Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
10/01/2007 - Issue 9
Colette Khoury: Come see Syria first, then judge
by Scott C. Davis
I first met Colette in 2001 when she invited me to her flat to a gathering of friends and family that included the playwright Riad Ismat and the historian Sami Moubayed.
Colette was effusive and mixed light-hearted banter that always seemed to find its mark with more serious and shrewd observations that were compelling in their logic. Her thinking was distinguished by its reason. After the inauguration of President Bashar al-Assad, for example, the new president quickly freed the country’s political prisoners, turned prisons into hospitals, authorized in-dependent newspapers and magazines, announced the new policy of encouraging private banks and private universities, and numerous other measures.
In response, the new president was criticized by members of the opposition who complained that he had not gone far enough. Colette took a longer view. “Bashar al-Assad has given us reforms that we have wanted for many years,” she told me. “To do this, he has overcome resistance that has prevented such reforms in the past. Now is the time to support him and to encourage his reform project to move forward.” Colette’s support of the current president and his father, Hafez al-Assad, belies the difficulties that she and her family experienced during the early years of Baath rule.
In 1963, when the Baath Party came to power, her father was quickly jailed for his political views. During these years, many Syrian intellectuals led the country, but Colette chose to stay. She once told me about the time she took a short visit to Beirut. On her return trip, she was denied entry on the Syrian-Lebanese border. “I was being excluded from my own country,” she explained to me. “Fortunately, I was able to make a phone call, and I got through to Hafez Assad (one of the three military rulers who shared power at this time) and, on his order, I was allowed to return home.”
Within contemporary Syria, Colette is an example of the traditional class of urban notables who have found a way to maintain their loyalty to Syria during troubled political times. Her grandfather, Faris al-Khoury, was a graduate of the American University of Beirut in the first years of the century, and served as a member of the long suffering group of Syrian statesmen who patiently op-posed French occupation from 1920.
As the first Christian prime minister of a predominantly Muslim country, Faris al-Khoury attended the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco in April, 1945. Colette’s grandfather encouraged her pursuit of an independent life as a writer and an artist. It’s perhaps fitting that, from 1990 to 1995 she served as an independent member of parliament—her way of doing honor to her grandfather’s judicious political leadership.
Several years after I first met Colette, I brought a group of Americans to Syria—Americans who had never before traveled to the Middle East. She welcomed us and engaged in another tour de force as hostess and raconteur. Later, my friends from the US told me that her urbane, intelligent manner—as well as her obvious humanity—made an indelible impression and created the perfect frame for their experience of Syria.
Shoukran Imam, the wife of the late painter and teacher Fateh Moudarres, tells me that many women who were coming of age in the early 1960s hold Colette in awe. In 1959, Khoury published Days with Him (Ayyam Ma’ahou). The main character in the book was a young woman from Damascus who rebelled against the strictures of family and faith to pursue the man she loved and to seek fulfillment in her work. The novel was a best-seller in the Arab world. Within Syria, this book was a declaration of independence for women and is roughly comparable to Betty Friedan’s noniction work The Feminine Mystique in the US, which was published in 1963.
“I remember Days with Him very well,” said Shoukran Imam. “I would read this book in bed when my parents thought that I was sleeping. It opened the world to me.” After the 1970 Corrective Movement saw the emergence of Hafez al-Assad as Syria’s president, Khoury’s popular celebrity was bolstered by official recognition. Following the 1973 October War with Israel, for example, Colette published the novel Bright Days (Al-Ayyam al-Mudi’a): the government made the book required reading for eleventh grade students in Syrian schools. To inform readers about Colette Khoury’s current activities, I have asked my friend George Meassy to meet with her and to convey my questions. Colette’s responses follow:
In your new capacity as Adviser to the President on Literary Affairs, what are you planning to do to help Syrian writers? Please mention one or two young women writers whom you feel would be of interest to the English speaking world.
As you know we have the Union of Arab Writers (UAW) that has assisted Syrian and Arab writers for many years. The UAW provides medical help, pensions, paid travel abroad, and a certain degree of financial support for book printing, among other things. I am a member of the Union, and it is my usual habit to give my opinion clearly and outspokenly—especially to help any writer to get the assistance that he or she deserves. I will continue to advocate for individual writers in my current position. There are many young women writers that are worthy of attention. I can remember now as an example Dr. Haifa Bitar and Aniseh Abboud.
What are your opinions on the status of women in Syria? What are the most promising current efforts (public or NGOs) that aim to improve the lot of women?
I would first like to give my opinion on women in general in the whole world. Women are not only half the human society but they are actually all of it. If women are half the society in number, the other half is women-made. This opinion of mine is very well known ever since I started writing. As for the situation of women in Syria believe that it is better than the situation of women in many foreign countries.
For example, a Syrian women that holds the same university degree or certificate of professional training that a man holds, does receive the same salary that a man receives in the state. It is not as such even in the United States where salary of a man is always higher than the salary of a woman with the same qualifications. In Syria, all social and political fields are open to women, hence we find women occupying very important positions in the state such as vice president, member of the parliament, minister, and supreme judge.
Women in Syria with high-ranking jobs are honored by men. On the contrary, in some western countries women perform difficult high ranking jobs and receive no recognition among men. The thing that bothers me most in the West—in Europe and the United States—is the violence practiced against women. By contrast, violence against women does not exist here in our country where the family is the basis of society. We do not know the fearful loneliness that indi-viduals suffer in Western society. As for the question about current efforts to improve the situation of women, I see that it contradicts what you said your-self because the situation of women in Syria is very good. Arab women have to prove now that they are capable, reliable, trustworthy and sufficient. It is very important to add here that women in Syria have practiced the right of voting since 1949 and have been eligible for election to the parliament since 1953. In these two areas, Syrian women preceded their equals in most other countries of the world.
The pride of Syria is its strong and enduring families. Syria has far lower crime and other social ills than Western countries … whose families are not so strong as those in Syria. On the other hand Syrians are criticized because, in the past, their families restricted the rights of women. For example the right to choose a marriage partner, the right to divorce, the right to choose a career. Please comment.
I agree with you. The family is the strong foundation for social authenticity and progress. As for what you say that Syria is criticized because, in the past, they restricted the right of women; you yourself are saying this is some-thing of the past. This is an old vision, old history. Time has left all such things behind. I would like to suggest that people should not criticize a certain subject if they ignore what it is. Or at least they should not criticize before they see and experience. In a larger perspective, I wish that people in far countries would not talk about the Syrian people before they visit us in Syria. I would like to ask all individuals that wish to form an opinion about Syria to wait until they come and see us.
What projects are you working on currently?
I am working hard on composing a history of Syria based on the papers of Faris al-Khoury. He was one of the he-roes of independence in Syria and the President of the Security Council of the United Nations for two consecutive periods: 1947 and 1948. In addition, I am pursuing my usual literary thinking and writing.
