By Eva Ziedan, July 07, 2016.

Introduction
 

A number of studies have been carried out along with on-going work to
document the damage at various archaeological sites and, to ascertain
responsibility for the destruction ¹. According to the interactive map
published on the website of the Directorate-General for Antiquities and
Museums of Syria (DGAM), the total number of damaged sites and
buildings in Syria amounted to 753 on April 21, 2016.


However, very few studies and statistics have addressed at once the
impact of war on Syrian heritage and on the complex Syrian identity
whose roots are perhaps as old as the Syrian national borders.

Discussing national belonging in Syria without taking into
consideration how national borders were drawn by colonial powers is
impossible, just as it is impossible to discuss a Syrian identity
without contemplating the particulars of every community, whether
ethnic, tribal, socioeconomic or confessional, and the existing bonds
between people and places.

This text is based on personal experience, and aims to prove that
people cannot be interested in their heritage or aware of it without an
adequate foundation built on social interest and interaction, and that
the preservation of a country’s heritage is an integral part of the
sense of national belonging.

This article also aims to highlight the efforts of civil society to
suture the rupture between individuals and heritage, after assessing
their relationship before and after the popular uprising. Despite all
difficulties, Syrian civil society has actually proven itself to be the
most efficient actor in establishing this missing connection.


A Personal Path


I have an academic background in Archaeology and I excavated several
archaeological sites in Syria. Between 2007 and 2010, I worked in Syria
as a tour guide. At that time, I never pondered the relationship between
heritage and identity. For myself and many other Syrians, archaeology
was a purely academic, scientific matter that had no connection with
current events.

And yet, the past is unavoidably linked to the present. While working
as a tour guide, I would tell stories to foreigners about the
significance hidden behind the appearance of sites and statues; stories
about local modern cities as well as stories of the people living there.
However, at that time, it did not occur to me to talk to the
protagonists of these stories.


Subsequently, I have worked in the Middle East coordinating with
civil society actors in Syria, i.e. all the non-governmental actors
involved in collectively managing the crisis. It is thanks to this work
and in the framework of the Syrian catastrophe that I started to
question identity and its relationship with the past, ruins and all the
ideas hidden behind ancient stones.

I decided to put things in order, to talk to people, to question
myself and my interlocutors across three dimensions: archaeology,
guiding foreign tourists, and civil society. This triangle became my
compass that is still guiding me along a path yet to be defined.

These three dimensions have allowed me, first of all, to identify the
main problem: The beginning of this catastrophe does not correspond
with the outbreak of the uprising in 2011 and the ensuing war, but it is
actually as old as our “homeland” (watan).


The Relationship between Syrian Citizens and their Heritage before the Uprising


“Syria is the cradle of civilisation”, “Syria is a religious, ethnic
and cultural mosaic”, “Syria is the country of the first alphabet”.
These are only some of the sentences that were taught at school under
the curriculum established by the Baʿth party.

Schools were teaching the history of the most important sites in
generic terms, in a way that did not clarify to the students the bond
between the tangible site and its history, nor did they explain to them
how they were linked to that remote site far away from their home.

In 2004, Jean-Claude David, a French urban geographer, asked a
critical question: “To whom does this heritage belong? And who perceives
it as heritage?” ²

 

Photo: A family walking in the al-Muhtasib neighbourhood

David’s article focuses on the fact that cultural heritage lies
within practices, attitudes, lifestyle and architecture in the Middle
East. “Living spaces represent a heritage only for foreigners, tourists
and a minoritarian well-educated elite,” he writes ³.
That is to say, historical and cultural heritage is considered as such
by those who observe it through the eyes of knowledge, unlike locals who
live in that space and do not often see it that way.


Jean-Claude David describes the situation, but he does not mention
the reasons why locals do not consider these spaces as heritage. David’s
question raises further questions: What makes Syrians feel like
citizens? When did they start to perceive themselves as Syrians?

According to confidential sources, some environmental associations
conducted a survey directed to locals in Damascus in 2007. Among the
asked questions, there was also the following one: “Why do you throw
rubbish in the street?” Most of the people responded: “What do I have to
do with the street?” Or “I clean my house, the state has to clean the
street.” The researchers have interpreted this response as a lack of
sense of citizenship.


When the research report was published, the security forces modified
the sentence by adding the adjective “environmental” to the word
“citizenship”. I am not sure whether a “sense of environmental
citizenship” exists; however, it is not the topic of this article.

What I want to highlight here is that before asking about cultural
heritage, one must question the existence of a sense of citizenship in
Syria. Does a Syrian citizen perceive their town’s streets as their own?
How important is a small town in the province of al-Hasakah to a
Damascene and vice versa? Perhaps my interest in Syrian regions, places
and their stories is an effort to find an identity that I crave for
myself. Or, perhaps, so I can acknowledge a part of this heritage and
reject the rest.


There exist historical reasons that contributed to the alienation of
local communities from the concept of citizenship and, thus, from a
commitment to local heritage. 
A clear example is what happened in
Palmyra during the 1930s, when French occupation authorities (1920-46)
had, in fact, removed residents from areas deemed to be of
archaeological interest in order to allow archeologists to work on them. However, the residents were using the ancient Temple of Bel as a mosque ⁴.
That was their way to stay connected to heritage and to the territory.
The link between citizen and heritage was severed with the restoration
of the temple to its original use by actually taking away the mosque –
the present of that time – from the past ⁵.

Historically, another reason for this disconnect is a culture lacking
acknowledgement of heterogeneity in Syria. Based on my personal
experience, Syrians did not get to know one another in schools and in
the public sphere. The local and central institutions did not make any
effort to understand the regional particulars of social structures —
tribal, mercantile, rural, and urban.


Had Syrians been given local knowledge that allowed them to connect
to many places, and thus create a sense of citizenship and belonging
that extends beyond the abstract notions of a national map more unity
may have existed.

Moreover, over the past decades, the Syrian context has been
characterised by a deep lack of respect of basic human rights. Many
areas have long been marginalised and left impoverished. As such, it is
difficult to imagine Syrians appreciating the importance of the
surrounding cultural heritage.


Nevertheless, despite the disastrous situation in Syria, there have
been attempts even before 2011 that are worth mentioning. For example,
the project designed by the association Friends of Salamiyyah (Asdiqa’ Salamiyyah) in 2008 in the area of Shaykh Hilal ⁶.

Shaykh Hilal, a village with traditional architecture at the edge of
the steppe in central Syria, had been home to 1200 inhabitants, until it
was damaged by the economic crisis which was triggered by a new law
that prohibited agriculture in the steppe that same year. This led to an
exodus of more than half of its residents.The project designed by Friends of Salamiyyah was based on the
traditional architectural model characterising the village, i.e. the
architecture of mud of the dome-shaped houses. The focus was on the
reconstruction of the houses but especially on developing local capacity
to manage the project and receive tourists, in addition to the
empowerment of women through the promotion of their craftsmanship. 

Another example is related to a project partially conducted by the semi-governmental Syrian Trust for Development (al-Amanah as-Suriyyah lil-Tanmiyah). It was named “Creating a Cultural Map in Syria”
and carried out between 2009 and 2010, starting from a pilot zone, the
Wadi an-Nasara (Valley of Christians) in Homs governorate.

This project identified the most important local cultural resources
and highlighted the relationship between local population and heritage
with the aim of profiting from these resources in local development
projects.


These are belated and limited attempts that have, nonetheless,
attempted to strengthen the relationship between citizenship and
heritage. They have focused on the core issue: making citizens
understand the practical value of heritage. In this way, the desire of
the residents to understand their history becomes a genuine desire, and
something that is not the prerogative of intellectuals and elites
anymore.


The Relationship between Syrian Citizens and their Heritage after the Uprising


A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Syria. 
The numbers say it
all. The Syrian Center for Policy Research (SCPR) published an important report
on February 11, 2016. Data therein contained triggered surprise
worldwide: 470,000 people were killed in Syria over the past five years,
a double figure
if compared with the most recent data published by the UN twenty-two
months ago. According to the SCPR report, 6.36 million Syrians were
internally displaced, more than 4 million had to flee their country, 45%
of children are not attending school, overall economic losses amount to
255 billion dollars.

A Syrian intellectual once asked me a rhetorical question: “What is
the point of thousands of years of history of my country if the
destruction of a human being is taking place in every angle?”

Photo: Inauguration of Waraqa Cultural Center.

It is not to be forgotten that since 2013 Syria has been divided into
several “Syrias” and it is particularly difficult for anyone to move
from one part to another – apart from warlords. In every Syria, it is
being taught how to hate the other “Syrias”: traditional songs of every
area have been forgotten, taken over by new songs and new poems based on
the hatred and rejection of others. Not only laws are different from
one Syria to another, but clothes, media, school curricula, the content
of history and geography lessons as well.


For example, it has been almost two years that the people of
ar-Raqqah live with foreign mujahidin who have their own “culture” and
prevent the local people from observing local traditions when it comes
to celebrations, clothing, meetings and proverbs. The relationship with
the local heritage is, thus, reduced to the minimum and will keep
diminishing as long as the war goes on.

At the end of 2015, a Syrian intellectual, Omar ʿAbdul-Aziz Hallaj,
told me: “If I cover one part of the circle, you can anyway imagine the
full circle because you have already seen it before. However, those who
have never seen a circle in their life will never be able to imagine
the hidden part and reconstruct a complete circle.” The children of
Syria who currently live in refugee camps, who were born there, have
never seen Aleppo’s Old City, or Palmyra; they have never seen the
complete circle.

Notwithstanding its recent achievements and the numerous difficulties
it is facing, civil society in Syria continues to represent the most
effective form of resistance to the ongoing conflict. Since the
consequences of the war will be felt over several decades to come, the
results of the hard work of the civil society will likely emerge in the
long term.

The ability to adapt to all conditions, especially in times of war,
is certainly an advantage but, at the same time, is also a risk. Getting
used to power failure, lack of water, fear, and the presence of
criminals eventually implies getting used to a certain form of
subjection. The commitment of the civil society is therefore critical
since it represents protection and a rejection of injustice.

The brain drain, numerous abductions and enforced disappearances of
activists have eventually weakened a Syrian civil society that needs
more strength and a better structure in order to protect itself and
safeguard its heritage, thereby restoring a balanced relationship with
the surrounding context.


There is a risk – in the best case scenario – to follow the example
of post-war Beirut, where the places of aggregation representing
Lebanon’s identities were destroyed, leaving only a few mosques and
churches standing. The city centre has in fact lost its Lebanese soul for the sake of luxurious residences and expensive shops affordable only to a few.

The population needs to relate consistently and actively to their own
territory, and to participate in the decision-making process. Each
socio-economic class needs to invest in its development. Only after
recovering this relationship will it be possible to face the issue of
heritage protection.


Despite the catastrophe that is currently tearing apart the country,
the civil society operating throughout Syria and among refugee
populations in Lebanon has launched important initiatives to protect
Syrian cultural heritage.

In the eastern side of the Old City of Aleppo, which lies under the
control of the armed opposition, activists have restored an ancient Khan
from the 17th-18th century, transforming it into the Waraqa Cultural Center.


Following numerous meetings held to fulfil local populations’
requests, a desire emerged to create a place of cultural exchange, a
place for meetings and education. Water and bread are undoubtedly not
enough to ensure a sense of normality and peaceful co-existence. The
population needs to nourish its soul and mind through cultural
activities, such as workshops or musical evenings.

The project does not target only civilians from the local community
but also armed groups. Most of the civil society activists tend to
exclude fighters from their activities, whereas the founders of the
Waraqa Center believe that these combatants are part of the local
community, that can benefit from these types of cultural activities,
provided that they come to the centre without weapons ⁷.

The center has also managed to smuggle important books from Lebanon
and Palestine via the Turkish border, or thanks to its contacts all over
Syria. These texts were requested by the community, who indicated their
preferences in a questionnaire.

Furthermore, the centre screens documentaries, organizes meetings
with local council representatives as well as initiatives to combat
illiteracy, and hosts wedding parties with traditional Aleppian music;
Ahmad Habbush, the famous singer, has participated in these parties.

In Lebanon, Syria In My Mind
is a project designed to support Syrian refugees. It was conceived and
realized by the Lebanese association Biladi in collaboration with a
Syrian youth group called Syrian Eyes.

The objective of the project is to create an identity memory linked
to the nation of origin for children that did not live their childhood
in Syria and to familiarize them with their historical heritage. This is
happening through educational activities based on extracurricular
learning, i.e. through games, songs and fairy tales. The objective lies
in distracting children, even if only for a few hours, from memories of
war scenes that are so present in their minds.

In this way, children realise that their origins are not rooted in
the refugee camp where they live or in the city that is currently
hosting them. Thus, all the children will have the opportunity to get to
know their city of origin and describe to their friends its heritage
sites, such as the Aleppo Citadel or the Orontes river ⁸.


Conclusion


It is essential to understand today what local populations need, in
every city and in every village. Although priority is given to projects
involving schools, hospitals and humanitarian assistance, they should be
complemented by projects that aim to create a relationship between
people and the space they live in – both within tangible and intangible
historical and cultural heritage – in order to be able to establish new
foundations.

[Photo: Tadmur City (Palmyra) in the
late 19th century. In the center stands the temple of the god Bel (it
was used as a mosque). The outer walls of the church were reinforced and
used to defend the settlement. (Loc.gov/public domain)].