Day: March 8, 2012

A Journey, Part 4. Reluctant Rebels

I’ve found that a near universal truth in travel is that the less touristed the area you’re in, the more special the memories will be. Tourism seems to have a way of hardening the hosts to the point where in the end, meaningful interactions become rare. With Western travellers being a relative rarity in Syria, the reception we received was always warm and often overwhelming. At the citadel in Aleppo, I remember being swamped by a crowd of excited and enthusiastic, scarfed schoolgirls, thrilled at the opportunity to finally be able to practice their English on real foreigners. Without fail, wherever we went, people opened up to us and appeared almost grateful to be able to share their views and perspectives.

Of all the markets I’ve ever been to, the souq in Aleppo is probably the most memorable. A far cry from the touristy Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, this was a market for locals, by locals, where in a labyrinth of dimly lit passages the smells of linen and leather, spices and incense mingled amid the hubbub of the merchants hawking their wares and buyers haggling for the best deal. But it was also at this souq that we had our first encounter with the male dominated perversion that taints so much of the Middle East, when Hayley was groped from behind in a crowd and to our absolute frustration we had no idea who the culprit was.

We spent two days in Aleppo before taking the road south toward Damascus. On route, we passed through Homs, now at the centre of the Syrian uprising and the scene of so much senseless devastation and bloodshed. Crac des Chevaliers, a stunningly preserved Crusader castle, lies a short drive west of Homs, and we spent a few hours there before doubling back and heading east across the desert to the ruins at Palmyra.

Up to this point in the journey, we’d met no other travellers, but in Palmyra we found a group of overlanders who had come up through Africa and were heading north. Apart from numerous other tips, it was from them that we got final confirmation that crossing through the Sudan was out of the question, making the route down through Egypt impossible. It was, however, possible to cross the Red Sea from Jeddah to Massawa in Eritrea. With no such thing as a tourist visa to Saudi Arabia though, the difficulty for us would be getting to Jeddah. After two days at Palmyra, we travelled back across the desert and down to Damascus.

Wherever we went, the Syrians we met were helpful and friendly to a fault, and my overall impression was of an industrious and content people just getting on with the business of life. Despite this outward appearance of normality in 1997, the truth was that under Hafez al-Assad, Syria had already been in a state of emergency, with draconian emergency laws, for 34 years.

It never ceases to amaze me what turmoil can lie beneath the placid facades of our existence. Things often are not the way they appear to be and even in the most oppressive and difficult of circumstances, we always seem to find ways to go about our lives under the pretense of normality. It’s almost as though we have a built-in ability to adapt ourselves in order to be able to continue functioning normally despite adversity, even to the point of denial of the adversity itself. We’re complex beings and I suspect it’s probably a survival mechanism that we’ve carried along with ourselves for eons. The reality though, that suppression ultimately breeds rebellion, is inescapable. Over time, like a river dammed, the pressure will build to the point where the smallest of cracks will cause a rupture. Unless it’s dissipated, sufficient time will always bring a reckoning and it’s just the mode of release and the way it’s dealt with that varies.

On Assad’s death in 2000, the status-quo remained intact as power passed to his son Bashar al-Assad. As the Internet grew, access to it too was controlled and social networking sites were blocked. Should we be surprised that Syria is fast becoming the most bloody uprising of the Arab Spring? How can modern leaders be so deluded as to think that suppression can be wrought without corresponding danger of uprising?

I’ve often wondered about how and why revolutions start. Why is it that the people of Syria rose up while the people of Zimbabwe, for example, remain passive despite tremendous hardship and years of despotic government? I’m not sure I know the answers, but two essential ingredients of rebellion are certainly a deep discontent with the status-quo, and a catalyst to unite and mobilize the discontented. Maybe in Zimbabwe the nature of the apparent affront is just not enough to push people over the brink, or maybe there are just too few people doing instant messaging to set the spark. But I suspect that in Zimbabwe it’s more a case of incompetent and corrupt leadership than widespread calculated and metered suppression of freedom and inalienable rights. The former may cause frustration, but seldom the outrage that can stem from the latter.

Rebellions, of course, aren’t limited to those on a national scale. We may rebel within our communities, workplaces, families, or relationships. All may manifest themselves in different ways and all bring with them the promise of change. Of all possible rebellions that we survive though, it’s those where we rise against ourselves that I believe are the most personally significant because they bring with them the opportunity to reforge ourselves, refine our truths, and realign our lives. Carl Jung believed that around the age of six, we bury those parts of self that we find intolerable and then for most of our lives we refine the persona that we choose to present to the world. As the persona diverges from our inherent sense of self, tension increases to the point where it begins to tear apart the fabric of our being and the soul begins to rebel against the person we have become. The emotional forces can be immense, but like any other rebellion we have a choice in how we deal with it. Many resort to outside help. Some crush it by sheer strength of will and denial, but in doing so remain trapped forever. Ultimately though and as with all rebellions, I believe that the only sensible approach is to come to understand the backdrop of the conflict and embark on a course of reconciliation, in this case between what we are and what the soul wants us to be. Following his own midlife, Jung spent the remainder of his years dedicated to his understanding of self, a course echoed by his famous mantra “know thyself”.

I see humankind at a crossroad that has many parallels with what we experience at midlife. As people, we have deviated so far from our essential nature that it’s creating massive strains in our societies as we see what’s happening and find it morally reprehensible and irreconcilable with what we know to be right. And it’s getting worse. Despite the spin, our leaders are making no real effort to change our course and get us off the road to apocalypse. Every year brings more devastation to nature, more species marginalized or extinct, an increasing gap between rich and poor, and more war. We have got here because of our obsession with power and greed. Never before in our history have the choices facing us been of such scale and impact.

I’m not a believer in violent uprisings and my fear for Syria is that like almost all violent revolutions of the past, Assad’s passing will only result in oppressive rule yet once more, albeit by a different party, and the the cycle of violence will ultimately repeat itself. In this sense, this is why we were so fortunate in South Africa where where the transition to democracy, under the guidance of great leaders, remained structured and was ultimately peaceful. But even here, 18 years on from the first democratic elections, the corrupting effect of absolute power and the obsession with its retention is increasingly evident.

Today’s headlines report fresh massacres in Homs and my heart is with the people of Syria. They deserve so much more.