Modernization calling. (Photo: AP/Bassem Tellawi) READ MORE, HURT LESS: Palast: Blood in Beirut, $75 a Barrel Terrolympics!

[by Summer Qassim]

Syria has a five year plan to modernize. In the past three years of opening up, an abundance of Western-style cafes and gyms have
appeared, the Saudi-financed Four Seasons hotel has obstructed the mosque-dotted skyline , and deals with Gulf investors are in the works to smarten Syria up.

Sadly, this means an imminent end to "isolationist fashion:" Mustaches, acid-washed jeans, pleated pants, greased-back hairdo's, shoulder-padded leather jackets, and all the other accoutrements that make Syria more like New York's East Village retro-hipster scene than most people realize.

But while modernization plans take years to implement, wars and regional skirmishes can accelerate makeovers in mere days. Since the start of Israeli bombing in Lebanon and the flood of upwards of 100,000 Lebanese into Syria, the streets of Damascus have literally undergone facelifts. Women can be seen strolling around in designer True Religion jeans clutching Louis Vuitton bags and turning Damascus' old city cobble-stoned streets into a makeshift Champs-Elysees, while the already congested Syrian streets are now filled with caravans of massive SUVs with Lebanese and Kuwaiti license plates.

This definitely isn't the image one's mind conjures up at the mention of the word "refugee." And it is one label the brand-conscious Beirutis would shudder at. But that's essentially what they are. The Lebanese disdain for all things Syrian has been cast aside as hundreds
of thousands of Lebanese fleeing the Israeli incursion have taken reluctant shelter in Syria.

Of course, not all are wealthy and designer-clad. The vast majority are much poorer, fleeing villages in the South and Bekaa Valley, most with one set of clothes. They have
been setting up camp in Syria's state schools, two to three families to one classroom in schools that are four or five stories high. One such school/refugee camp is fifteen minutes outside the city, where refugees are bused in the mornings to a Damascene neighborhood to
shower and then return to their makeshift homes. The school houses eight pregnant women, all ready to give birth at any moment.

The woman helping run the shelter asked for four sets of newborn clothes and blankets, hoping the other four babies might wait to make their appearance after Israel stops bombing civilians. The one "blessing" is that the bombing happened in summer, otherwise many of the kids would have had trouble bracing the icy Syrian winter without heating and warm clothes.

The influx of Lebanese refugees is all in addition to the 450,000 Iraqis living in Syria (who haven't done much for Syria's fashionability, since they are the Iraqis unable to pay the $3000 cash entrance fee to Jordan and Lebanon) and the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have lived comfortably as Syrian residents for decades.

The U.S. continues to lambast Syria for supporting Hizbullah and interfering in its itinerary to move from Baghdad to Tehran via Damascus. These blame-tactics are more than just uncomfortable mentions in press conferences and high-school gossip sessions at the
G8 Summit. The U.S. has been instituting a steady squeeze on Syrian imports of
American goods since imposing economic sanctions on American exports
and freezing Syrian assets in the U.S.

But in the midst of a clear plan that has already deemed Syria as part of the "axis of evil," perhaps playing sympathetic host to a spontaneous Lebanese soiree might make Syria even more fashionable to the rest of the region, designer jeans or not.

July 27, 2006

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