Syrian nights

Deep in the night and away from the bloodshed, out in the backstreets of the old city. Hadi and Basel sit smoking and drinking beers in a garden sorrounded by ancient Roman columns and cascades of pink bouganvilles. They are painters, and young, and thought the uprising would have brought freedom and peace. They saw the Syrian spring sour into a chilly winter, slide into a civil war, hijacking their dreams. No solution in sight. No more place for them. No more paintings-video art-multimedia installations. They want to leave, to Lebanon to Europe or anywhere.

“Give time time” we used to say, as Warhol said. But there is no time for us here in Damascus. It’s time for guns now and we’re fucked up, we don’t want to carry a gun. We just want to live a normal life.

Yet another unespected encounter last night. I had dinner with Shamel, an Iraqi former general who lives here in exile with his family. Back in 1991 he was in charge of the prison where I spent a week in the hands of Saddam’s feared Republican guard. I was arrested with several other journalists while trying to cross the Euphrate river and reach Basrah at the height of the Shia revolt. Shamel was nice with us, even gave us some chicken one day. And boiled eggs. Then he vanished in Baghdad, went into hiding and survived in 2003, briefly reappeared two years later in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel and ended up as a refugee in Damascus. He brought me sweets. And asked for help: he also wants to leave, to Canada to Sweden or anywhere. Not another war, he pleads, not another one.