From Syria-based Evangelical Christians to Tel Aviv Peaceniks

Iraqi refugees in Damascus, Syria - photo by John Wreford
Korean Evangelicals in Damascus
"We want to bring Damascus back to Jesus tonight"

Good luck ya lunatic! This is what I should have said to the Arabic speaking South Korean who approached my Syrian Orthodox priest friend, Father Fady Abdulahad, requesting he help them find a church space for 3 hours for 100 people to pray in. A rather strange request to get from someone on a Wednesday night at 8pm in the Bab Touma region of the bustling car-overloaded capital Damascus. One can only imagine the hilariously ridiculous and freaky type of evangelical psyco-babble praying in tongues that the young S.Korean and his culty types were gearing themselves up for. I kind of regretted not sending them to the former Byzantine church turned Ummayad mosque in the Old City by the Western Temple Gate. But that may have created a mass public lynching so maybe it was best I kept my trap shut.

The President is your friend
I only stayed about 72 hours in Syria after my week long trip to Lebanon. I was so sick of looking at the ubiquitous pictures of President Bashar al-Assad - I counted 250 on the way from the Lebanese border, situated on lamp posts each 20 metres apart on the approach to Damascus suburbs. Hairdressing clinics, buses, mobile phone shops, internet cafes, sweet shops, churches - you name it, his head was in it or on it. Syria is a place where you do not criticise the Ba'ath party which has been in power for the most part of 53 years. Syrian people I met told me in private that rumour has it 2 out of every 5 people you meet on the street are part of the mukhabarat, or secret police. It's quite possible true, and even if it isn't it has the impact of spreading sufficient fear amongst the population that the president and Ba'ath party are their friends, so why on earth would you want to criticse them - that is unless you are up sto something dodgy!

The Christian minority I observed mainly live in very secure, elite neighbourhoods pocketed in quiet regions surrounded by monasteries from every creed you can think up - Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian Catholic, etc. They are completely sychophantic towards the Ba'ath regime and Bashar al-Assad has them eating out of the cup of his hand. After spending 3 days in St. Ephraim's monastery in the high altitude Saydanaya region, 50 kilometres from Damascus and between 1,200-2,000 metres above sea level, I journeyed onward to Amman in Jordan by a serwis taxi.

Iraqi refugees plight in Syria
But not before I met with an Iraqi refugee family who had lost their son as a result of a terrorist shooting in Baghdad on the August 1st 2006. Mohammed, a 24 year old engineer, was travelling with his father, a chief engineer and technical manager with the State Electricity company, were attacked by 3 gun men in a jeep as they made their way from a Christian suburb to their workplace. Mohammed was riddled with bullets and died almost immediately. His father miraculously survived the attack with minor injuries. Alongside his wife and two daughters he attempted to go to Europe through Turkey to seek asylum - but falling into the hands of a human trafficker who had othe thingso n his mind, he claims to have lost $20,000 in the process.
So the family burdened by the loss of Mohammed, in their desperation to save their lives - many Christians have been targeted in the growing sectarian violence - they took a taxi to north eastern Syria which a friend funded for them.

They have since made their way close to the Syrian Orthodox community that now gives them $100 a month for accomodation and food expenses. But due to the fact that they will never be given residency in Syria, cannot work in their professions there, and have to live in a relatively marginalised situation where they have no friends or family in the region, they believe that the only hope they have of not been sent back to Iraq is through their registration with the United Nations to be granted refugee status in Europe or North America. But with the UN having o deal with 2 million such cases in Syria alone, and millions more in Jordan and other neighbouring Iraqi countries, there chances are probably minimal

And should they think that it will be better for them in Europe Ok, they get free accomodation and food (even though they may find it hard to stomach), a pathetically small weekly stipend, probable exploitative conditions in the workplace though due to their poor English and lack of other European languages, they may not find work at all. Will they be culturally and religiously isolated in the secular west? There is no perfect answer to this disastrous situation, but the profits rolling out from the oilfields of Kirkuk and beyond needs to be directed to help those afflicted by the tragedies that have ensued from this war.

To Palestine/Israel with minimal grief
I am currently in Tel Aviv on a brief visit after landing in Israel/Palestine 48 hours ago. I ended up getting a 3 month visa after a 30 minute interrogation and subsequent 3 hour wait at the Allenby/King Hussein bridge crossing between Amman and Jerusalem. I will be here for the next 6 weeks and hope to visit a variety of regions in the West Bank and hook up with groups organising against the Apartheid Wall, helping farmers tend to their Olive Harvest free of attacks from colonial Jewish settlers, work alongside Palestinians helping them improve their English, and ensure the Israeli gvt. policy of house demolition meets stiff nonviolent resistance from interntionals, Israelis and Palestinians alike.

I have hooked up with a lot of Israeli peaceniks very actvie against the occupation
and also providing assistance to Sudanese refugees who are increasingly striving to come to Israel to escape harsh living conditions in Egypt - that is of course after they have already fled the tragedy of Darfur and war-torn Southern Sudan. So it has been an active 48 hours since arriving here. I have been mainly chaperoned by an Israeli lawyer-activist which has been a real blessing. Ironically we meet in the Russian compound of Jeruslaem's New City. I decided to provide solidarity and observe proceedings at a course case involving a young English woman taking a case against a Jewish settler who had attacked her two weeks previously with thorny branch sticks in the vicinty of one of Israel's many illegal settlements. She had been helping a Palestinian farmer gather grass for his goats when she was set upon by the skull-capped, stern-faced 60 year old man. The case has yet to be decided upon but it is likely he will receive a small fine for assaulting her and her colleague.

But that's for another blog on another day. This one has already exceeded its desired capacity.

Ma'a Salaama