In President’s Square, the government dismantled a statue of Hafez al-Assad on June 10. The next day, residents recalled, a man nicknamed Gilamo put his donkey on the pedestal. Hundreds gathered, clapping, in mock displays of obsequiousness.

“Oh, youth of Damascus, we in Hama overthrew the regime,” residents recalled them chanting. “We removed Hafez, and we put a donkey in his place.”

The New York Times

• Man electrocuted in Aleppo car wash.
• Some Syrian actors don’t like Bashar al-Asad and aren’t afraid to say it.
• Syrian Opposition argues over formation of shadow government at Istanbul conference. Kurds withdraw because of marginalization of their concerns. Haithem Maleh talks sense into people: “Internal opposition is fundamental, while the opposition abroad works to provide support and assistance.”
• Lebanon is kinda like the Bermuda Triangle. At least for Estonian tourists.
• 13 people poisoned in Jeddah restaurant.
• Syrian married couple seeks advice after recent demonstrations have brought out irreconcilable political differences.
• Elderly Saudi man’s love of foreign novels leads him to internet exploration.

Photo from Flickr.

SYRIA

YEMEN

KUWAIT

EGYPT

ALGERIA

JORDAN

SUDAN

OMAN

BAHRAIN

SAUDI ARABIA

MOROCCO

Photo Sources (in order): Syria: Slurff, Marginilo, RovingGastronome; Morocco: jeanclaudeparisio, Holly Hayes, DorteF; Yemen: s1ingshot, ben.ragsdale; Kuwait: LeMeridienHotels, jeremyhaynes1974; Saudi Arabia: Jackson Lee, iamnatatonia, lost_in_sky; Bahrain: ulanowski, Ramadan; Egypt: kenmoo, jcravens, grapejuiceGTA, ignasi.capdevilla, jfkavinoky, minchelle, shinycity; Algeria: Amberinsea, Justin E. Tilton; Oman: stepnout; Sudan: fiorucci; Jordan: Isalum, suedebicycle

Trash, dirt, and misery is how one of the proprietors of the Charles Helou transportation hub in Beirut describes it now. The site of Charles Helou became an informal transportation hub during the civil war, but in 1994,  it became official, with goals of consolidating several taxi and bus companies. Since the 1990s, its original sheen has faded.

All this and more is discussed in Nora Niasari’s short documentary “Under the Bridge.”

Beirut has a damaged transportation infrastructure to say the least and the documentary touches on a few aspects of it. From the hundreds of broke-down Czech buses now in bus graveyards to the chaotic bus stations underneath bridges, we observe how Beirut transportation also bears the marks of conflict and economic struggle.

The documentary provides the images, along with Lebanese narrations, that coincide with a more complex history. The history is fleshed out in the text accompanying the documentary, with a focus on the Dawrah, Charles Helou, and Cola stations.

Abandoned buses and tramways can be seen as tombs from a distance in ‘Bus Cemeteries’ located at the central stations of ‘Mar Mikhael’ and ‘Sahet Al Abed,’ with one or two caretakers watching over 500 buses on a daily basis. Cola and Dora still remain as central transport hubs, however, their socio-political fabric has changed significantly. In Cola, political forces including Hezbollah, The Amal Movement, and the Lebanese Army govern an overlapping area of Shiite and Sunni Muslims in South-West Beirut, where rising tensions and clashes are ever-present under the bridge. Independent bus and taxi drivers are suffering due to the extreme monopolization of bus depots by private companies, creating chaos and a feeling of constant fear in their daily activities.

Top photo of Charles Helou from Nora Niasari.

SANA includes a link to the story on their homepage with reports in English and Arabic. The Arabic version reports that “American participates in campaign of deception by fabricating a Syrian woman’s blog [who claims] to be kidnapped in Syria.”  That pretty much sums it up. SANA cites The Guardian as its main source of information, but does not mention sexual orientation until the second to last paragraph. The main thrust of the article is the fact that an American promoted “lies and allegations against Syria,” which turned out to be entirely false.

The Syrian online news site Syria News reports the incident as a hoax and clearly mentions that MacMaster impersonated an Arab-American lesbian. Again, the sexuality aspect takes a back seat to the whole “lies and deception” aspect. The article also highlights the Western media’s role in passing off fiction as fact, citing the Reuters photo incident as further proof.

Al-Watan Online, a Syrian site connected with the print version of al-Watan (owned by Rami Makhlouf), gives the standard interpretation of the hoax as read above. Al-Watan states that the gay identity of the blogger was what “helped attract interest of the media and people in the West.”

My guess is that we haven’t seen the last of MacMaster in the Arab press.

Before March 2011, the name Rami Makhlouf received scant mention in the English-language press. Then, as Syrians began taking to the streets in large numbers in the southern city of Deraa, media around the world reported that many demonstrators had chanted that someone named Rami Makhlouf was robbing them. As al Jazeerareports, “demonstrators have shouted the name of Makhlouf as a symbol of graft in a country that has been facing severe water shortages and unemployment ranging from government estimates of 10 per cent to independent estimates of 25 per cent.”

Commentators taking a crash course in Syrian politics started to ask the question: “Who is Rami Makhlouf?”

Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha sent a letter to the NY Times on May 11 stating that Syrian businessman and first cousin of Bashar al-Asad Rami Makhlouf “holds no official position in the Syrian government and does not speak on behalf of the Syrian authorities.” This was in reaction to the NY Times‘s interview with Makhlouf, which portrays him (correctly) as an influential businessman with connections to Syria’s top rulers.

My guess is that Moustapha didn’t have a problem with Makhlouf’s comments about fighting demonstrators until “the end.” It is more likely that Moustapha was doing damage control for this quote:

If there is no stability here [Syria], there’s no way there will be stability in Israel.

After the Makhlouf article was published, nearly every Arabic-language news outlet focused on this line, including al-Jazeera Arabic. Al-Quds al-Arabi, the London-based daily, dedicated its editorial to analyzing Makhlouf’s statement about Israel. The editorial states that Syria’s support for the Resistance, which has always been questioned by some, is now going to be put under more scrutiny. Presciently, the editorial predicts that Makhlouf’s comment will lead to “unintended consequences” even if it was just a slip of the tongue.

On that note, before two months ago, it was nearly impossible to find a photo of Rami Makhlouf online, much less a detailed article about him in the English-language media. Now that he’s getting front-page NY Times coverage, it’s hard to miss his face.

Top Image of Rami Makhlouf from Aleppous Project. 

In a scenario only fit for a Syrian drama, Syrian drama stars are trading insults regarding who did or didn’t sign petitions expressing solidarity with Deraa (the town besieged by the Syrian Army).

There are a few petitions in question. The first, signed by actors Jamal Sulaiman and Basim Yakhour, called for an investigation into the events of Deraa and for mourning over martyrs.  Actor Zuhair Abdul Karim went on Syrian TV and called for these traitors to have their Syrian citizenship removed.

Then, actors circulated another petition that called for humanitarian aid for the children of Deraa. The cycle of denunciations for being traitors began. Shortly after the release of this petition, a few of the Syrian actors —  including Mona Wasif — who had supposedly signed the petition claimed they never signed anything. These actors then formed another petition recanting the previous petition, saying they had been influenced by instigators in the media. As if that weren’t enough petitions, Syrian producers drafted a petition stating that anyone who signed a petition about Deraa is a traitor to Syria.

The al-Akhbar article on the debacle ends on a somber note. They only position that is safe for Syrian artists, the author said, is that of silence.

In any situation, it seems the one solution for the Syrian actor these days is silence and to remain a spectator in these events, since any action will be met with a denunciation (literally: making a traitor of) campaign.

Al-Akhbar ends the piece with a bizarre account of a delegation of actors from the Syrian Artists Union visiting wounded soldiers in the Tishreen Military Hospital. Al-Akhbar reports that doctors started yelling at the actors, telling them to leave immediately. The doctors said that they were visiting the hospital only for the good of themselves.

Top Photo of Jamal Sulaiman from al-Sharq al-Awsat. 

The Syrian actor and comedian Durayd Laham  (also referred to by the name of his famous character Ghawar) is one of the best-known and well-liked Syrian performers in the region. That is, until a video surfaced at the beginning of March showing Laham and Qaddhafi, along with other Syrian actors and musicians, getting cozy at a party at Laham’s home in Damascus after the 2008 Arab Summit. The video was released well before demonstrations hit Damascus, but during the height of international media coverage of Qaddhafi’s brutality in Libya.

Laham has since told the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar:

It’s not possible for anyone with a shred of humanity to accept what is happening in Libya.

Then, al-Akhbar paraphrases him as saying that he “condemns the oppression of demonstrators who have come out to express their opinions.”

Two months after his al-Akhbar interview, and two months into the largest popular demonstrations Syria has seen in decades, Ghawar doesn’t think it best to afford the Syrian people the type of freedom of expression he advocated for Libyans. In an interview with al-Arabiya, Laham said that the Syrian Army is preserving “civil peace.” During the interview, al-Arabiya states that Laham mostly slurred the protestors in Syrian dialect, so they couldn’t reprint his words exactly.

Laham did have sharp words for Palestinian-Israeli commentator Azmi Bishara, who has been critical of the Syrian regime:

Syria considered him a friend, and on this basis, we dealt with him. But he was wearing the devil’s cloak.

Bye, Ghawar. I’ll miss you.

(The above is a clip from the Syrian movie Salt and Sugar, a musical comedy set inside a prison. Thanks to Adam for the al-Arabiya tip!)