NEW TRENDS DISTURB AN OLD BALANCE
Obaida Hamad
Syria Today
com_content&view=article&id=1430:new-trend s-disturb-an-old-balance&catid=31:society& Itemid=6
May 5 2009
Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the Middle East and has for
hundreds of years been a global centre for trade and culture. It has
also long served as a model for peaceful coexistence between Muslims,
Christians and other religions.
Today, however, the arrival of new communities from the countryside
is changing the social make-up of the city.
Original inhabitants of Aleppo – Christians, Muslims and Jews – live
side by side in mixed neighbourhoods like Jamaliyah. But as the city
has expanded, its fabric has changed. Areas that were once outlying
suburbs have now been absorbed into the city itself and, unlike the
old neighbourhoods, they are not mixed. Al-Furqan, a new and wealthy
part of Aleppo, is virtually exclusively Muslim, while Surian Jdeideh
is known as a Christian area. Newcomers from the surrounding villages
and the Jazeera area have also moved into the city, bringing with them
conservative ideas. Many of them have never met a Christian before and,
as a result, consider them to be foreigners.
"Original inhabitants coexist with Christians and are more open than
those who came from the countryside and who have never met or lived
with Christians," Boutros Marayati, head of the Armenian Catholic
Church in Aleppo, said. "They don’t have the same position as the
Aleppans. They don’t know what a Christian is and maybe they feel we
are not original citizens, that we are from Europe and maybe these
people adopt a fanatical position. They don’t want to coexist. It’s
not all of them – some of them."
Coexistence threatened
Moderate Muslim leaders in Aleppo are also concerned about a trend
they fear could lead to an increasingly segregated society prone to
extremism. Such tendencies are being fuelled, they say, by a few
intolerant preachers and community leaders who have arrived from
rural areas and who espouse a more radical form of Islam.
"I’m afraid for the future," Mahmoud Ali Akam, one the city’s senior
Islamic figures and a member of one of its oldest families, said. "We
cannot control the newcomers who live around Aleppo, we cannot control
their speakers."
Akam, who preaches at the Tawhid mosque in the Christian-dominated
Aziziyeh area of Aleppo – a mosque located between two churches –
said he was trying to counter the ultra-conservative interpretation
of Islam.
"In our Friday speeches we talk about coexistence and unity to
counter their talk," he said. "We always come with evidence that
when Christians and Muslims were living together Islam was strong;
that Islam is stronger with coexistence, not weaker because of it."
Not far from the city centre lies the neighbourhood of Beni Zaid,
an impoverished illegal settlement for newcomers that stands in stark
contrast to the surrounding areas. It sits uneasily in modern Aleppo,
like a village, complete with traditional habits, fashion and tribal
practices. In old Aleppo churches and mosques stand together. In
Beni Zaid – named after a Jazeera tribe – there are no churches,
just dozens of small mosques. The infrastructure is rudimentary;
roads are not paved, there is no running water, no sewers.
Most of Beni Zaid’s residents are uneducated and the children do not
go to school. Adults try to find menial work in restaurants, factories
or as drivers. Those who fail to get a job live by scavenging from
waste dumps.
"These places are hidden from the view of original Aleppans, they just
don’t know about these poor suburbs because they never have to come
here," Khalid Zinklo, correspondent for the daily Syrian newspaper
Al-Watan, said. "These areas have problems with poverty, and there
are all the associated issues, perhaps drug abuse and conservatism,
the things that happen in deprived areas."
Mar Gregorious Yohanna Ibrahim, head of Aleppo’s Orthodox Syriac
community, said city leaders had to vigorously push the ideas of
tolerance and coexistence.
"There is coexistence but that doesn’t mean everyone agrees," Ibrahim
said. "Our enemy, both Muslims and Christians, is one and the same:
ignorance. We have to continue our participation together as a single
community, not divided religious communities. Dialogue should be
encouraged, in schools, hospitals and in the theatre of daily life."
Fears overblown
While perhaps more conservative than Aleppo’s traditional families,
there is disagreement about whether recent immigrants pose a threat
to the city’s tolerant nature. Even some senior Christian figures
are sceptical about the claim.
"Christians are a minority and can have a minority complex about
this," Reverend Haroutune Selimian, president of the Armenian
Evangelical Community, said. According to Haroutune, newcomers might
be conservative, but that does not make them extremists.
Likewise, Mohammad al-Shami, the former director of Aleppo’s Religious
Affairs Department, said his city’s religious devotion ultimately
guaranteed tolerance and coexistence between Muslims and Christians.
"If some people believe Aleppo is a fanatical city, I say ‘yes’,"
Shami, who has served in the post for some two decades, said. "But
what does that mean? When Christians are committed to their religion,
Christianity teaches them how to respect and love the other. If Muslims
are committed to Islam, Islam also teaches them that all creatures
are from God and the person who is closest to God is closest to the
people. So how can Aleppo be an intolerant city when it is full of
sincerely religious people?"