What I Saw in Damascus |
I grew up in the Netherlands in a secular family, shaped more by observation than belief. We had a deep respect for Jewish culture and religion, and, if I am honest, a quiet skepticism toward Christianity. That may sound unusual given that I attended Catholic and later Christian schools, including a military pre school when we lived in Germany. Yet I never felt a sense of belonging there. Faith, as practiced around me, often felt closed rather than welcoming.
Everything changed in 1978, when my father was sent to Syria under the old Assad regime. I was young, but old enough to absorb what I saw and to recognize, even then, that something was deeply off. We had just settled into life in Damascus when elections were announced. That word, elections, carried a certain meaning in my Dutch upbringing. It implied choice, debate, and freedom. What I witnessed instead was something else entirely.
My father was invited by a Syrian woman whose husband had died in the Yom Kippur war. From her home, we could look out over the street. What unfolded felt like a performance rather than a civic process. Massive parades filled the roads. Schoolchildren marched in formation. Military vehicles rolled by. Men fired guns wildly into........