The people of Damascus appear somewhat detached from the crisis engulfing other cities and towns, writes MICHAEL JANSENin Damascus
A FEW hundred demonstrators gathered in central Damascus to cheer Russia and China for vetoing a UN Security Council resolution calling on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to stand down and make way for a transition to multiparty rule.
The demonstrators brandished Russian and Chinese flags and portraits of Assad and chanted: “No to foreign intervention in Syria’s affairs.”
Many of the demonstrators were young people – university and secondary-school pupils.
Their enthusiasm was unforced. Few people here want the country to descend into civil war. Homs, Hama, Idlib and Deraa, the centres of the revolt, seem distant to Damascenes, particularly since government troops reasserted control of the capital’s restive satellite towns.
Assad made one of his rare public appearances yesterday, attending the noon prayer in a mosque in the diplomatic quarter to celebrate the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.
Since it was a three-day weekend due to Mawlid al-Nabi (the prophet’s anniversary), Damascus awoke late and dozed in the sun. Vendors arranged second-hand books on a wall near the university in the hope of attracting custom. Many people were strolling in the city’s parks, chatting on benches, or drinking coffee in the cafes. Traffic was, however, much less than normal, according to Nabil Sukkar, an independent economic consultant. On such days, “the streets are usually packed” with cars, he says.
People are feeling the pinch of reduced oil revenues, the lack of tourists, and sanctions. “So many businesses have closed, so many people have lost their jobs.”
Sukkar adds that when he goes shopping, it costs 50 per cent more than it did a couple of months ago. The US dollar is worth 70 Syrian pounds now; when I was last in Damascus, the dollar traded at 50-54. “Sanctions are hurting the government but the greatest impact is felt by the business community and people in the street,” Sukkar says.
While Syrians still go to their favourite cafes to sip tea or coffee and smoke water pipes, customers are fewer. Many restaurants and cafes have closed. Shops selling souvenirs in the old city’s Bab Touma (St Thomas’s Gate) tourist area have no custom. Their owners do not even bother to accost passersby with the aim of persuading them to look at merchandise. Elegant restaurants in grand 18th- and 19th-century Damascene mansions rely on local folk to keep going.
In Beit Jabri restaurant, a colleague and I were the only foreigners lunching off Syrian specialities and only about two- thirds of the tables were taken.
Asked why Damascenes seem detached from the crisis engulfing other cities and towns, opposition activist Mona Ghannem replies: “Damascus is cut off by checkpoints. People are not affected when things happen in the north and south, before they come to the capital. But everyone cares what happens now . . . Before they stayed out of politics.”