`Damascus is burning'

Charles Glass

Damascus In the time it takes to mobilise the 25,,000-man elite corps of an army, the

house of Damascus will demolish the

has of Badreddin al-Auf. The old man 1,,,as lived in the house all his life, as did his father and grandfather. The house is in the tLarrirawi quarter of the old city, nestled in ue shadow of the original Byzantine Mosque. It of what is now the Omayad ‘ °Nue. It is entered from an ancient street narrower than the corridors of the "anlascus Sheraton, and it is not until you Pass beyond the unimposing facade that

You see what al-Auf and his neighbours are about to lose.

The beautiful house, with its central courtyard, could be the same as the one described more than a century ago by War- burton: A little lake of crystal water lay enclosed by marble banks, and overshadowed by beautiful weeping willows. Little foun- tains leaped and sparkled in all direc- tions, and shook their loosened silver in the sun At one end of this court, or garden, was a lofty alcove, with a ceiling richly carved in gold and crimson fret- work , and a wide divan ran round three sides of the apartment, which oPened on the garden and its fountains. Next to this alcove was a beautiful draw- ing room, with marble floor and arabes- que roof, carved niches and softened lighting falling on delicately painted

Al-Auf's house, and 74 others in the

quarter, will be demolished next month to clear a plaza along one wall of the Omayad Mosque. He, his wife and their seven children will be housed in a tower block on the city's outskirts. This is what happens to the poor in the 'developing' world.

The destruction of houses and shops within the walls of what claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world need not always be a cause for con- cern. Even H. V. Morton, that inveterate traveller with a warm spot in his heart for almost every place he visited, wrote in 1936, wish I could like Damascus. It seems to me that this city is living on a reputation gained a hundred years ago, before there were electric trams, gramophones or motor- cars.' Tamurlane liked it even less: he level- led it to the ground. But Damascus has had its admirers. One was the Prophet Moham- med, who refused to enter the city because of its great beauty, explaining that a man could enter Paradise only once. Another was T. E. Lawrence, who heard the retreating German army blowing up its am- munition stores and feared they were destroying the city. 'I turned to Stirling,' he wrote, 'and muttered, "Damascus is burn- ing", sick to think of the great town in ashes as the price of freedom.'

Damascus was spared destruction at the end of the first world war, but only a war or major civil disturbance can save it from the bulldozer now. The municipal government has promised to preserve all that is worth- while in the old city, namely the famous monuments like the Omayad Mosque, the Ayubite Citadel and the tombs of Saladin and Baibars. But the places like Badredin al-Auf's house, which one official called `parasitical structures', will have to go. In fact, the official said, removing the parasitical structures will help preserve the monuments and make them more acces- sible. The planners never consulted the in- habitants, any more than the Syrian government consults the citizenry when it makes decisions.

When the French as mandatory power until 1943 undertook their own modernis- ation programme, clearing houses and widening roads had an explicit purpose: making the city accessible to tanks and can- non fire. The French knew, and the Shah learned later in Tehran, that densely populated bazaars with their narrow, win- ding streets are breeding grounds for insur- rection. But the French withdrew before they could complete their plan. No Syrian official says publicly that security has anything to do with change in the old city, but residents believe it it be the main reason. As members of the majority Sunni sect of Islam, they are feeling put upon by the followers of Ali. Remember that the fundamental split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites dates from the victory of the Sunni leader Mu'awiya, who founded the first Arab kingdom in Damascus, over the Shiites of Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law. Damascus is the resting place of Mu'awiya, and today's rulers of Syria are followers of Ali. The Alawite sect, to which Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his family adhere, believes not merely, as most Shiites do, that Ali and not Mu'awiya was the rightful successor of the Prophet. Alawites believe that Ali was the Divinity incarnate.

To avoid the possibility of civil strife, on 30 March President Assad ordered his brother's 25,000-man brigade, the Defence Companies, off the streets of Damascus. They had deployed at about three in the afternoon at all the entrances to the city and at key posts in the city. Confronting them were units of the smaller, also elite Special Forces of Ali Haidar, another Alawite com- mander but an apparent rival of the President's brother. The Syrian media chose to ignore the incident, just as they had ignored a similar muscle-flexing exer- cise at the end of February. By ten that night, all the soldiers had gone back to bar- racks without a shot having been fired. When officials were asked what was going on, the response was, 'What do you mean?' 'I mean,' an inquiring journalist asked, 'what are all those soldiers doing in the streets?'

'What soldiers?'

It is that candour which prompted rumours of every description, among both Syrians and foreign diplomats. Some of the rumours were reported by the Daily Mail, the Sunday Times, Radio Israel and Le Monde, none of which had a correspondent in Damascus and none of whose accounts was true. But something is going on, and there is little doubt that it. is a struggle for power — if not for power now, then for the right to sit on the throne when President Assad dies. The President's volatile younger brother has the capital surrounded with his Defence Companies and their tanks, artillery and missiles. His occasional forays into the streets seem to be his way of putting his hat in the ring, and most diplomats — both western and Soviet believe he has won for the time being. Last month, his brother made him a vice- president, along with two civilians who ap- pear unlikely to lay any claim to the succes- sion.

The thought that Rifat may take over sends chills down the spines of many Sun- nis, since it would seem to establish an Alawite dynasty after years in which Hafez al-Assad has tried not to show any favouritism to his sect. (The Alawites re- main the poorest peasant minority in the country, and their daughters can still be sold into indentured servitude to the bourgeois families of Damascus.) Rifat has played the bad boy of the regime, taking the blame for corruption and excess which might otherwise have accrued to his brother. He has held out a kind of hope to those who have not done well by his brother — the US, Lebanon's Maronites and Yasser Arafat — that things might change if he came to power.

The hard-line Lebanese Maronite leaders seem to be gambling on some change in Syria. Their fortunes are at a low ebb, as even their President has had to pay homage to Damascus. It appears they are trying to buy time in the hope of the deus ex machina of civil war or upheaval in Syria. This month they commemorate the ninth anniversary of the official beginning of the Lebanese civil war, when the Phalangist Party militia killed a group of Palestinians travelling on a bus through east Beirut.

Students of Lebanese history remember that the first Lebanese civil war, which began in 1840, spread to Damascus in 1860. The Druze-Maronite tribal war could not be contained, as nearly everyone reverted to his sect or tribe for protection, That is why the Syrians want to maintain a balance in Lebanon and contain the Lebanese war, as well as keep their own power struggle within the family. The first Lebanese civil war ended in the streets of the old city of Damascus, with the massacre by ignorant, frightened Sunnis of thousands of Damascene Christians, There is no telling where or when this one will reach its conclu- sion.