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Liza Burr, W A M M
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At the end of June, John and I returned from five weeks in the Middle East, specifically Syria; part of south central Turkey; Amman, Jordan; and Palestine/Israel. In this article I will relate some of my impressions of Syria to the larger questions of U.S. policy toward Syria and the so-called “clash of civilizations” theory that is one of the ideological underpinnings of that policy. Our itinerary in Syria began with Damascus, followed by the ancient site of Palmyra, then Hama (north of Damascus), and finally Aleppo (north of Hama). From Hama we also visited the magnificent Roman site of Apamea.
This was not our first trip to the Middle East, and more than ever before, but particularly in Syria, we felt self-conscious and embarrassed to identify ourselves as being from the United States. We thought seriously of substituting Canada for the U.S., but in the end we decided it was worthwhile to tell the people we encountered that as Americans we firmly disagreed with our country’s foreign policy in the Middle East, and why. With his near-fluent colloquial Arabic, John developed rhetorically colorful ways of expressing our negative views of the Bush administration, to which people often responded enthusiastically. Many Syrians clearly expressed their dislike of the U.S. government, though most still maintained the distinction between government and people.
A typical encounter would begin with the question, “Where are you from?” Then in answer to our answer, we would usually hear, “You are welcome,” or “You are welcome in Syria.” Characteristically people whom we met on the street or outside their shops, mostly men, would ask us to sit down for tea and conversation, not an invitation one expects to hear in the middle of an American city. One such invitation came from a middle-aged artist in Hama as we walked by his studio one evening. We returned there several times to talk with him and one or more of his friends, including a former mayor of the city. We noticed that the artist and the former mayor went daily together to a nearby mosque for at least one of the prayer times. Friendships between individual men were quite evident and appeared heartfelt.
The average Syrian is certainly better informed about the Iraq war, for example, than is the average American. At one point we found ourselves riding in a collective taxi in the city of Hama. As we conversed with several passengers about American abuses in Iraq, including the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a Syrian (male) passenger responded appreciatively by paying for both of our fares and speaking with us further after leaving the taxi. The chaos in Iraq is all too close to Syria, and Syrians see the role of the U.S. there in a negative light, to say the least. In addition, Syrian-American relations were at a very low point when we were in the country. U.S. economic sanctions against Syria have been in place since the end of 2003, and the U.S. ambassador to Syria was recalled in February 2005.
We heard few Syrians speak critically about their own government, although a shop owner in Damascus provided a vehement exception. By contrast, a young Christian Syrian man spoke hopefully of changes that he anticipated under the young president Bashar al-Assad. On the citadel of Aleppo we conversed with two women writers (one Syrian, one Palestinian), who warned us not to talk in public about Palestine/Israel and certainly not to mention it as a travel destination. A young Syrian man in Palmyra considered the average American tourist’s fear of coming to Syria as laughable, given the omnipresence of men in civilian dress who are employed by the state as security police. These last two observations illustrate Syria’s identity as a “security state” and its restricted freedom of speech.
Soon after our return to Minnesota, a cover article appeared in the July 10 New York Times Magazine entitled “What Is the Road to Damascus?” The article presents, essentially without critique, the Bush administration’s assumption that it is legitimately empowered to implement regime change in Syria by means of war. Bush administration “pressure” on Assad to make “concessions” is described but not questioned. Syria’s vulnerability to U.S. coercion or even invasion is taken very seriously by former CIA official Bill Christison, who recently wrote a highly critical article for Counterpunch called, “First Stop Syria, Next Stop Iran.” While in Syria we sensed tension over the Iraq war and the impinging Bush agenda. The possibility of U.S. aggression against Syria came up in some conversations. One reason for the targeting of Syria, as I see it, is Syria’s traditionally socialistic economy, which is now undergoing gradual “liberalization.” Christison urges his readers to “mobilize enough political opposition fast enough to prevent the administration…from carrying out” attacks on Syria and Iran. I also urge WAMM members to consider traveling to Syria as peacemakers who stand apart from our government’s war making.
On our journey, John and I engaged in conversations with Syrian and other Muslims about religion, partly because I teach Theological Questions and New Testament at the College of St. Catherine, and the World of Islam at Metropolitan State University. In teaching and studying Islam, I have learned that Islam is global—manifest in extremely diverse cultural contexts—rather than Eastern or Western only, and that there is much more common ground connecting the three monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) than there are differences dividing them. Theologically they share similar concepts of God, and their ethical teachings can be summarized in the command to care for one’s neighbor (anyone and everyone near and far). All three emphasize and require social and economic justice. “Fundamentalist” violence is no more endemic to Islam than it is to Judaism or Christianity.
None of the numerous Muslims we encountered throughout our trip could be described as a “jihadist.” A Palestinian Muslim friend of John’s voiced his strong opposition to violence in the name of Islam, asking, “What kind of Islam is that?” Thus in my view, Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, according to which “Islam” and “the Judeo-Christian West” are inexorably pitted against each other is incorrect. However, Huntington’s theory of two “clashing” parties does provide the Bush administration with a convenient smokescreen behind which to wage its “war against terrorism” and to extend global capitalism.
On the last day of our trip, in Jordan, at the famous Roman site of Jerash, we spoke with a group of Muslim men who worked for the site as guides, about Islam and Christianity. When they challenged the traditional Christian theological assertion about the divinity of Jesus, I replied that, while I identified myself as a Christian, I did not believe that the historical Jesus had claimed to be “God” and that, to me, what was important about Jesus was what he said and did as a human who experienced God’s presence in an extraordinary way. The more we talked, the more we discovered how many beliefs we held in common. When John told them that I teach an introductory course on Islam, one of them quizzed me good-naturedly about the life of Muhammad. Another mentioned critically Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, advocating instead an “integration of civilizations.”
Earlier that day in Jerash at a shop in the crafts center outside the site, we had encountered a Muslim shopkeeper, who spoke movingly about how his religion shaped his life and the lives of Muslims he knew in community. He responded warmly to our interest in and knowledge of Islam, commenting that this was quite unusual among Western tourists in his experience. He went on to express his distress at how radically he thought the world was changing under globalization policies, that people have become “numbers” in a haste-driven society. I thought this was an apt description of the impact of global capitalism on most humans. It also indicates the economic difference between Jordan and Syria.
Certainly poverty is a major problem in Syria, where unemployment is said to stand at 20 percent. So the kind of economic development that will enable the poor to prosper there and elsewhere in the Middle East is essential. But U.S. neo-liberal economic policies appear to be advancing greater prosperity for the rich instead. As Americans for justice and peace, let us do all that we can to change U.S. policy toward Syria and its neighbors, as we work to debunk the destructive myth of “clashing civilizations” used to buttress those policies.
Liza Burr teaches religion classes at the College of St. Catherine and Metropolitan State University. She has an M.A. in Classics, a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion. John Landgraf, retired, has a Ph.D. in biology and worked for 15 years in Palestine/Israel as an archaeologist. Liza lived for about two years total in Jerusalem. Their recent trip to the Middle East allowed John to do archaeological research while Liza conducted informal research for her Islam course. They were also there as tourists. |
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© 2005 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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