Butt out
Damascus - Even as Syria is opening up culturally and economically, it’s closing down in another area: smoking.
In October, the country’s parliament passed an anti-smoking law restricting the sales and marketing of tobacco products and prohibiting smoking in public places. For a country as hooked on tobacco as this one, that’s a draconian measure.
It’s hard to think of any other place with which smoking is more closely associated. It’s popular among young and old and with women as well as men. Some 60 per cent of adult men smoke, as do 23 per cent of adult women.
While neighbouring Iraq is worried about the infiltration of insurgents and the smuggling of weapons across its frontier with Syria, Damascus is concerned about the massive amount of contraband cigarettes brought into Syria from Iraq. The French brands Gauloises and Gitanes are among the most heavily smuggled products across the Syria-Iraq border.
More than cigarettes, however, are covered by the smoking ban that commences in April. The narghile, or water pipe, also is being prohibited in public places and, to many Syrians, that is a national travesty. More than 20 per cent of men and 6 per cent of women are regular narghile smokers.
And while people may be able to nip outside to have a quick cigarette, it’s pretty hard to lug a narghile outside.
Cafés such as the al-Rawda thrive on the narghile trade. It’s an old downtown café frequented mostly by men who come to play cards, or backgammon, sip small cups of sweet black coffee, talk and smoke narghile. Decent ventilation keeps the cloud to a minimum, but the sweet and acrid smells of the different scents of tobacco being used is like breathing in a fruit salad.
It’s an unforgettable aroma, and a very pleasing one, even for a complete non-smoker like me.
Syrian men read the newspaper and smoke a traditional waterpipe at a cafe in Damascus.
The owner of al-Rawda told Syria Today, an English-language magazine, that he’ll be able to cope with the new law by designating the café’s courtyard as the smoking area, and all the enclosed spots around the sides as non-smoking. But it’ll be sad to see the atmosphere change, he said.
Nouri Eskandar, 71, has been a regular at the al-Rawda since moving to the capital from Aleppo two decades ago.
A composer of Syriac religious music (he was the first person to write down the music of the Syriac Orthodox faith, a music that had been passed on orally), Mr. Eskandar prefers his cigarettes to the water pipe, but treasures the atmosphere of places such as this.
“A lot of the changes taking place today are positive,” he said, “especially opening up to other cultures.”
“But I worry that we may lose our traditional Syrian character before we know it.”
All the news that’s fit to omit
It takes a while to put your finger on it, but one of the things missing from Damascus’s café life is newspapers. There’s no real reading culture in Syria, not as you’ll find in Beirut, Cairo or Jerusalem. People here sit in cafés empty handed; corner stores sell cigarettes and chips, but no newspapers or magazines. You have to look hard to find either of them.
One of the reasons is undoubtedly the heavy hand of censorship that was, until recently, predominate here since the early 1960s. When people couldn’t read much worth reading, they didn’t bother, and fell out of the habit.
Things are definitely looking up in the reading department, especially for English-language readers. There now are two monthly magazines in English, both surprisingly informative, and, as of this past week there now is an English-language newspaper.
But despite the liberalizing of all the media, the heaviest censor’s hand may be the one that’s self-administered.
