American dream expelled from Syria
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - A belated victim of the United States raid into Syria on October 27
was the American school in Damascus. The institution has been a controversial
satellite of US interests in Syria since its founding more than a half-century
ago, and it has often been featured as political football during the two
nations' turbulent, often bitter relationship.
The American school in Damascus, known as the Damascus Community School (DCS),
was one among many US academic institutes that started appearing in the Middle
East in the mid-20th century. Unlike the American University of Beirut (AUB), a
missionary school, or the American College in Aleppo, northern Syria, DCS was
part of American initiative fostered by then-US
secretary of state John Foster Dulles during the Cold War in 1956.
There was no US ambassador in Syria at the time of its founding - as is the
case today - and relations were tense. The White House, under president Dwight
D Eisenhower, had accused the Syrian government of transforming Syria into a
Soviet satellite. Yet a key architect of the school's opening was Syria's
ex-foreign minister Salah al-Din al-Bitar, ironically also one of the two
founders of the Baath Party.
The school's unlicensed status, certainly illegal for a full-fledged school as
far as the Syrian legal system was concerned, went unnoticed from the 1950s and
it remained part of America's policy of promoting American ideals in the Arab
world to challenge the rising trend of communism.
An earlier American school did exist in Syria, founded by Howard Bliss in the
1920s, but DCS was different. It was founded by the American government, not
under any agreement between the Syrian and American ministries of education,
but directly by secretary of state Dulles.
As part of America's foreign policy in the Arab world, DCS was for many years a
success, helping to promote America as a land of opportunity, freedom, and
dignity to hundreds of Syrians. It marketed the American dream and its
graduates went on to American universities in the US, who returned home to
promote America.
Everyone in Damascus is debating the decision of Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad
Naji Otari to close down DCS, and the American Culture Center (ALC) in the wake
of the US raid on the town of Abu Kamal, on the Syrian-Iraqi border, which left
eight Syrian civilians dead. Some say it is a wise symbolic gesture to show
just how angry the Syrians are with the US administration, but others claim
that it has targeted the wrong people, with the 200 Syrian students enrolled at
DCS set to suffer rather than the US government.
The school, which has been given a grace period until November 6 to shut down,
has refused to comment on the ordeal, promising its students homeschooling for
the remainder of the academic year, until a new president comes to power in the
White House. If the victor is Democratic candidate Barack Obama, they feel
symbolic steps will be taken to mend bridges with Syria which could lead to the
re-opening of DCS.
The 200 Syrian students at DCS will need to find other schools to complete
their schooling, and the US, which attaches a great importance to its cultural
mission in the Arab world, will be badly affected by the closure. It has lost
the chance to coach 200 potential ambassadors who could have defended America
to the rest of the world and worked on mending Syrian-American relations.
Syrians who studied at DCS from the 1970s to the 1990s, when Syrian-American
relations were experiencing turbulence, had the luxury to defend the America
they learned about at school. They were brought up learning about the
entrepreneurial spirit of men like Henry Ford and Walt Disney, the leadership
of former president Abraham Lincoln and civil rights leader Martin Luther King,
and the wisdom of former president Franklin D Roosevelt.
They learned US history, and memorized the preamble of the US constitution,
along with the Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment. The American school in
Damascus not only promoted American history, it promoted the American way of
life, much sought after during the 20th century by Arabs and Syrians.
Valentine's Day, a novelty in Syria until the late 1980s, was brought to
Damascus by DCS. On Valentine's Day Syrian students at DCS would exchange
flowers in the morning, and attend a chaperoned dance party at night. Their
wearing of red roses for love, white for friendship, and pink for affection
were blasphemy as far as many Syrians watching the scene were concerned.
But Valentine's Day has now become not only the norm, but also a
much-anticipated social and commercial event in the capital, where entire
streets are colored in red, and roses sell like hotcakes every February 14. Not
only did DCS teach Syrians about Valentine's Day, but everything from prom
nights, school trips to Greece and Italy, and movie nights on campus to Sloppy
Joe sandwiches, made up part of its cultural curriculum.
The entire concept of electives during high school was also new to Syrians, who
were used to compulsory, rigid Syrian education, modeled after the French
curriculum. Student committees were formed at DCS, along with student
elections, and a national honors' society. The school invested in young people,
bringing out talents through sports and sending them to athletic tournaments
around the region, or in extra-curricular activities like drama and debate
clubs.
DCS offered students a variety of courses in subjects like world religion,
computer design, and politics, and did not force them to wear uniforms - a far
cry from the khaki military uniform worn by students from state-run schools.
The school was not big, with only 385 students in its 2007-2008 year, and
charged an astronomical tuition fee by Syrian standards, with annual fees of
around $12,000 for students in grades 9-12. Even well-to-do Syrians have found
the price exceptionally high, and often prefer to send their children to the
local French or Pakistani schools in Damascus.
When US president Bill Clinton came to Damascus in 1994, he was scheduled to
speak to Syrian and American students at DCS, and acknowledge how important
such schools were for building bridges in the Middle East. DCS was directly
affiliated to the US Embassy, with any sitting ambassador being chairman of its
nine-man board.
When Syrian-American relations plummeted in 2005, the Syrians began to
seriously toy with the idea of closing down DCS, and authorities threatened to
not renew the residence permits of American teachers at DCS. A 12-year-old
Syrian schoolgirl from the famous Samman family of Damascus then tragically
died while on a DCS field trip to Palmyra, some 215 kilometers northeast of
Damascus.
The accident was a result of human error - no doubt - but many Syrians blamed
it, at the height of Syrian-US tension, on the American imperialists.
Minister of Education Ali Saad responded by passing strict laws which prevented
any Syrian students from enrolling at DCS, and he stressed the words "no
exceptions". The school's status was put into serious doubt, with authorities
asking why it had been able to operate for nearly 50-years with no license from
the Syrian Ministry of Education.
As a temporary measure to "authorize" the school, ministry authorities forced
it to add four courses - all copied from the Syrian curriculum - in Arabic, for
Syrian students. They included Arabic, and social studies, but not the Syrian
course "patriotism", which teaches Baathist ideology. Even Syrians with dual
nationality at DCS had to take the courses.
School authorities objected to the plans, but were forced to either to accept
them or close down. They eventually agreed, and additionally had to accept a
new co-principal, representing the Ministry of Education, who was tasked with
ensuring the Syrian requests were carried out.
For now, all of that has become history - as could American cultural influence
in Syria. Last week, hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets of
Damascus, chanting anti-American slogans. There was no Syrian in his right mind
who could defend America, now that it been caught red-handed, killing ordinary
Syrians.
The US has yet to come up with a logical explanation for its Syrian raid, apart
from contradicting declarations from military personnel. One was that they had
"no knowledge" of the attack. Another was that the Americans were
"investigating" the raid, yet investigations are usually carried out when a
mistakes occurs or after a minor skirmish.
It is clear that a high degree of preparation went into the raid, on different
political and military levels. Adding insult to injury was the statement made
by a military official in Washington DC claiming the raid targeted a logistic
network for foreign fighters in Iraq, working with al-Qaeda.
The name floating in press reports is that of Abu Ghadiyah, a militant from
Mosul who is part of the terrorist network of Abu Musaab al-Zarkawi, the former
"prince" of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The list of the dead from Abu Kamal proves that there was no Abu Ghadiyah among
them, and not a single "foreign fighter". All of them were Syrian: Dawoud
Mohammad al-Abdullah and his four children, Ahmad Khalifeh, Ali Abbas Hasan and
his wife. What kind of a "terrorist cell" is gunned down in broad daylight and
does not fire back a single bullet in defense?
The US attack lasted for minutes, but its aftershocks will be felt in the
region for a whole lot longer. And its intensity will depend on the Syrian
response, which to date, has been restricted to closing down DCS, and reducing
the number of troops patrolling the Iraqi border.
John Foster Dulles - who attached a great amount of importance to DCS - would
probably been angered by this sad end to the school he helped build.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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