Lies, Truth, and Propaganda

"I loove history feelm. Gladiator, Braveheart (you know, with Mel Jeebson?), Troy. You like history feelm Jeems?"

"Yes, I like history films too. Have you seen "Munich"?

"No, what ees thees feelm?"

I proceed to explain the plot of Steven Spielberg's Hollywood epic to my 24 year old Syrian Arabic conversation partner: the kidnapping and subsequent massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Palestinian Black September group, the resultant Mossad death squad that hunted down and executed the perpetrators, the growing sense of unease and regret among the Israelis, the parallels with the modern "War On Terror".

"Why? Why they make up such oreeble storee? Why they say thees bad thing about Filistinian? Israel always keeling people, not Filistinian, they never keel people."

"This isn't a story, it really happened. More or less at least."

"No, thees never happen. It ees lie."

Somewhat fittingly, this surreal and somewhat sinister conversation took place on October 6th, a national holiday here in Syria, commemorating the famous "victory" in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. A rough equivalent in Europe would be Germany celebrating their famous victory in World War II in 1940, or Bayern Munich celebrating their famous victory in the 87th minute of the 1999 Champions League Final against Manchester United. But just as many of the Syrian populace seem unaware of the reprehensible actions of their Palestinian brethren in Munich in 1972, they are also, rather conveniently, apparently not informed of the successful Israeli counter-attack in the October War a year later.

Like many Arabs, my Syrian friend (who shall remain nameless for his own safety - discussing politics with foreigners can be a tricky occupation here) also holds forthright views on a number of truths, apparently self-evident to us in the West. The Israelis were behind September 11th - a cunning ruse to draw the Americans (and their humble servants in Britain) into a global war against Islam. This I've heard before of course, and while clearly absurd, it at least has the benefit of plausible motive, unlike the claim that the same Zionist government was also responsible for the assassinations of Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed. My source doesn't elaborate on the logic of this assertion; I can only speculate it's part of a fiendish plot concoted between the late Robert Maxwell and his comatose friend Ariel Sharon to boost the sales of the Daily Express, a publication which seemingly exists solely to print outlandish theories on the demise of "The People's Princess".

Encountering the products of brainwashing is a frustrating experience. It's virtually impossible to explain to someone that something they've heard a thousand times is patently false, or that some major event they're totally unaware of actually happened, particularly when that event might pose some uncomfortable questions about their worldview. Yet meeting the brainwashed can also be enlightening and thought-provoking. Who is brainwashing who? Who has been lied to and who knows the truth? Is it possible that I am the one who has been misled?

As I read Robert Fisk's epic history of the Middle East, The Great War For Civilisation, told through the quite staggering scope of his own experience as foreign correspondent in the region for The Times and The Independent, I am reminded of the extent to which we in the West are lied to just as much as - perhaps even more than - the Syrians whose naivete I gently mock here.

How many Americans still believe Saddam was behind the atrocities of September 11th? How many Brits still believe Libya was behind the Lockerbie bombing? How many remember the US Navy shooting down Iran Air flight 655, with the loss of all 290 passengers and crew, in July 1988? (An action Margaret Thatcher described, incidentally, as "totally understandable". She seemed less understanding five months later when the Iranians and the Palestinian Abu Nidal - not the Libyans by the way - returned the favour by blowing Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky over Scotland, with 270 deaths.)

Whose government speaks the truth and whose government tells lies?

How many in the West are aware of the "First Holocaust", the Turkish genocide of 1915-1920 in which 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically annihilated. A genocide which, incidentally, was keenly observed by the Turks' German allies (among them a young Rudolf Hoess, later Kommandant of Auschwitz) who learned such innovative techniques as the use of cattle trains and gas chambers from their Ottoman compatriots. Yet despite the parallels, indeed the direct causal linkages between the two genocides, denying the Jewish Holocaust is a crime, while denying the Armenian Holocaust is official government policy in many countries, including Britain.

Who is brainwashing who?

My young Syrian friend and I also debate the indiscriminate use of the word "terrorist" - irhabi in Arabic - and its slippery definition. It's a well-known truism that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter": such now-revered figures of the Twentieth Century as Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, and David Ben-Gurion were all "terrorists" at one time or another. Nevertheless, most in the West would baulk at ascribing the label of "freedom-fighter" to everyone's favourite Pakistani cave-dwelling bearded Saudi, yet here in the Middle East it's a sobriquet by which Osama bin Laden is widely-known, even by many liberal Muslims. What is the difference, they ask, between the Allied slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Al Qaeda attacks on Western cities?

The issue of "terrorist" versus "freedom fighter" was brought home to me with particular resonance this weekend, as I visited the picturesque Syrian town of Hama. In 1982 the peaceful sound of the gently spinning water wheels on the Orontes River was shattered when Syrian army and intelligence forces converged on the town to crush a putative uprising against then President Hafez al-Assad by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Estimates of fatalities vary between 10,000 and 40,000; the centre of the town was razed to the ground by artillery fire and hundreds of political prisoners disappeared. Today the peace is restored and a pretty park and elegant new apartment blocks stand where once fire rained from the skies.

Hama is no stranger to violence. Its environs boast two of Syria's greatest tourist attractions, the last stronghold of the Crusaders at Crac de Chevaliers and the castle of the legendary Assassins, a mysterious Ishmaili Islamic sect famed for their unparalleled efficiency at executing the leaders of any enemy. (From their name, derived from the Arabic word for the marijuana they smoked in copious quantities, hashish, we get the English word "assassin".) These sights provide a picturesque reminder that the clash between East and West, Christianity and Islam, predates Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush by some thousand years. (The Saudi construction magnate might play up his similarities with Salah ad-Din; I can barely bring myself to mention Richard the Lionheart and George the Buffoon in the same sentence.) Yet the events of 9-11 colour our relationship with the Middle East, our relationship with Islam, perhaps even our relationship with truth itself, to an enormous extent.

In 1982 the West condemned the atrocities in Hama as gross breaches of human rights against a legitimate political opposition movement. Today the Muslim Brotherhood and many of its offshoots - among them Hamas, Jammat al-Islamiya, and various Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan - are proscribed in many Western and Western-allied Arab countries as dangerous extremists. Freedom fighters to terrorists in 20 years.

I'll let my anonymous Syrian friend have the last word, however. Totally unaware (of course) of the Hama massacre he brushed it off with the observation that:

"in Amreeka and Britaan there have two parties which both same, and many people not like. Thees is not democrace. In Syria we have real democrace. I love my President, I love my government, so do all Syrians. Thees is democracy."

Tony Blair and George Bush might well agree.

Feast, Famine, and Men Who Hold Hands

As the sun slips behind the dusty brown mountains to the West, Damascus is bathed in a beautiful golden light. As the muezzins tune up for their hauntingly beautiful renditions of the call to evening prayer, the usual noise of rush hour traffic falls eerily silent as this bustling city of five million people quickly becomes a ghost town. As the dusk twilight fades into darkness, shutters come down and the last few stragglers hurry home, leaving the Syrian capital devoid of any outward signs of life. Yet behind the closed doors of countless houses, apartments and mosques in this, the fourth holiest site in Islam, friends and family sit down to celebrate.

For this is the holy month of Ramadan, a time of introspection, observance, and self-denial. All across the Islamic world the faithful eschew the pleasures of the flesh: eating, drinking, smoking, and sex, fasting during daylight hours and feasting in darkness. For one month of the year, Muslims remind themselves of their devotion to Allah, studying the Qu'ran, praying more often and with more focus than usual, and strengthening their communal ties by sharing the hardships of the holy month. Come sunset, hungry eyes turn to the home, where the traditional meal of Iftar ("breakfast") is served.

The feast begins with a bowl of dates, passed from (right) hand to (right) hand, and copious cups of "shai", the ubiquitous sweet black tea on which the Arab world appears to run. (My dentist should be in for a bumper payday come January) My own flat's Iftar has a particularly African feel: my landlord Djbril hails from Chad, and as far as I can tell runs an open house for every Chadian in the Levant. The boundless hospitality and generosity of the Chadians ensures I am invited to join their Iftar, despite my less than monastic adherence to the rigours of Ramadan. Although I am not, nor ever will be, a Muslim, I began the month with the noblest intentions - "when in Rome" and all. Yet ideals of cultural assimilation tend to fall by the wayside when the mercury is pushing 40 degrees Centigrade and you're struggling with the peculiarities of a language whose speech patterns often resemble the last desperate breaths of a strangled kitten and whose written form neglects to mark any vowels. Not eating is one thing, but not drinking is simply impossible. Still, while I may not share the parched throats of my fellow diners, I'm certainly hungry.

After the dates, we settle down to a huge feast of chicken, rice, potatoes, salad, and bread. Simple, yet delicious, African food served with a hearty helping of laughter, affection, and community spirit. While I can barely understand 5% of the rapid-fire Chadian "9aamiya" - dialect- in which Djbril and his compatriots usually communicate, when I understand the odd word they're kind enough to slip into "foussa" - the Modern Standard Arabic with which I'm struggling - for my benefit. Conversation quickly turns to politics and history; like almost all the Arabs I've ever met the Chadians' grasp of world affairs is simply mind-boggling. These are by no means educated people, yet as well as the obvious topics of Palestine and Iraq, beloved of all Arabs, they talk about such diverse and esoteric subjects as the American political system, the IRA (it took a while to work out, but "Adam Gerry" is their endearingly erroneous rendering of the bearded Sinn Fein leader's name) and demand to know if I am named after James I of England/James VI of Scotland, James Bond, or former American Secretary of State James Baker. The depth and breadth of their knowledge is staggering; even more appealing to me is their apparent inability to take any of these weighty matters seriously. As a Brit I'm gently taunted about the occupation of Iraq; one of my tormentors points out the sad state in which the British Empire finds itself in 2007, reduced to the Falkland Islands and Basra Airport.

After dinner we drink yet more tooth-rotting tea and retire to watch television: a four part dramatisation of the overthrow of Egypt's King Farouq by General Nasser in 1952. This provokes jokes about Britain's very own Egyptian would-be usurper, Mohammed al Fayad, and his son's near miss with the throne. Like many a Daily Express reader, the Chadians are in no doubt that Dodi and "Dina" were killed by the all-powerful British secret service. The question of quite where the omniscient and omnipotent SIS' powers went when it came to finding WMDs in Iraq is politely ignored.

The Chadians are typically Arab in many ways. This is a masculine society, where intimate physical contact between members of the same sex is totally normal. As in innumerable cities across the Arab and Muslim world, it's perfectly normal for men to hold hands in the street, to kiss each other's cheeks in greeting, and to share personal space in a way unthinkable in the West. Although I won't be attempting to verify this assertion myself, I imagine that in some ways life for homosexuals here must be much easier than in the West, despite Islam's virulent hatred of gays. (Interestingly there is apparently no non-pejorative term for "homosexual" in the Arabic language: "deviant" is about the least offensive word). Is it a coincidence that many of the greatest Western "Arabists" - Lawrence and Thesiger, to name but two - were perpetual residents of the closet?

Regardless of the inherently homoerotic nature of much of Islamic and Arab culture, life for heterosexuals here is certainly difficult. The schizophrenic attitude to procreation is perhaps best evidenced by the numerous Arabic equivalents of MTV. Pop music is ubiquitous here, most of it emanating from Lebanon and Egypt. While the music is mostly appalling, the videos are quite incredible. Impossibly good-looking young women cavort onscreen in outfits that would make even Britney, Christina, or Shakira blush, thrusting their crotches in a most provocative manner and titillating the viewers with lingering closeups of cavernous cleavage and tanned thighs. It's enough to send even hardened (pardon the pun) Westerners running for a cold shower; Allah only knows what it does to frustrated young Arabs.

Yet in amongst the nubile nymphets and their soft porn shoots are pop videos aimed at a wholly different audience. Saudi artists, all male, croon saccharine ballads with lyrics like (forgive my woeful Arabic here) "I love God, God is my love, my life is all for God". Meanwhile, their faith in Allah and their submission to the dictates of the supposedly austere Wahabist Islamic creed of their homeland are rewarded onscreen with shiny watches, gleaming droptop Mercedes, and of course a couple of "pimping hoes". Unlike Fifty Cent or P Diddy, however, the Saudi stars' bitches are covered from head to toe, and sport wedding rings. All three of them. The message is clear: love God and a harem of devoted (though virginal) women will be yours. Inshallah you'll get a German sports car to drive them around in too.

As the shahada rings out across the now darkened city, a couple of middle aged men hurry past me, arms linked gaily. On the other side of the street, a young man and his stylishly dressed girlfriend walk side by side, a couple of feet apart. And in houses across the country, across the region, across the world, self-starved Muslims desperately gorge themselves in a feast of gluttony before tomorrow's resumption of the fasting, praying, and abstention of the holy month. Allah-uh akbar!