Notes from Syria

In his essay, "Homage to Marcus Aurelius," Joseph Brodsky writes, "The most definitive feature of antiquity is our absence. The more available its debris and the longer you stare at it, the more you are denied entry." Viewing ancient debris might be a pleasurable pastime, but it is also alienating. Time is not friendly.
     When I lived in Lattakia, Syria, an American friend, Iris, gave me an Ugaritic pottery handle for Syrian Teacher's Day. I was a little puzzled by this gift. Inside the card, she had written, "Ugarit was the first alphabet"--a fact I knew. (Before this alphabet, the two known alphabets were hieroglyphics, developed by the ancient Egyptians and cuneiform, from Mesopotamia. Both depend on pictograms. The Ugaritic alphabet used symbols to represent sounds, maybe the ancestor of the European alphabet.)
     "I collect pottery handles. I found it today at Ugarit," Iris said.
     "But is that right?" I asked. Somehow, it seemed wrong to snitch archaeological artifacts from a site.
     Iris shrugged. "No regulation of antiquities in Syria."
     True enough, I thought. Treasure hunters and colonial governments had stolen artifacts throughout history--the Elgin Marbles, the Sphinx's beard (now returned), the Obelisk from Ethiopia, the Benin Bronzes from Nigeria. The Nazis absconded with valuable paintings. The Marbles from the temple that sits atop the Acropolis in Athens was a greater heist than a chipped, earth-colored pottery handle from a little-known Phoenician site in Syria. Lord Elgin had not agonized too much over scruples, but was plenty interested in the gold. The British Ambassador to Constantinople sold the Marble frieze to the British Museum in 1816 for 70,000 pounds sterling ($110,000), now worth 2.8 billion sterling (4.5 billion) (Hall). Now the Greeks were demanding their return. I didn't blame them. Many objects from the world's museums were purloined.
     Should all the cultural treasures of the world's museums be repatriated to their owners? If the treasures belonged to individuals, rather than countries, who should inherit them? What if the original owners were dead?
     The Ugaritic pottery handle that Iris had given me was not dramatic, like the Elgin Marbles or the Sphinx's beard, but was still a jagged reminder of mortality. The Phoenicians hadn’t been around since 1800 B.C.E.
     Like Iris, my grandmother had collected artifacts. She had dug up small Mayan figures on my grandfather's ranch in Mexico, brought them back to Texas and squirreled them away in a tattered, brown suitcase in a dark closet. After my grandmother died, my mother transformed these abstract stone faces into mysterious masks, watercolor wash rice-paper collage. Framed, they now hang in my Cairo apartment--three faces from my mother's imagination, inspired by ancient artifact. Colorful personalities, varied in expression and texture. One is sensitive and observant, eyes cocked to the right, pink, rust, and fuchsia. The pink and black one, with pursed lips is curt and reserved. The colors in the third are cheerful purple, yellow, and pink, but his expression is flat or sad. I didn't take the Ugaritic pottery handle, which looked like the shaft of a penis, back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama with me. I imagined a Syrian customs officer, fishing the pottery handle out of my luggage on my way out of the country. But I wondered why Iris collected pottery handles. She liked Oprah, People Magazine, salacious gossip, romance novels and sewing. Were they emblematic of the boredom she felt as a housewife in Lattakia or did she have a genuine interest in archaeology?
     The site at Ugarit was important, but not flashy. There isn't much left of the royal palace, just fragments of buildings, a few wells, evidence of pipe systems. Enormous cisterns are plunked down in the field, heaps of stone on a grassy knoll, with the dazzling, blue Mediterranean in the background.
     Ugarit was once an international port on the Mediterranean. Present-day Lattakia is a port, but not a bustling one because Syria's overemphasis on regulation discourages active trade. The Phoenicians traded timber with the ancient Egyptians and exported bronzework to the Minoans of Crete. From Lonely Planet's handy summary: "Ugarit fell in 1200 B.C. to the Philistines. The city never returned to its previous prosperity. This marked the beginning of the Iron Age. Ugarit declined because of the changing technology."
     Did tramping through Ugarit and reading a few, dry historical details about the Phoenicians make them any more knowable? Just who were they?
     No color. No anecdotal quality. No story.
     I do have one artifact from a trip to Ugarit, a photograph of me with two Syrian professors. We are sitting side by side on a low hill, which overlooks the site; the remains of stone walls are visible below. Wild, green grass and weeds have gladly overtaken what once were the insides of buildings. A row of cone-shaped fir trees border the site. Beyond is a farmer's field, crops for the living. Manal is relaxed and natural and leans back on her arms. I am leaning forward, peeking. Even though Sherifa's red lipstick is prominent, and her hair is in place, she looks unprepared for the camera.
     Manal was educated in Kiev; Sherifa, in Belarussia. Both were fluent in Russian, but wanted to become proficient in English. They must adapt to a changed political situation. The U.S.S.R. no longer exists and Syria no longer receives aid.
     The photograph from my trip did not make me think of Ugarit, but of Manal and Sherifa and my relationship with them. It is not only the dead who are inscrutable.
     Manal, an engineer, had just returned from Ohio, where she had studied sanitation plants on her Fulbright. Measured and careful, she was serious about her research and sensitive to other people.
     Sherifa was wacky and self-indulgent. In her broken English, she offered me the latest tale of her many suitors. However, her humor camouflaged a genuine sadness, that she could not have a relationship with a man because of her restrictive culture and her unmarried status. She was forty-two, and probably wouldn't marry.
     One day she phoned me and said, "Gretchen, I miss you. When can I see you?"
     When I opened the gate of the courtyard, Sherifa was standing outside with a chubby, unattractive male. He smiled at me expectantly. I was alarmed.
     "How are you?" Sherifa said, kissing me on both cheeks. "This is Dr. Fa'ed Omar."
     "Nice to meet you," I said, as formally as I could muster. Even though Sherifa knew about my relationship with Karim, I suspected this was a set up.
     Soon after I prepared the coffee, Fa'ed said, "I have a conference in Japan. Maybe you can help me. My English is not so good. I need practice. You could come to my Faculty."
     "You are welcome to sit in on the Language Classes I am teaching at the Language Institute," I said. Fa'ed frowned. This was not what he had in mind.
     "I need help with my English. You can come to the Faculty to my office for conversation."
     "As I said, you are welcome to sit in on my classes," I said.
     Sherifa chimed in, "He has a flat. A very nice flat near Ziraa'."
     "My education is Russian. My English is not so good. If I am married to a foreigner, my language would improve," Fa'ed said.
     Sherifa repeated, "He has a flat."
     As if God had said, "There will be no more light," the room suddenly went dark. Where was the stubbed candle in the jelly jar that I kept around for power-cuts? And where were the matches?
     Fa'ed said, "I have a car. Perhaps the three of us could take a visit to my village?"
     I had resolved to keep flashlights in every room. Where were they?
     "Maybe another time. I am busy, working on an essay now," I said.
     Fa'ed said, "I have a car."
     "Is this an advertisement?"
     Neither Sherifa nor Fa'ed knew the word for advertisement.
     After crashing around in the kitchen, I finally found a match and the jelly jar.
     "I am busy, teaching and writing."
     Fa'ed replied, "I am busier than you. Can I use your phone? I have an appointment."
     “Maybe,” I said. We were going around in circles!
     I pointed to the clunky rotary phone I shared with my landlord, Samuel.
     After I ushered him out, I asked Sherifa, "Why don't you marry him? I don't need to get married for a car. I can buy my own car. In fact, I have bought my own car."
     She giggled. "No. I could never marry him. He's not handsome."
     I sighed. These were not the kind of encounters I enjoyed in Syria.
     "Please, Gretchen, do you think you could help me with my Fulbright application. My English is so bad," she said, pulling her application out of her purse.
     Her proposal on potato plants was unintelligible. I got my pen out.

* * *

Great powers fall.
     Countries change. Relationships between them change. People adapt.
     For example, the Crusaders had adapted Roman fortification technology to fit the landscape of Syria. Syria's impressive collection of Crusader castles on mountains, seaside, and on the plain is testified at Qalaa't Salah ad-Din, Musayf, Qalaa't Marquab, Aleppo Citadel, and Krac de Chevaliers.
     The grandfather of these Crusader castles is Krac de Chevaliers. The postcard that I have of the Krac did not do justice to this august castle, which sits on a high plain, facing Lebanon. A mighty moat surrounds the building inside the Castle walls--exactly what I imagined when I studied the Crusaders in elementary school. The moat is dry now. But it's not hard to envision knights perched up high, pouring boiling oil on their Muslim enemies below.
     Hundreds of years later, I visited this castle with Karim, a friend. I studied the moat, while he scrabbled up to the highest tower.
     "Come up," he shouted.
     He had traveled to England to study for his Ph.D. but had never seen this wondrous site near his home.
     He was in a buoyant mood now. The day before, though, one of Assad's personal bodyguards had appeared in our office at the university. Even though I had not been able to follow the Arabic, I noticed the threatening way the man had talked to Karim. When the man finally left the office, I asked, "Who was that man?"
     "One of Assad's personal bodyguards. He wants his niece to pass," he said. Reflexively, he lit a cigarette.
     My daily life in Syria was like the set of the movie, The Godfather. The stuff of fiction, but not fiction.
     "No wonder," I said.
     "I should never have returned. Better to be free and cook in an Indian restaurant in England for my entire life," he said.
     "Really?"
     "You don't know how I have suffered in my life. You have no idea. It's not your country. You can leave any time you like.”
     "I wouldn't say that it's been a Florida beach holiday."
     "It's not a joke," he said, stalking out of the office.

* * *

I had proposed an expedition to the Krac. "Why don't we do something different tomorrow?”
     "Who cares about castles?" he asked, lighting another cigarette. "Is that going to change anything?"
     But the next morning, he was game. We jumped onto a crowded mini-bus from Lattakia; near the castle, the driver motioned to us to get out. We crossed the dangerous highway from Damascus to Lattakia, and found a small bus-stop. There, we waited for the next mini-bus, which took us up to the winding road to the Castle. Karim chatted with the people at the bus stop.
     "This is the right place. We just wait. Why don't you sit down?" he said, pointing to the small bench inside the covered shelter. He enjoyed his role as my escort.
     Knights far from home, who had come to protect Christian shrines and pilgrim routes from Muslims, were sheltered in these castles. After the Conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, there was a 200 year struggle for the Holy Land. The Crusaders compensated for their lack of manpower by building castles along the pilgrim routes.
     When the Crusaders left, the entire area reverted back to Muslim hands.
     Now the conflict with Israel remains the ideological center of Syrian foreign policy. And the wars with Israel (1948, 1967, 1973, 1982) have been a heavy drain on the resources of Syria. Even with Hafez Assad's emphasis on the Arab nation, he still needed the external help of a greater power. Besides the Soviet Union, Syria had few allies in the 1980's, except for Iran and Libya.
     Zenobia, the last queen of Palmyra, decided to go it alone, like present-day Syria. Breaking from Rome, though, was not difficult because Palmyra was not dependent on Rome financially. (Palmyra, which was initially a buffer zone between the Parthians and the Romans, became a Roman colony in 212 A.D. under the emperor, Caracella.) To celebrate her independence from Rome, Zenobia had coins minted of herself and her son. In 271, the Roman emperor defeated Zenobia’s forces at Antioch and Emesa. Rather than surrender, Zenobia tried to escape on a camel through Roman forces. She was captured and taken to Rome, where she was paraded through the streets in gold chains. After her defeat, Roman forces torched her city in 273.
     The story of Palmyra is spectacular, and so is the site, which is located in the desert. A feathery, green oasis of palms creates an abrupt edge at the corner of the desert; a striking contrast of green to sandy-colored earth. The next view is even more dramatic: elegant columns and arches line a large, flat expanse for as far as you can see.
     Karim and I had bounced on a small bus from Homs to Palmyra. However, the locals crammed on the bus had not come to visit the site but their relatives at the Palmyra prison, who had not been taken away in gold chains. The bus was noisy; people smoked and spat sunflower seeds on the floor. Hot wind blew through the open windows.
     A bedouin woman with a tattoo on her face shouted over the din to the man in front of her, "You see, my son is in prison because he skipped out on his military service. He only had two months left and he ran away. He had a fight with his commanding officer. May God help him. Now he's in prison for who knows how long."
     The man shook his head and said, "May God help you."
     "Why is your son in prison?" the bedouin woman asked.
     The man shrugged. He offered her some sunflower seeds.
     Karim asked, "You never heard of the prison at Palmyra?"
     "No," I said.
     "Palmyra, 1980. You don't know?" he asked, incredulous.
     In 1980, Rif'at, Hafez Assad's brother and his forces torched the prison at Palmrya. Shortly after an attempted assassination on Assad by the Muslim Brothers, Rif'at's forces attacked. Sixty of Rif'aat's men entered the prison with orders to "Kill everyone inside." Five hundred inmates died. (In July 1980, the government made membership in the Muslim Brotherhood a capital offense).
     There was a great deal I did not know about Syria. And much, I suspected, I would never know. My immediate physical environment, though, which was not hidden, was drab and gray, except for views of the Mediterranean. The magnificent sites of Krac de Chevaliers and Palmyra were day trips from Lattakia. Inside Tishreen University had the feel of Bleak House, with offices piled high with files and drafty lecture halls. My apartment was not a cheerful retreat from the university, either, especially in January. I huddled next to my tiny, black potbellied stove and refilled it often with mazout, an oily kerosene. My night-time attire was a warm-up suit and a heavy robe. I burrowed under three blankets, like a mole.
     I hid in the closet the four hundred exams, which were divided into brown envelopes and tied together by a piece of sad string. The tutors in town had guessed what question I would ask on my exam: "In his essay, 'The Execution of Tropman,' discuss how Turgenev uses his own experience as a spectator as evidence to support his thesis." Cribbed notes of my lectures were sold in local bookshops. The students bought them to study for my exam. Every morning I sneaked out an envelope and reread my own lecture notes over and over again in varieties of poor English. To stave off madness, I kept the linguistic artifacts on the back of one of the exams: "We have here molded wine." (The spectators drank mulled wine at the execution.) "She says that he was born decomposed." (The murderer or the executioner was born decomposed? Or were they confusing death with birth?) "He was taken to the drowning room." (The murderer was taken to the drawing room.)
     I read The Lonely Planet Guide to Syria and dreamed of viewing castles on spring days.
Many Syrians have not seen the antiquities in their own country, even though the country is small, and the distances are not great.
     When I asked Karim why he had never been to Krac de Chevaliers and Palmyra, he said, "We were too poor. We just didn't travel. The roads were terrible. It took hours to get to Damascus; we always did our business and came back the same day. We only went to Damascus to organize our papers at the government offices. Other than that, I spent all my time waiting in line for bread and oil. There were a lot of problems."
     People who were waiting in line for bread and oil did not have the luxury of viewing ancient monuments.
     "A lot of problems" was a Syrian understatement. Patrick Seales’ informative book, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East details the problems.
     Between 1977-1982, terrorism within Syria was a constant worry. Many prominent citizens were murdered in hit and run assassinations. Patrick Seale notes, "In Aleppo between 1979 and 1980 terrorists killed over three hundred people, mainly Ba'athists and 'Alawis, but including a dozen Islamic clergy who had denounced the murders" (325).
     Suicide bombers were a problem in Syria before such a phenomenon became common in Israel. Daily life included: assassinations, bombs in supermarkets and schools, fires in government stores, and strikes. No one left home after dark.
     Muslim activists, upset by the secular Ba'ath victory in 1963, had organized and gone underground in Aleppo and Hama. Preoccupied with in-fighting, the Ba'ath did not realize militants were forming cells, making contacts, and training men in guerrilla warfare. In Aleppo, in 1963, Shayk 'Abd al-Rahman Abu Ghidda had founded the group, Movement of Islamic Liberation. In Hama, in 1965, Marwan Hadid recruited young men for Kata'ib Muhammad, the Phalanxes of Muhammad. The groups recruited the boys from mosque study circles (322-323).
Muslim activism, though, was not new to Syria. Islamic resistance groups had resisted the French occupation in the late 1930's. Mustafa al-Sibai, who was influenced by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, founded Shabab Muhammad, Young Men of Muhammad. Sibai linked his group to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. However, even with Egyptian support, this opposition had never reigned (322).
     The Muslim opposition, though, was fanned in the late seventies and eighties by a resentment of corruption and hard economic times. Family and friends connected with the regime got rich, while the majority suffered from basic food shortages. In 1976-1977, the Syrian economy had lost steam. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states had reduced their aid because of Syrian involvement in Lebanon.
     Assad himself narrowly escaped death in 1980. Terrorists threw two grenades at him. One grenade, Assad kicked away; a guard threw himself over the other. Assad's bodyguard, Khalid al-Husayn, pushed Assad to the ground and covered him with his body (328).
     The situation during 1982 came to a head in Hama, when "Abu Bakr" ('Ummar Jawwad), a guerrilla commander, declared "jihad" against the Ba'thist state. Hama, which had long been an enemy of the secular Ba'ath, mobilized. Aware of the threat of the underground opposition, citizens loyal to the Ba'ath had also stockpiled arms and ammunition. In the first night, seventy leading Ba'athists were murdered; the guerrillas announced that the city had been "liberated." (333)
     The battle for Hama lasted three weeks, and was waged house to house. Without food, water, fuel, many civilians suffered; some were buried in their homes, which had collapsed in the shelling. Many were also killed in the "mopping up." (The death toll is estimated between 5,000 to 10,000.) Mosques, churches, and ancient monuments were ruined. Entire neighborhoods were razed.
     The experience at Hama made Assad even more suspicious of outsiders. Because he believed the revolt was a foreign plot, he became warier of the West, the Israelis, and his Arab enemies. After Hama, he tightened state control even further.
     The regime had relied heavily on Rif'at al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad's brother, for its "war on terrorism." (Rif'at's army was 55,000 men.) Rifa't commented: "Stalin sacrificed 10 million to preserve the Bolshevik Revolution and Syria should do likewise." And if Islamic terrrorists were going to kill every infidel, he would fight 'a hundred wars, demolish a million strongholds, and sacrifice a million martyrs' " (327).
     When Assad was ill in 1983, generals turned to Rif'at for leadership. Assad was displeased by this and saw it as a challenge to his authority. Shortly after, he began reducing his brother's privileges and power. Rifa't sent his brother, Jamil, to negotiate for him. Assad's answer sounded like Don Corleone, "I am your elder brother to whom you owe obedience. Don’t forget I am the one who made you all" (430).
     Rif'at panicked and tried to protect his remaining power. In 1984, he placed his troops at strategic points in Damascus. Both Hafez and Rif'at forces stood, guns drawn. However, Hafez outfoxed his brother, by bringing his elderly mother from their village, Kerdaha, to stay in Rif'at's home in Damascus. Hafez knew that she had influence over his younger brother (433).
     The standoff could have been bloody. However, Hafez called his brother's bluff, by showing that he was in charge. He dressed in his military uniform and took his son, Basel, with him on a tour of Rif'at's troops. On the way to a meeting with Rif'at, Hafez stopped and ordered one of Rif'at's officers in charge to return to his barracks (430).
     At Rif'at's house, the two brothers faced each other. Assad said, "You want to overthrow the regime? Here I am. I am the regime" (433).
     Hafez won: he was the older brother. And he also knew he had the support of the Russians.
     Soon after, Assad exiled his brother from the country. Perhaps that was preferable to living in a country, which was exiled from the world. On a personal level, my Syrian friends--Karim, Sherifa, Manal, and others--felt cut off. When I wanted to evade the heavy, political reality of Syria, I believed a pleasant day to a site would promise escape. But was that true? Seeing sites forced me to think about the continuum of history, and this included, the modern history of Syria.
     Politics has indirectly affected the viewing of antiquities in Syria. Syria's isolationist policy and negative relationships with the West did not encourage visitors to come to their country.
     Under the new leadership of Hafez al-Assad's son, Bashar, would Syria modify their attitude toward the outside world and adapt to modern technology?
     No trade and no communication with the outside world meant isolation and eventual decline. When the caravans stopped passing through on the Silk Route, Palmyra waned.
     Politics intruded upon the viewing of modern artifacts in Syria, too. My friend, Karen, came to Lattakia once a month for lessons with the 'oud musician, Seif Mohammed. (An ‘oud is a lute instrument.) Both 'oud musicians who Karen studied with did not permit her to take notes or record them. NO RECORDINGS, NO RECORDS, NO NOTES. Her brain bursting with new pieces, musical theory, snippets of conversation. She pretended she had diarrhea, rushed off, and scribbled down what she had learned on a notepad, in a dark, Turkish toilet.
     Did the musicians’ self-protection arise from living with terror too long? Or was it just the clannishness of traditional musicians, who carefully guarded their family recipes?
     Seif Mohammed had a curious artifact in his living room, a crude pencil sketch of Beethoven without his head that he had drawn at sixteen. I wondered why he had kept it. To remind himself that any artist is but a Roman torso without a brain? Did he believe there was genius in his own music? But how would anyone extol his virtuosity if there were no recordings? His 'ouds waited on their bellies, their glossy, bulbous rumps, on faded, velvet chairs. They waited for his Friday salon, when Syrian men in expensive, tailored suits would sit in his bay window, listened and laughed and shouted and sang and argued, about the greatness of the Egyptian singer, Um Kulthum.
     I did not have any artifacts from the night when I went to Seif Mohammed's salon. I do have the memory of Seif Mohammed, plucking his 'oud, while his plump wife sang. The small audience sat in their bay window, entranced by the lyrical music. At the end of the evening, Seif Mohammed presented every member of the audience with a few sprigs of dried lavender--courtly Arab charm.
     Karen was my audience. After we had shared a meal together, she lounged in one of the tattered chairs in my Arabic coffee room, while I read her my Syrian stories. Just as I represented the outside world to the Syrians I knew in Lattakia, Karen was my connection to the world beyond, bringing me news and mail from Damascus. Storing up anecdotes, like a squirrel, I counted the days before her visits. We were both Texans, both Episcopalians, both single, professional women in our late thirties.
     Kare entertained me with stories about Seif Mohammed: "I was trying to play a difficult note, when I saw something scuttling across the floor. But he kept the apartment so dark, I couldn't see. A turtle?"
     "A turtle?" I repeated.
     "Seif Mohammed has a pet turtle."
     We hooted.
     The master was not always loveable. One day, Karen returned from her lesson in tears. "He started shouting at me; told me I was stupid. I left. Did not even say goodbye."
     "Have some lunch," I said, spooning out some green beans from the gigantic tureen on the stove.
After lunch, she washed her face and retired for a nap. In a few hours, she was ready to face Seif Mohammed again.
     "Are you going back for your lesson this afternoon? Why don't you take a break?"
     Her eyes were puffy from crying , but she smiled. "This is why I've come to Syria. I can't waste time. I have to do my research."

* * *

Because I worried about endangering or offending my Syrian friends, I did not show them my writing. I did not even show my work to Karim. Towards the end of my second year, I had mailed most of my work to some trusted friends in the U.S. through the American Embassy pouch. In the end, had I succumbed to Syrian paranoia or had I become as canny as the Syrians? Maybe I just hoped that my writing about Syria would find an audience.
     Artists needed open and insightful audiences. That was only possible if the viewers or listeners had not already made up their minds. Drawn the borders. Borders were erected between men and women; between people of different classes; between the educated and the illiterate; between religious groups; between countries and between ancient time and the present.
     Monuments in Syria are a reminder that great empires are ephemera.
     I have another photograph from Ugarit, one I keep in the drawer in my Cairo apartment. Karim, in his favorite leather jacket, stands inside the ancient, stubbed walls. He points his cigarette at the camera, like a gun. He is joking. He was not thinking of the days when he lined up for bread and oil. The bombings of the '80's. His meager salary at Tishreen Unversity. The urgent needs of his eleven sisters and brothers. His loneliness as a foreign student in England. Or the unbearable tension he must have felt when he saw Hafez Assad's niece and her bodyguards in the lecture hall at Tishreen University. What would they demand from him?
     But five years ago at Ugarit, the day was sunny and warm. Karim and I were showing the rubble of Ugarit to an American couple from Damascus.
     He was enjoying the present moment.


Acknowledgement Page

Brodsky, Joseph. "Homage to Marcus Aurelius." The Best American Essays of 1995. Ed. Jamaica Kincaid and Robert Atwan, Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston and New York, 1995, 1-26.
Hall, James. "Chip off the Old Block." The New Statesmen. Jan. 2001: 4520. Academic Search Elite. Online. EBSCOhost. American University Library.
Humphreys, Andrew & Simonis, Damien. The Lonely Planet Guide to Syria. Lonely Planet Publications: Melbourne, Oakland, London & Paris, 1999.
Seale, Patrick. Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East. I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., London, 1988.

Home