Street sellers in Syria do brisk business in banned books
Many were shipped out of destroyed or abandoned homes after recent battles
Censorship rules remain extremely strict in Syria, as evidenced by the number of titles that were knocked off the shelves at the Damascus Book Fair during the first week of August.
But whatever customers cannot find at the annual book fair, or in bookshops in Damascus, can certainly be found on street displays. The displays are chaotic, sanitation is bad — but there is no censorship.
Some of the books banned in Syria in 2018 include all the works of Lebanese novelist Ameen Maalouf due to his 2016 appearance on Israeli television; the memoirs of former vice-president Farouk Al Shara (because they were published in Qatar three years ago), and all history books, even those published in Syria, with the tri-colour of the flag of independence, which since 2011 has become the banner of the Syrian opposition.
Not far from the Al Assad National Library, where the annual fair has been held for three decades, is a small corner off Shukri Al Quwatli Boulevard.
This is where a handful of book sellers have stood for nearly the same period, in the vicinity of a bus station, side-by-side with sellers of second-hand Tshirts and jeans. Another bunch assembles behind the Umayyad Mosque in the Old City.
Philosophical works
Among the piles of works, one finds plenty of banned books, like the philosophical works of Michel Aflaq, the founder of the Baath Party who was sentenced to death in 1966, and a 1970 biography of Jamal Abdul Nasser, with a forward by Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Junblatt, who is on Damascus’s blacklist.
Also on the blacklist but still on display is an early 1950s work on the Free Officer Revolution in Egypt, authored by former President Anwar Sadat, who Damascus accuses of treason for signing a peace treaty with the Israeli regime. His books, and his autobiography, are officially banned by the Ministry of Information. Students and university professors frequent these displays to get hold of second-hand books, always at a fraction of their original price.
Bookshop owners are furious with this phenomenon, because it affects their pricing.
Adel Matar, who owns a bookshop in Salhieh, told Gulf News: “Don’t go there. It’s not good to buy those books. All of them are stolen from abandoned homes.”
That is partially true, given the large amounts of belongings shipped out of destroyed or abandoned homes in attles in the Damascus countryside. This kind of looting, known as ta’feesh in Arabic, usually applies to LCDs, washing machines, and furniture, which are smuggled out of war zones on motorbikes and sold at the gates of East Ghouta. Of late, militiamen have started taking books as well, seeing that they are also in demand.
Abu Usama, who owns two book shacks, told Gulf News: “We did not steal them but bought them from those who did at Al Hajar Al Aswad and the Yarmouk camp. If we didn’t buy them, they would have been sold to cafeteria owners, where they are shredded and used to wrap shawarma and falafel sandwiches. What we are doing is neither prohibited nor haram. I paid 7,000 Syrian pounds (Dh59) for 20 rare books smuggled out of Al Hajar.”
Under police watch
He adds that entire libraries were also rescued from Yarmouk. Damaged books cost less, he says, taking out two out of three volumes of a dictionary on Damascene families, authored by Syrian scholar Sharif Al Sawwaf.
Two of Mohammad Heikal’s early works, including his first, Iran Fawk Burkan (1951) and Al Okad Al Fansieh Alati Tahkum Al Sharq Alawsat (1958) sell for $1 each. Both classics are out-ofprint, even in Egypt.
When asked how these banned titles sell so freely, Abu Usama laughs: “Don’t think we are not watched or persecuted. They come after us almost daily — members of the Tourist Police who claim that we are not entitled to sell books because we make the city look bad.
“Books don’t look good but arms and roadblocks are okay. There are 15 of us here. We collect an amount from each and pay it regularly in bribe money to the Tourism Police, so that they leave us alone. That’s why we never give our real names to customers, fearing that they are police in disguise.”