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.

Adios a Colombia

`Hola, como esta? Soy de Inglaterra, y voy a Brasil´
`Ola. Snsh veyt minhuto bem vindo htyu ererh bassaborte´
`Er, Que?´

What the fuck? At this point I realise the utter stupidity of spending a month intensively learning Spanish only to immediately head to Brazil. Portuguese is a truly ridiculous language, of which I understand not a word. The really irritating thing, however, is that it´s sufficiently similar to Spanish that they can understand me perfectly, thus giving the illusion of ease, an illusion that is immediately shattered as soon as they commence their seemingly part Russian, part French, part Latin response, all of which with the kind of accent that should really necessitate some intensive enunciation sessions with a speech therapist.

Still, linguistic nightmares aside, I managed to negotiate my way into Brazil successfully, but such is the way with formalities here in the `Three Borders´region of the Amazon, where Brazil, Colombia and Peru converge on a narrow stretch of river, I took my shiny Brazilian stamp and immediately returned to Colombia. There is effectively no border here, as I discovered last night when I inadvertently wandered into Brazil. Despite the proximity and de facto merger of Leticia and Tabatinga into one united conurbation, the differences between the two towns are striking. Where Tabatinga is dirty, rundown and chaotic, characteristically a frontier town, Colombian Leticia is a sprightly and prosperous place. On the face of it, this fact should be slightly surprising. 500 miles from the nearest road, reachable only by riverboat and plane, aside from a nascent tourist industry there seems little here to support any kind of town, let alone one so obviously prosperous. The economic miracle of Adam Smith´s famous `Invisible Hand´has never seemed so enigmatically well-hidden as here.

The answer to this conundrum, of course, is simple. Cocaine. An oasis of semi-civilsation in the midst of vast swathes of impenetrable jungle resolutely controlled by the FARC, with virtually unpatrolled borders between the coca-leave producing Peru and the cocaine-consuming Brazil, Leticia is a prime spot on the trade route for Colombia´s number one export product. In the interests of idle curiosity I asked a taxi driver a little about the industry in these parts; he was only too happy to respond. (By way of an aside, there is something infinitely rock and roll about sitting on the back of a motorbike discussing the narcotics industry in Spanish as you roar around the streets of a Colombian border town trying to find th best exchange rate from the street money changers.) A kilogram of pure cocaine apparently costs US$1,200 in Leticia, which is quite staggeringly cheap; according to my source (on this particular topic, I think a guy who drives a motorbike in Leticia is probably quite reliable), that same kilo, once cut with various potions and powders, will make 3 kilos in the west, with a street value of around US$300,000. Suddenly it all makes a little more sense. No wonder Pablo Escobar was in the top ten of the Forbes Global Rich List for over a decade. Still, he did die in a hail of bullets in a Medellin sidestreet, so perhaps the life of an international druglord isn´t all gravy...

My brief investigation into Leticia´s import-export industry over, I head to the port to catch a boat down the Rio Javari to a remote ecolodge in Brazil. Or perhaps in Peru? As I´m already officially in Brazil, I avoid the passport formalities of my three fellow explorers, two affable Catalonians and a typically chirpy Colombian, yet follow them to Santa Rosa, Peru anyway. This is my third country in half an hour, which is in itself a little disconcerting. It feels bad to be back in Peru, a country to which, despite its inestimable natural and archaological wonders (everyone should see Machu Picchu once), I took a strong dislike on my last visit in 2002. Santa Rosa is no different. Visibly much poorer than Tabatinga or Leticia, Santa Rosa is little more than wooden shacks rising out of the mud. With typical Peruvian efficiency we find the Immigration Office closed, the presiding bureaucrat at lunch, where we join him in a quite appalling restaurant, replete with various indigenous Amazonian animals caged in heartbreaking squalor. Combined with the excruciating noise emanating from the live band, this makes for a thoroughly unpleasant half hour; finally the necessary formalities finalised, we are free to go. I am officially in Brazil, while Luis, Alfredo and Francesco are officially in Peru. All of us are actually in Colombia, as we stop once more to secure vital supplies - a crate of Aguila beer - for the six hour journey into Brazil. Confused yet? I am...

But so it is that with a slightly heavy heart I say goodbye to Colombia, a country I can honestly say I´ve come to love over the last month. The people, the culture, the scenery; what a fantastic place. I will certainly return one day, hopefully soon, and that´s not something I can say about too many places. You´ll shortly find below a selection of photographic mementos of some of my Colombian amigos and amigas - I hope to see them again one day soon. Perhaps in Nora´s case, on MTV. But for now I move onto new adventures. The Amazon!

Akiel, from Trinidad (and Tobago), and Miguel, my anarchist Spanish teacher


Samuel, the craziest dog in Colombia


Akiel and Paula Andrea. She´s quite normal, for a Colombian

Nora. Like Shakira she´s from Barranquilla. Like Shakira she´s a singer. Unlike Shakira, seeing her emerge from the bathroom in just her lacy underwear was not one of the all time highlights of my time on earth.

One Night In Cali

"Pssst, señor, ¿que quieres? Bueno precio..."

Perhaps it's my overactive imagination, perhaps it's the psychotropic antimalarial drugs I'm taking now, or perhaps it's the preponderance of prostitutes, male and female, that proposition taxi passengers at the traffic lights, but I get the sense that Cali is a little bit dodgy. Once the home of Colombia's biggest drug cartel, and still a major base for the narcotics industry, the city also lies on the very edge of FARC-controlled territory. Though usually remaining in rural areas outside of the city, the guerrillas detonated a huge car bomb here in April, an incident that did not fill me with particular excitement as I boarded the plane in Bogota. Upon arrival, a long taxi drive into town ensued. Staring out of the open window into the fetid darkness of the tropical night, there was a certain thrill to be had from the knowledge that somewhere out there lurk earnest peasants in muddy fatigues, carrying AK-47s and copies of "The Communist Manifesto", agitating for the overthrow of liberal capitalist democracy here in Colombia. Just so long as they stay out there and don't start venturing any closer to me, mind, there's a limit to how close I want my thrills.

The city of Cali itself is not beautiful. In many ways nor is Bogota, but the capital has a charming historical district and a striking mountain setting; neither attribute Cali posesses. No matter, however, for despite its preponderence of low-slung American style strip malls, centreless sprawl and slightly eerie emptiness, Cali is widely famed for the beauty of its women and the insanity of its nightlife, both of which had long ago attained near-mythical proportions in my mind at least. I'm not sure why or when I first heard about Cali, but I do know that for a long time I had wanted to go there, my interest piqued by no doubt tall tales of outrageously beautiful gangsters' molls dancing till dawn in sweaty, sexy nightclubs, all underlaid with the definite dark edge that comes from being a city built on white powdery foundations.

In some respects I was slightly disappointed. The nightlife was great, but by Colombian standards lacked just a little something. My strong desire to visit a Caleño Salsatecca to see the locals showing off their salsa skills was tempered with the news that the Juanchito district, home of the Salsateccas, is widely considered off-limits to sane people, let alone gringos, on the grounds of its proximity to some pretty "exciting" slums. I'm not sure if this is true, personally I don't believe it, but for once discretion proved the better part of valour and I elected not to find out. I did, however, head to legendary Cali nightclub, Kukumukara, where I was treated to some quite incredible mountain views. The giant peaks in question were not another extension of the mighty Andes, viewed out of the club's windows however, but were rather contained, more or less anyway, in the skimpy tops of almost every female in the club.

It's quite probable that there are eminent plastic surgeons in Britain, with long and distinguished careers in cosmetic medicine, who have never seen as many silicone breasts as are to be found in a Cali nightclub. In many respects entering Kukumukura was like walking into the pages of Playboy magazine (without the ninety year old pederast in a silk dressing gown in the corner obviously), as a veritable ocean of almost-naked surgically-enhanced flesh lurked at every turn. While some of the women were undeniably attractive, a large number bordered on the grotesque, particularly those who had teamed their artificially-inflated cleavages with similarly pneumatic posteriors. With the temperature in the club rising rapidly, for a time I began to worry about the melting point of silicone, fearing I might suddenly find myself alone, save for numerous steaming piles of molten plastic on the floor. My fears were soon allayed, however, by numerous shots of Aguardiente, the potent local firewater imbibed in vast quantities here. It's nasty stuff, a lot like a kind of sugarfree sambuca, all the more nauseating for being served ice-cold. Still, it's certainly a required ingredient if I am to attempt salsa dancing, which I duly did with little notable success. The other higlight of the evening was certainly one of the bands' live rendition of "La La La La La La Bamba" - to hear a Latin group in a Latin American club actually play that was just too amusing for words.

Anyway, with enough eyefuls of silicone, not to mention Aguardiente, to last a lifetime, I departed Cali early on Friday morning to take in the scenic delights of Colombia's coffee-growing heartlands. About which, more later...