The capital of culture, and its lost cultured capital
January 23, 2008
Today, the Arab capital of culture glistened under the snow. Shining beneath a white sky which enveloped the city with tenderness and lent it an awe-inspiring aura, Damascus seemed to settle comfortably into a role it always knew it deserved. At the start of this Damascene year of culture, as I read the names of various prominent cultured people who will visit the world’s oldest city, I could only think about those who will not be part of the celebrations.
Indeed, my appreciation of Milan Kundera and Noam Chomsky, for example, would have only been even greater had they been invited to impart their art alongside their Syrian peers, our very own “muthaquafin.” But this Arabic word, often used here to refer to our civil society activists, has been robbed of its most worthy personification: regrettably, too many of our truly cultured Syrians are behind bars, in forced exile, or in forced silence. At best, our best have been ignored and cast aside.
Our intellectuals have been stifled for too many years, and the only permissible manifestation of “culture” has been one of conformity with an encoded agenda, lapped up by pedants, yes-men and women, and uncouth would-be ideologues.
I hope that everyone will spare a thought for the true cultured Syrians who continue to languish in terribly harsh conditions in jail, imprisoned for no other reason than practicing their own culture of honesty and compassion for their country, for which they had the greatest and most sincere of ambitions. I have mentioned many of their names in the past (including Michel Kilo, Anwar Bunni, Kamal Labwani), in this blog and elsewhere, in solidarity with the brave civil society activists who dared to speak and to write about what was needed to make Syria a better place.
Today, in particular, I hope you will have a prayer in your hearts for our respected Dr. Aref Dalila, one of this capital’s greatest minds and kindest souls, who is suffering a very grave deterioration in his health, and whose spirit is in great need of our support as he continues to endure solitary confinement in brutal conditions for a seventh consecutive year. May he and all our prisoners of conscience soon recover the physical, spiritual and intellectual freedoms which are our God-given rights. Without them, Damascus is poorer, sadder, and more lonely.
“As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without culture, so the mind, without cultivation, can never produce good fruit.” (Seneca)
