zeb reportedly cannot receive accreditation as Pakistan's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with his credentials, and everything to do with his name -- which, in Arabic, translates to "biggest dick": In Saudi Arabia, size does count.


A high level Pakistani diplomat has been rejected as Ambassador of Saudi Arabia because his name, Akbar Zib, equates to "Biggest Dick" in Arabic. Saudi officials, apparently overwhelmed by the idea of the name, put their foot down and gave the idea of his being posted there, the kibosh.


According to this Arabic-language article in the Arab Times, Pakistan had previously floated Zeb's name as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, only to have him rejected for the same reason. One can only assume that submitting Zeb's name to a number of Arabic-speaking countries is some unique form of punishment designed by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry -- or the result of a particularly egregious cockup.

Dining with Sheharazade: Medieval Middle Eastern Cuisine

Did you know that there are more cooking books in Arabic before 1400 than in all other languages combined?  I didn't, but I cannot say that I am surprised given how finicky Middle Easterners are about the food they eat. This and many other tantalizing tidbits appear in Medieval Cooking in the Islamic World by the Tunisian author Lilia Zaouali. It is a short, fascinating whirlwind tour of our culinary heritage.

The oldest Arabic cookbook titled Kitab al-Tabikh, dates from the 10th century and was penned by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq and included recipes from the 8th and 9th century Caliphs and members of their court. The influences and complexities of Medieval Islamic cuisine grew predictably as the geographic reach of the Islamic world expanded.  Expanding Northward from the Arabian peninsula, Arab cooking was infused with Persian influences as well as those of the Aramaic speaking Christians of Syria and Iraq.  Moving Westward, Arabs brought Near Eastern recipes to North Africa and Andalusia but also adopted Berber and Iberian influences.  With the Arrival of the Ottomans, the cuisine of the Eastern and Western Islamic world grew apart with the Near Eastern cuisine becoming heavily influenced by Turkish culinary traditions.  Paradoxically, however, some of the more ancient common recipes, lost in the East are preserved in the Maghreb.

The history of the development of a particular cuisine also provides a window into the societal and political workings of the era. There seems to have been a distinct preoccupation with the health aspects of particular foods with many physicians of the era, Muslim Jewish and Christian writing about the benefits and harmful effects of certain foods. Eggplant, for example, with its bitter taste was considered unhealthy and did not become part of the cuisine until someone figured out that salting the eggplants before cooking took the bitterness out. The importance of hygeine in cooking also emphasized as way to ward off fevers. Cooking pots had to be scrubbed clean and cooks were advised not to cut their vegetables on board used to cut uncooked meat.  Surprisingly, some of the cookbooks even included recipes for making wine and beer.  At different periods in the medieval Islamic world alcohol consumption was tolerated though overindulgence was considered unacceptable.  I remember, as a child, asking my father about references to Khamr  in old Arabic texts or poems I read; he would invariably and disengenuously tell me that it really referred to grape juice. 

The book also includes 174 recipes divided into medieval recipes and modern recipes, the latter being mostly Maghrebi dishes, that can be traced back to medieval ones. Most sound delicious and have combinations of sweet and savory that is no longer common in today's Middle Eastern cuisine -except, perhaps in Maghrebi cooking. Also, there was widespread use of fermented sauces, akin to soy sauce or Asian fish sauces, in medieval recipes that, to my knowledge, are no longer used. Despite the differences, there remains some commonalities: the heavy use of nuts, pomegranate, lemon and the frequent use of cinammon and other spices. Some recipes like Beef with rosebuds sound intriguing while others, like the one detailed here, sound ominous:

Fish Drowned in Grape Juice:

Take a large fish. Put in black grape juice in a vessel deep enough for it to be completely immersed. It will thrash about and swallow the juice until its body is filled with it.  When the level of the juice goes down and the belly and gills are saturated with it, remove the fish, clean it and cook it on the grill...

Sounds cruel, but I guess it is not any worse than throwing a live lobster into scalding water.

Perhaps the most suprising thing is how few medieval recipes survive.  Though some of the names sound very familiar, the medieval recipes are often totally different than their modern namesakes.  It should come as a surprise, the food we eat is influenced by the times we live in.  Recipes for the same dishes evolve over time with changes in tastes and introduction of new ingredients -like the tomato- not available in medieval times. Witness, for example, the demise of the use of samneh (clarified butter) in favor of vegetable oil. Samneh was considered so important that a scandal over tainted samneh once toppled a government in Syria. Moreover, even at any given time recipes for the same dish vary tremendously from family to family and from town to town, each thinking their recipe is the ultimate, immutable version for that particular dish.