Visual Podcast-Syria
Mustafa: If memory serves me correctly, that is the place you seem to mention most often during our talks about your past. I imagine that Syria is where you had the most vibrant social life and the most exciting development career-wise.
Tobias: During my years in Syria, I would say it was one of the most interesting times to be there. That is due to the fact that the UK was investing heavily in the cultural and governance sectors in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) generally. Relations between the West and Syria had been strained for decades at that point, but new political developments were taking place. Syria had a new president who demonstrated a will to open up towards the outside world. I sensed an atmosphere of renewed hope in the cultural sector. The president was known to be anglophile and his wife had been brought up in the
UK as well. These events provided a sort of an open canvas for international cultural exchange organizations.
Syria had become so closed off from the outside world, but historically they had a connection to French colonialism. This also meant that the art scene in Syria such as with visual artists, musicians, dancers, orchestras, and writers was valued generally. One could be an artist and still make a living. This contrasted with Europe, as artists there seemed to always need external funding to survive.
Mustafa: between 2003 and 2008 is also when the internet started to become faster. I suppose that the dictatorial regime took its time to catch up with the freedoms that the internet made available. We all know what the Facebook-Twitter-facilitated Arab Spring eventually brought about in that country.
At any rate, historical cultural connections to French secularism resulted in a socio-political environment where expression in the form of art and aesthetics could prosper, just so long as it did not transgress on the legitimacy of the ruling regime.
Tobias: Very much so. As to my time there, Syria had applied to become the cultural capital of the Arab World in 2008. A lot of preparations were underway to host the event.
September 11 had just occurred not too long ago, and the UK was realizing the importance of showcasing Middle Eastern art, theatre, and music in the UK. We would also bring over musicians from the UK in Syria. That was our way of facilitating social and cultural exchange.
Mustafa: I hear you mention arts much more than education or teaching English.
Tobias: Yes. My work in Syria focused much more within the art scene. I delegated responsibilities related to teaching English and conducting exams to a manager. I really cultivated my experience in the direction of the arts in Syria.
Mustafa: Tell me about the cross-border collaborations which you spear-headed.
Tobias: My role entailed being a regional manager for arts collaborations between the NENA region and the UK. This gave me access to a network for arts and cultural organizations in countries in the near east such as Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and then there was North Africa in places such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco.
We ended up with really interesting large-scale collaborations. An example of that was the London Book Fair, which for a year chose to assign the Middle East as their guest. We facilitated the creation of links between publishing houses in the Middle East with counterparts in the UK. We searched for and engaged Arabic authors, so that the public in the UK could walk into any bookshop and find original Arabic literature translated into English.
Another project involved the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), whereby we were able to fundraise about half a million dollars. That was a huge feat for us. The massive project entailed hosting in Damascus a large-scale exhibition of historical ceramics. So much logistical planning went into the project. The exhibition was hosted in a historic caravanserai. In ancient times, places like this would serve to host commercial caravans as they moved along travel routes. We had to secure the location and create a roof, and then we had to design every little detail down to the showcases and the labels. Then there was the challenge of flying in a plethora of ancient, priceless ceramic works which spanned pre-pharaonic times to modernity. We had huge, blue pharaonic staffs which were thousands of years old and very delicate. There was work that came in from the far east from Japan and China. The event was huge and historic.
The Syrians I worked with were so enthusiastic. We hired a Syrian project manager, and she had a great network of really interested individuals and entities. She herself had worked on research with the V&A in the past. The event was emblematic as to the cultural opening of the country to the outside world, which had been hitherto unprecedented in modern times.
Mustafa: Such an interesting historical time period for that region you found yourself in.
Post 9/11 but before the Arab Spring events. People born in 2001 are close to their early 20s now, so it was almost a different generation of youth that you found yourself amongst.
Tobias: Yes. Another project we worked on involved the Royal Court in London. We had theatrical writers showcase their plays in London through translation.
Mustafa: All of this was taking place during times when the world was not nearly as interconnected -geographically or even virtually- as it is now in 2020.
Tobias: The world wasn’t interconnected; the world was recovering from 9/11. There had been a renewed interest in the peoples of the Middle East.
What are these people? What are they thinking? The only public discourse available for that part of the world constituted either the result of a distorted orientalism on the one hand, which was no more than
romanticised exotic stereotypes, and the prejudicial narratives of terrorism on the other hand. There was no ‘in-between’ that. Our collaborations served to shed light on a vast majority of people who were just ‘normally’ interested in going to museums, in engaging with music, in looking at arts and in conducting cultural exchange. Unfortunately, one would want that kind of view of peoples to be the default, but we recognized the value of our work in a reality of international relations characterized by fear and distance.
Mustafa: At any rate, the Middle East is a highly conservative part of the world. I do, however, also recognize how the advent of the internet with its flexible platfroms has allowed indie voices to significantly shift the middle of the mainstream in popular culture. In my view, Arab indie artists, musicians, writers, and social commentators have become so vocal that the mainstream now considers conversations which were taboo in the past. That applies to topics such as secularism, sexual minorities or even peace with Israel.
Tobias: Back then, these indie voices existed only on the local levels. Even people from the same town might not have heard of them, let alone shaping the mainstream conversations of 300 million speakers of the Arabic language.
Mustafa: Your collaborative projects were providing them with a platform to function at a time before the internet took over in the way that it did. I often attempt to be optimistic about the movement to depict Arabs and Muslims in mainstream Western discourse in a light that doesn’t always have to involve terrorism or national security. These genuine works and productions are slowly making their way into the mainstream now, ironically against a backdrop of a rise in right-wing politics generally.
To shift the conversation a bit, you made friends for life in Syria, didn’t you?
Tobias: Absolutely!
Mustafa: You often speak very fondly of your place of residence in Damascus. Say something about that.
Tobias: I was one of the first ‘senior’ British people to have moved into the old historic city of Damascus. I rented a house from a visual artist who had hired an architect who renovated whilst preserving the old character of the house. The owner of the house himself care so much about the conservationist aesthetic aspects.
Mustafa: So it was an old building built in a style that had existed for centuries, with a courtyard and a fountain with mosaics and wooden doors all over the place.
Tobias: The kitchen sink where I did my washing was a Roman fountain which was carved perhaps 2000 years ago.
Mustafa: A great place to host parties, I bet!
Tobias: I hosted amazing parties. If there was nothing to talk about, we could definitely always talk about the house.
Mustafa: The description of the house reminds me of those Syrian TV shows produced in the 2000s which became very iconic for depicting the 19th and 20th century. I imagine they were filmed in the old city.
Tobias: They were basically filmed on my street. I would often come home from work and observe them right there, busy with filming them.
Going back to the indie artists, I remember a project where we brought together musicians from all over NENA and linked them with a group of musicians from the UK. We arranged for everyone to stay together in London for about a month, and they came back with fantastic fusions which they toured around the UK to perform. They played in Spitalfields, which is a hip and trendy part of London, and then went on to perform in Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, and maybe a couple more places. Afterwards, they toured the NENA region to hold concerts all over. It was such an amazing and rewarding experience to see these musicians create such unique works and perform not only in the UK, but also around NENA.
Mustafa: And LGBT culture was left to its own devices by a ruling regime which was secular, albeit authoritarian.
Tobias: I would say that. One might be tempted to think of Syria as a small country, but at the time the population was around 27 million. Damascus was a very hustling and bustling city, and so was Aleppo, so a lot of different walks of life existed with a common denominator of recognition to stay far from criticizing the regime. People who dared to do so were often made examples out of.
Mustafa: Gay people could get together and anything went? What about hate crimes?
Tobias: Violence and intolerance towards LGBT people existed of course, many families rejected their own kin. Nevertheless, there were many circles of open-minded people. Gay-friendly establishments existed in the right parts of town and within the right groups of people.
Mustafa: Even in the most conservative cities, LGBT people and allies historically created safe spaces to live out their truth.
Tobias: Also, my group of people tended to be very open and internationally-oriented. Their views would be socially more liberal than the average populace would have held. Gay bars and cruising saunas were not far off, and a degree of normalcy for LGBT people did exist.
Mustafa: I guess even in Amsterdam or San Francisco, there are neighbourhoods where two men wouldn’t dare hold hands.
Let me ask you to make a comment about war and security, or even politics in general.
Tobias: The 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel happened in Lebanon while I was posted in Syria. Lebanon was very close and we often went to the capital Beirut for work and pleasure. After the war ended I went there once and the devastation was just shocking.
Absolutely horrific. All the roads were destroyed; the bridges were destroyed. We could actually hear the bombs going off all the way in Damascus.
During many of my postings, I did not have an ever-present sense of danger, but the notion that war could always be around the corner did make me lose sleep. I was a senior employee and responsible for a staff of about 50 people. I often thought: what if?!
This is why for my next posting I opted to apply and be interviewed for a posting which I thought might be ‘safe,’ as it were. I applied for a posting in the South Caucuses which placed me in charge of operations in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in 2008. Little did I know!
Mustafa: Oh my God the war in Georgia with Russia around 2008!
Tobias: Precisely! After I was finished in Syria, I went to Greece on a family holiday. I was sitting in a little hotel by a secluded beach with my parents when the news on the TV showed footage of tanks and bombs. I thought I heard them say Georgia and thought to myself: oh no I need to be there in 3-weeks’ time! The Russians literally invaded to within 50 kilometers of the capital Tbilisi where I was due to travel to.