A House in Damascus - Before the Fall Page 15
Late that afternoon the French troops suddenly left, and two days of fierce shelling and air raids began. The areas in and around Al Jabiyeh, the Shaghour and all the way down to the Midan were particularly targeted, and to this day the Hamidiyeh retains the bullet-riddled roof created at that time. Hundreds of houses and shops were destroyed, and the Hariqa of today was constructed in the aftermath—it was once like the rest of the souk, but is now a series of block and concrete office and commercial outlets perched between the Hamidiyeh and remnants of the old souks that survived the onslaught. The official number of dead was put at 1,500 but that was widely believed to be a serious and deliberate under-estimate, perhaps by both sides for their respective reasons. That was bad enough, but the destruction was followed by public hangings, more fighting and a complete shutdown of social services. The French set about destroying the Midan, because they considered it to be at the heart of the revolt.
In May 1926, just a few short years after King Feisal and T.E. Lawrence thought they had entered Damascus to establish Arab independence, the French further surrounded the Midan and began looting homes before launching more air bombings. Fire broke out, but the French had cut off water supplies and the conflagration spread for two days. A further 600 people died in the raids, and perhaps 1,000 homes were destroyed before international pressure helped force the French to halt the assault. The revolt was over, but memories were strong and would endure.
That experience remains just a couple of generations or so back in the Midan mind, and some of the urban scars remain as the area rebuilds around what was one of the oldest sections of Damascus outside the walls. There is now a profusion of concrete and block tenement buildings, but among them are much older buildings, like commercial grain centres and other retail shops. They look young compared to some other survivors. Tucked almost under the motorway is Al-Tinbekeya Mosque that also has a madrasa. It was built in 1417, taking in the tomb of the Damascus Governor Tinbek Al-Hassani. Its distinctive facings and gracious lines show what much of the area must have been like before 1926, and before the subsequent urban regeneration. Further down the street stands another mosque built in the thirteenth century, a fourteenth century madrasa, and a sixteenth century Ottoman mosque.
A couple of kilometres further down the road, the Qadam mosque provides one of the best stories from Islam. That story has the Prophet himself reaching the point on which the mosque now stands, on his way to Damascus. Seeing the city from afar, however, he decided to stop, then turned back. He declared that because a man could only enter Paradise once, he would eschew divine Damascus and await his heavenly reward. Legend has it that his footprint is preserved in the Al Qadam mosque. It should be said that there are a few versions of this story, with each quarter seemingly taking ownership. Whatever the true location, it is still a great story.
The Midan, then, has a history, and retains a character. These days it is famous among Damascenes for its sweet shops, restaurants, shawarma and falafel stalls. Early on a weekend morning the shutters come up, the coffee is brewed, and the day begins. A coffee supplier extends an invitation to tea, a nice paradox. Butchers invite inspection of their wares. Old men sit outside a humble mosque, taking coffee in the weak sunshine. In a myriad of shops the sweets are piled high, as staff in famous outlets like Daoud Brothers ("a taste of heaven on earth") ready themselves for hectic weekend trade. The piles spill out of the shops and onto the pavements, where packages and mountains of sweets glisten in all directions. Counters are polished, shop fronts washed down, tables and chairs appear on both sides of narrow Al-Midan Street.
Sometimes, the traffic is halted by horse-drawn fruit and vegetable drays still common in the Midan. The quiet horse is draped in the colourful traditional rugs and ropes of red and white. Customers surround the cart which is covered in everything from onions to pineapples, and the keffiyeh-clad owner/driver doles out supplies, haggles over prices, and sends customers on their way, all while the banked-up motorists behind wait, for the most part patiently.
In some ways, this is a readier and more connected version of what the Old City was once like in its entirety. There are no boutique hotels down here, scarcely any hotels at all. This is a district, a community with a heritage and a shared outlook. Stop to peer inside some of the ruined facades behind which elegant grave markers stand, and a local will attempt to explain the story. Greetings are warmly welcomed and easily given. People go about their business, but take quiet pride that an odd foreigner is interested enough to come and have a look, even if attracted by the sweets. Despite the post-French buildings, this place has a living past that stretches back a very long way.
That attitude of resistance abides, too. As the 2011-12 unrest filtered in to Damascus from the provinces, the Midan was soon in the news for hosting demonstrations in support of change and, later, witnessing struggles and physical conflict. The reports about the Midan being a centre of support for the conservative Sunni cause could have been written at any point in the past few hundred years. All that had changed was the technology—rocket propelled grenades, mortars and modern rifles were deployed throughout the area as Syrian Free Army fighters met troops loyal to the regime. Some of the FSA bodies were described as bearded and dressed in black, clear reference to the Sunni orthodox strain thought to be coming to the fore as words like "sectarian" and "civil war" began to enter the discourse, supplementing the earlier "freedom fighter" descriptions.
It was hard to imagine all that occurring in a street and an area that, despite its reputation down through the ages, had been so welcoming and warm, and where a quiet horse had helped carry on trading in a location where the practice spread back over several centuries.
Qanawat and Other Heritage
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It is sobering to think that over forty years ago, Colin Thubron already considered the "real" Damascus to be dying.51 That, it must be said, is the lot of writers lucky enough to encounter places early enough to recall something of what they call authenticity. Of course, neither Damascus nor anywhere else was "authentic" at any given point. Rather, they were just places encountered that told stories different from those of other more accustomed locations, and before the latest changes were experienced. Penang, formerly "the Pearl of the Orient" in Malaya now Malaysia, has transformed into an international free industrial zone in the interests of attracting foreign capital. Batu Ferringhi turned from a one-hotel beach with pristine water into a high rise haven with dishwater in front. Yet, if you look hard enough, something of Penang's essential character still remains. Damascus, too, has always had those willing to declare it "gone". And in some ways they are right. It will never again be the pleasure garden from which the Prophet retreated, in the belief he could never attain Paradise twice. Freeways and suburbs arise, the modern global world intrudes, cosmopolitan lifestyles spring up, traffic clogs the arteries, and people flock to the burgeoning metropolis.
Our project's wonderful and ever-smiling driver took us safely on all the long journeys out to Lattakia, Homs, Aleppo and, occasionally, all the way out to Deir Ez- Zor. He was a Damascus boy, having grown up in that part of Sarouja now separated from its main section by the busy highway that fronts the Citadel and the Hamidiyeh souk. Whenever we drove by that part of Sarouja he would recall the large family home of his youth, wistful to the point of sad as he considered his present home, a much smaller affair on the outskirts of the now-sprawling Syrian capital. Like many families unable to sustain the rising costs of inner-city living, his had cashed up and moved out, but with considerable regrets. Some of these outer areas became the Damascene version of the modern Parisian banlieues, or at least the more disenfranchised ones and, like their French counterparts, these ones blew up in 2011-12 for similar reasons: unemployment, lack of services, rising costs, miserable conditions.
This is a common story, a local variation on transformatory global patterns that see customary inner city residents displaced by gentrification and social change. Many Damascenes with whom
I spoke had grown up in Old City homes, but their families had realised the assets either because they now wanted a different lifestyle, or the offered price was simply too good to resist, or both. That was exacerbated in the aftermath of the Gulf wars, oddly enough. Many incoming Iraqi refugees were well cashed up, considered Damascus prices as very cheap compared to those of Baghdad, so bought up property wholesale, including in the Old City. The Bashar al-Assad regime soon clamped down and legislated to prevent the sale of property to foreigners, though it was still possible to take over a 99 year lease. Regeneration of properties began all over the Old City and, wandering about, it was frustrating not being able to see inside a few of the more famous ones.
There was one such place down a cul-de-sac on the other side of Straight Street from the house. It was large but no longer in full local style. Windows had been inserted in the normally blank exterior wall, higher up rather than in full Western style. The door, though, was genuinely European in appearance. Reworked walls incorporated local stone and retrieved artefacts, including a piece of Roman stone with an inscription. Tucked with flair and style onto a corner of two intersecting narrow alleys, it was a stunning discovery in amongst a flotilla of drab blank walls with small doors. This was not a new act, by any means. Foreigners have long been among those renovating: the Burtons retained a notable house up on the hill during the mid-nineteenth century, and a century later at least two Europeans had refurbished Old City houses, well before the current fashion began. Those houses were on the walking trail from the Mosque to Bab Touma, wall plaques hinting at the changes made inside. Another was the wonderful renovation done on an old house by a Danish research centre just in behind the Medhat Pasha souk. Some of this movement was reflected in the rush to boutique hotels that preceded the troubles. Down in the Jewish quarter, for example, the bland walls of the Talisman Hotel hid an opulent and luxurious interior.
Much of this points to how somewhere like the Old City retains its authenticity and charm, while dealing simultaneously with pressure for change. One early twenty first century example of this involved a traffic issue, namely the rising pressure of vehicle flow about the walls of the Old City. One solution involved taking a swathe of houses from just outside the wall on the eastern side. That raised a storm of protest ranging from the owners involved all the way through to international conservationists. Yes, the city has a special quality; no, it cannot resist change totally.
Across the busy road from the start of Medhat Pasha, and in behind a small mosque, the beginning of one of the most delightful lanes in Damascus outside the Old City was just ten minutes walk from the house. This was Qanawat Lane that gives its name to the area in which it is found, immediately up from the Midan. Somewhere back around the seventh century, under the Umayyads, a sheep market in the area began developing a commercial and residential centre to take the overflow from within the Old City walls, and Qanawat was the result. It boomed under the Ottomans, and by the eighteenth century featured several fine homes for senior administrators, prosperous merchants and others who did well out of the Turkish overlordship. It was close to the souks and the major political buildings, and created its own social networks for people "in the loop".
It is frequently the lot of these once-prime inner city locations to fall on harder times and Qanawat was among them, but it is still part of a "genuine" Damascus. Qanawat Lane is narrow, a reminder of its origins and its location. There is a lot of greenery, shrubs and bushes and trees surviving in the modern, harsh, degenerated inner city, a further reminder that it was once a far grander place. Crumbling houses, some four stories high, threaten to subside into the street and many remain standing only at crazy angles. Small shops and traders lurk in the bottom of these places, serving people who live in nearby houses and apartments. These people are relaxed and clearly "local", politely and without overt curiosity welcoming strange wanders to their locale.
The lane backs into a significant market whose main entrance runs off at an angle from the start of the lane itself, so that the whole area creates something of a triangle. This is a genuine market. A hole in the wall serves out steaming bread. Butchers carve meat from carcases suspended from hooks outside their shops, cats awaiting the cast-offs. Sweet shops have pristine windows behind which are piled more kilos of processed sugar than might be seen in a Barbados sugar factory. Mops and brooms stick out of another stall, next to a kids' clothes outlet that is next to a mobile phone shop. Shopkeepers sit outside with coffee, catching the watery sun and watching for potential customers who are welcomed, not hassled.
At the base of the triangle, there is a large fruit and vegetable market through which drivers propel small trucks drive while people walk or wheel bicycles. The produce is fresh, unloaded from the trucks that come in loaded so heavily they dip at the back and strain thin tyres. These vehicles are often seen out on the highways loaded with everything from lettuce to aubergine, via carrots, onions, oranges and bananas. In the tiny cabs may be crammed up to four men, along to load and unload.
This is Qanawat, and having survived a thousand years of change it is likely to change again, because it is the pilot district for a significant restoration project. Over the course of the twentieth century the area changed significantly, influenced by developments like the 1930 establishment of the first Damascus cement factory that helped transform building design and practice. Urban usage changed along with those new designs and practices. By the later twentieth and early twenty first centuries, even though Qanawat was provisionally under heritage protection, the quarter had declined. While around twenty five percent of the inhabitants were in upper income brackets and still retained the old, and mostly crumbling houses, there was now a predominance of low income families. Traffic and noise had risen, and courtyard houses were deteriorating. One significant change from the 1930s was that the private gardens in all these houses had largely disappeared, also contributing to environmental change. International agencies and heritage groups combined with local bodies, and the slow start was made to regenerating Qanawat.52
Further away, down on one of the main thoroughfares in the Jewish Quarter, just along from the magnificent bread shop next to the elegant drinking fountain, a faded and insignificant notice announces the location of the Dahdah Palace, another reminder of just how much has to be considered by the conservation movement. Press the bell pointed to by a hand-drawn arrow, and the door opens on to a remarkable sight. As usual, the first glimpse is from the gate down the narrow and covered passageway into what is a courtyard. It is only at the end of the passageway that the true scale of the courtyard and the house built around it becomes apparent. It is huge, hidden behind unpretentious walls and, unlike most other major houses now, it is still privately owned. There is no entrance fee, but there are quality craft goods available to buy in part of the house, so visitors contribute to further upkeep through their purchases.
The courtyard has the obligatory open reception areas and wonderful gardens, and is dominated by a big reception area. The house is somewhere around three hundred years old and provides a direct link with the grandeur of the early Ottoman period. The opinionated Mrs Mackintosh visited the Palace during the later nineteenth century, applauding its grandeur, and complimenting the wisdom of the rich banker owners who maintained it in what she considered the dirtiest part of the city. Off on one side there is a large and lofty public reception room with raised areas on either side of the entrance. It is here that the true nature of the house can be appreciated, and the reflections of wealth, power and prestige that it generated. The roof is highly embellished with wood mosaics, the walls are hallmarked with exquisitely carved stone decorations, the whole effect mirrored in the elaborate tiles and mosaics that make up the rest of the décor. It clearly took time and money to achieve this remarkable statement and now, of course, the need for the sale of goods shows just how much is required to maintain such a place in the modern age.
As another example of this change and compromise, Bab Tou
ma is now a traffic site rather than the great gate it was once. However, just along the wall nearby there is an interesting regeneration. A small park is being created at the foot of the wall, and a whole series of houses being refurbished with spectacular effect. The differences in style create an immediate focal point, and the idea of the wall now reaching out to rather than repelling the world is thrilling. As a result, windows have appeared in what were once blank spaces, courtyards adorn the top of the wall, and there are even French windows looking outwards. This is a living wall in effect, the latest version of how this city has adapted to change, pressure and time.
During a walk along from this modernisation towards Bab Sharqi, the originally monolithic nature of the wall reappears, broken here and there by a new house built into the surroundings, including one notably modern version of a Damascene style, with elegance and power enmeshed in its projection. Bab Sharqi manages to retain its ancient role at the end of Straight Street, all the while pouring traffic out into the circuit road that now swings past. The Orthodox Church dome peeks over the top of the wall. The past is never far off. Along an underpass to this circuit road there is a fenced- off section of the original Roman wall, a few metres below the modern road level. Motorists pass over it every day, pedestrians scarcely give it a glance.
From there around to Bab Kissan, where Paul allegedly jumped over, there is a long run of successive era wall building stages, piled one on another to create what once was a seriously good defence of the city. At one point there are Roman blocks scattered carelessly about, at the base of a wall that reflects all those who have been and gone from Damascus. Even here, though, there was a touch of adaptability. Just before Bab Kissan, a small area at the base of the wall had been fenced off, and a garden created. Away up at the top of the wall was a small dwelling with an outside landing. From that descended a rope ladder, obviously to aid in the tending of the garden. Paul was not the only one who jumped the wall.