Syria and the art of revolution

Dictators often have an odd relationship with the arts. The late Hafez al-Assad, for instance, dreamed of providing Damascus with a fine new opera house. He never saw it completed but in 2004 it was finally opened by his son and daughter-in-law, Bashar and Asma.

Next week, The Assad House for Arts and Culture (as the building is officially known) will be staging Gao Xingjian's absurdist drama,Bus Stop. When first produced in China, it ran to 13 performances and was then closed by the authorities on grounds of political ambiguity. It's a story about people who spend 10 years waiting for a bus and complaining before they eventually decide to walk.

I can't help thinking that Syrians will detect a subversive message in the play but perhaps the regime is assuming it must be OK since it comes from China. Either way, its Damascus run will be even shorter than that in China – only five nights.

Just across the road from the Assad opera house is Syria's national library – or, to give it its proper title, the Assad National Library. Its logo shows an open book with the head of Hafez al-Assad suspended above it, though he's not looking at the book.

One of Bashar al-Assad's key advisers is Bouthaina Shaaban, formerly professor of romantic poetry at Damascus university. As well as speaking up for the regime in articles for the western media, she translated Chinua Achebe's celebrated novel, Things Fall Apart, into Arabic.

Beneath the civilised veneer, of course, there's a different story – which was the theme of a panel discussion in London last Friday: "Culture under fire: creative resistance in Syria".

Novelist Manhal Alsarraj described her first ventures into literature after listening to a radio programme about new writing and submitting a short story which was well received. She then wrote a novel, Kama Yanbaghi li-Nahr ("As the river must"), which related to the 1982 massacre in her home town, Hama – and sent it to the authorities for approval. A reply came back saying that while it was good at a technical level, the subject matter made it unsuitable for publication.

Her book (extract in English here) later won an award in the UAE and Alsarraj has continued to write though, not surprisingly, she now lives in Sweden.

Ali Ferzat, Syria's most famous political cartoonist, has also left the country. Last August he was beaten up by the regime's thugs and the attackers made a point of injuring his hands, apparently sending a message that he should stop drawing. A few weeks earlier, Ibrahim al-Qashoush, the writer of a popular song attacking Assad, had received a similarly symbolic punishment – found dead with his vocal chords removed.

Ferzat used to draw cartoons for the official daily, Tishreen, though some were rejected because of their content. In 2001, shortly after Bashar became president, the regime seemed to be opening up a little and Ferzat was given permission to publish a satirical weekly.Addomari (The Lamplighter") was Syria's first privately-owned newspaper in 38 years and for a while enjoyed spectacular success – until the regime became nervous and forced it to close.

For a long time, Ferzat avoided caricaturing real people (which may be the reason why he managed to get so many of his cartoons published in Syria). Instead, he explained during Friday's discussion, he would focus on "situations". On one occasion, for example, he portrayed corruption by drawing a bag of intravenous fluid which had fish in it. That changed after the closure ofAddomari and he then started drawing recognisable characters, including the president. (Some of Ferzat's cartoons, incidentally, will be on show at an exhibition in London this week.)

In a pre-revolutionary situation artists like Ferzat can play an important role in pushing at the boundaries of permitted dissent. But what about now? Ferzat is unsure: "I don't know if I'm contributing to the revolution or whether my [current] work is a result of the revolution," he said.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising, the struggle for free expression – once the domain of an elite few – has been taken up by many more. That is a dramatic change, as Robin Yassin-Kassab, who was chairing the discussion, noted. "Not very long ago people didn't dare to talk politics, even in their own houses," he said – since they feared the children might repeat something they had overheard.

One interesting but little-discussed aspect of this change, described Donatella Della Ratta of Copenhagen university, has been the war of the slogans.

"Young or old, I am with the law"
Photo: Donatella Della Ratta. Licensed under Creative Commons

It began with a series of pro-government billboards (above) urging people to respect the law. They depicted a raised hand, with messages directed at various sections of the population: "Whether progressive or conservative, I am with the law", "Whether girl or boy, I am with the law", and "Whether young or old, I am with the law". Very quickly, though, their messages began to be mocked and subverted by the masses. Della Ratta writes:

Soon thereafter, parodies of these government posters circulated around cyberspace. Depicting the very same raised hand, each poster carried a different slogan. "I am free," said one raised hand. "I lost my shoes," echoed another – suggesting that the shoes had been thrown at the dictator, a customary symbol of protest in Arab culture. "I am with Syria" featured on other cyber-posters. "I am not Indian," joked another ...

Others adopted the raised hand motif to poke fun at the president's description of protesters as "germs". "We are all germs" became the title of a Facebook page which refers to Bashar al-Assad as "Doctor Dettol" (after the disinfectant).

These, Della Ratta argues, are "examples of citizenship regaining its legitimate place over and above concepts such as 'law', 'nation' and 'unity', which the regime has historically monopolised and manipulated".