The Road from Damascus

by Robin Yassin-Kassab

  The hall was stilled. Everybody stationary. The dreadlocked headphone couple stood up slowly and pressed their backs to the back wall.

  29

  Reclaim, the Streets

  The Westway above Shepherd’s Bush was thunderous not with traffic but rebellion. Or with the techno sound which signalled one self-conscious sort of rebellion. A high-stacked sound system set up against the base of the central reservation was blasting a trance version of Public Enemy’s ‘Party For Your Right to Fight’, which is what several thousand young and older were doing, shaking, swigging, smoking, smooching. Drumming and juggling. And agitating: a long Reclaim the Streets banner was hung from the flyover railings. Because this wasn’t Carnival. Carnival had been a fortnight before. Here on the Westway, which Carnival never touched, anarchist flags flew. A Jamaican flag. A Palestinian flag. A ganga-leaf flag. Children of the radicals kicked castles over in a sandpit hastily constructed on the east-bound carriageway. There was free food of the bean and brown rice variety being ladled out. Stalls selling natural highs, on both carriageways, and thin men moving through the crowd advertising ‘Bush, Bush’. A lot of shabby-as-normal people, some surprised in formal working clothes, alongside others dressed especially for the bacchanal and masquerade, like the clowns and the silly top hats. Like the women on stilts under whose absurdly hooped skirts hidden eco-guerrillas drilled holes in the tarmac, holes to be filled with peaty soil and small trees smuggled from black bin liners, and before that liberated out of commercial forests in the Home Counties. The structure heaved and vibrated under all this weight. It heaves under the weight of cars and lorries too, but on ordinary days there are no feet to feel the heaving. The smoke of spliffs and sparklers rose, but no petrol carbonate, not from this half-mile of concrete, not at the moment. The Trellick Tower glistened from the east. Wormwood Scrubs prison visible to the north, and towers and inter-arterial no-man’s-land to the south.

  Sami was there, reading a leaflet. The whole of our enculturation, it said, consists of being told to stay inside. Remember Don’t Talk To Strangers, Keep Off The Grass and No Ball Games? We’re told that outside doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to private vehicles, to business! Reclaim The Streets says Bollocks to that! Dis-enculturate yourself! Clean your brain out! Go Outside! Go into the streets!

  He’d come because GR had invited him. She’d promised revolutionary action the day she’d driven him from police cell to Muntaha. The day Muntaha told him to leave. GR made good her promise: stopping cars was her revolution, at least her first step. It looked like a little bit of fun, but not so much fun that Sami would feel guilty or overcome by it. Still avoiding hedonism, he’d only skirted the edge of Carnival (all his life was there in the noise and the throng: old Moroccan ladies swaying on the pavement, liberal Arabs on the al-Muhajir float, spliff and lager, reggae and hip hop, the steel pans you hear practising when you walk canalside in the summer, booming systems, The Final Call sold by Nation blacks, and Muntaha in it somewhere munching a corn on the cob, watching the procession). But this Reclaim the Streets thing was new for him, and new was good. It had nothing to do with Muslim or Arab controversies. Enough of that with Rashid Iqbal and bullets in the ceiling. Enough of that with Marwan and Mustafa.

  Global Resister in karate kit handed him a clay mugful of carrot juice.

  ‘Shutting the city to cars, Sami, is opening it to us. Opening our lungs too. The combustion engine is the single worst invention of capitalism, I tell you. Just filth. Smoke for the lungs, heat for the planet, cash for the bosses.’

  He remembered his driving lessons, a dirty secret.

  ‘Where’s the public space,’ GR cheerily continued, ‘except when we steal it back? You know, we used to have town centres, common land, public squares where we could meet and talk and sing and protest. Now a square is something for cars. Something for privatized transport. We’re only allowed to walk across it at designated points, when the lights tell us we can. Town centres are corporate owned. Instead of markets we have malls. All policed and mood-controlled and surveyed by closed-circuit TV.’

  The space was increasingly rammed. ‘Street Now Open’, signalled a sign. And: ‘Car Culture: No Future’. And: ‘Road Rave’, the ‘v’ busting a ‘g’ out of its way.

  ‘Where’s Tom?’

  ‘He thinks it’s too late for this kind of resistance. He’s a pessimist. And he doesn’t want to be seen by the cameras.’

  Police vans at the protest perimeter banked against the human flow, and policemen wielding shock-absorbent cameras standing on the bonnets. Lenses also extended from helicopters which Sami hadn’t remarked. You stop noticing helicopters in London just as you stop noticing flies in Syria. Some of the Reclaim the Streets hardcore, the people working the drills, wore balaclavas and kuffiyehs.

  ‘But he should have come,’ said GR. ‘Don’t you feel optimistic, being here?’

  Sami searched and found an abdominal effect not unlike belief. ‘I do,’ he said.

  ‘That’s the power of direct action. It gives you a sense of your own strength. It shows you what you can achieve. You’re interested in the Arabs. It’s a good time for the Arabs too, isn’t it? At last.’

  So here we go. Arab controversies. But from a new, non-Arab perspective.

  ‘Why do you say so?’

  ‘The Intifada, for a start. I know it’s sad they’re being shot. But it’s good to see them in open rebellion. It’s an inspiration. It’s terrifying the ruling class.’

  She wore only karate trousers and a karate jacket. And sandals. Hair tied up and flowering from the crown of her head. Bird’s feet of enthusiasm radiating from the sides of her eyes and mouth.

  ‘It looks unstoppable,’ she said. ‘It looks like nothing can be done to quieten them. Wouldn’t the Israelis like them to get out of the streets! And the Americans, and the Arab rulers. But the streets are being reclaimed. In Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia. You know, even the Gulf Arabs are in the streets demonstrating for Palestine. Gulf Arabs out in the streets for the first time ever!’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Sami. ‘It’s something to be proud of.’

  ‘And Hizbullah kicking the Israelis out of Lebanon. There’s a turn-up for the books. Farmers defeating a First World army. People liberating themselves.’

  ‘It was impressive.’ Sami shouted over ballooning music.

  ‘And so well managed, media-wise. They were doing what we’re doing today. Making their own spectacle. Remember when they liberated that prison?’

  ‘Khiyam prison. You saw that?’

  ‘Oh yeah. It was so emotional. When they broke down the doors and let the prisoners out, these prisoners who’d been tortured. There was a BBC report. And someone sent me translated footage from Al-Jazeera. And the Hizbullah channel.’

  ‘Al-Manar.’

  ‘That’s it. Very inspiring.’

  Sami handed back his mug.

  ‘It’s all hopeful,’ GR said. ‘This breed of Islamist, like Hizbullah. They’re very interesting. You know, it reminds me of liberation theology. South American leftist priests. You know about that?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘I’ve read Hizbullah speeches. It’s not knee-jerk reaction. It’s not just anti-Jewish stuff. What’s he called, the boss?’

  ‘Nasrallah.’

  ‘That’s him. Hassan Nasrallah. One of his big influences, apparently, is Che Guevara.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. You know, that kind of religion, politicized, can shake things up. One place Marx went wrong is religion. He didn’t understand how much people need it. Opium maybe, but what’s so wrong with opium? People need a painkiller sometimes. They need a drug to give them visions. Capitalism’s been winning because it says that drugs are all right. It doles out drugs.’

  ‘Capitalism doles out drugs?’ Sami bemused.

  ‘See what I’m saying. Not literally. Consumerism’s a drug. Advertising’s a drug. The idea that you can spend your way to fulfilment, that’s a dr
ug.’ GR gasped with a fresh idea. ‘But literally too. All the corporate-administered drugs. Nicotine, alcohol, Prozac.’

  ‘All right. I see what you mean.’

  ‘So the Islamic movement seems to have captured the imagination of the masses. It’s given them a revolutionary vision. Tom thinks there’ll be some kind of massive escalation now to counter it, but like I said, Tom’s pessimistic. I can’t see the Intifada being countered. What I see is it spreading to all the Arabs, and then to here too.’

  Sami left GR to another of her friends and bumbled grinning through the crowd a while, sugared-up on the candyfloss of her predictions. Amid the general drunkenness and staggering there were groups involved in similarly rosy educational sessions, pointing at text in leaflets, tracing historical inevitability through the air with wide-arcing fingers. Some talking about the fighting at Rashid Iqbal’s speech, testing out who-shot-the-shot conspiracies. The fact that the fired bullet had been found in the ceiling laid events wide open to interpretation. The sort of people who shut down motorways blamed neo-Nazis or the police, or a combination of the two. The newspapers and the police (although the police hadn’t explicitly said so) had their money on vengeful but clumsy Islamic fundamentalists, aiming for Iqbal. Iqbal had made no comment. Ammar and Mujahid blamed Zionists in the British government preparing the atmosphere for an anti-Muslim crackdown. Sami suspended judgment.

  The wind was whipping up. It was a clear sky but with a late-lunchtime haze gathering. A tint of autumn in it. A touch of cold. Panning down again, Sami noted several others gazing upwards, more than seemed natural. Man is the only creature that looks into the sky, so he’d heard. It can’t be true. Sky-gazing must be a survival mechanism for plenty of small mammals, guarding for air-borne predators. Maybe it was star-gazing we do. Or maybe we’re the only thing that looks up just for the sake of it. He also noted more than a few people wearing expressions of shock. Strange. It gave him an adrenalin spurt. But no police charge, no collapsed bodies. No gunshots today. The shock must be something to do with their stage of drunkenness, or trip, or whatever.

  It was three o’clock, and Sami was hungry. He passed an eye over the food stalls. Then registered a surface-familiar face heading his way. Head-down. In attack mode, but hampered by the crowd.

  ‘Skittle!’ he called in recognition, and to defuse Skittle’s obvious anger. But the anger made Sami scornful, so he added, ‘Still scooping shit?’

  ‘You let me down,’ Skittle declared as he arrived. ‘I’m still fucking doorstepping thanks to you. Still on the streets.’

  Sami raised both hands. ‘What’s the problem? The job wasn’t for me, that’s all.’

  ‘The key’s the problem. We need it back, or I have to pay for new locks. And also the personal thing. You were my subordinate, yeah? And you fucked it up.’

  ‘The key,’ said Sami, remembering. ‘Well, I don’t have it with me. I don’t carry it around.’

  ‘Not good enough, Sam.’

  For all his shortness, or because of it, Skittle seemed to be considering violence. But Sami felt Ammar’s training in his fists, and all those summer days of disillusion.

  ‘I’ll post it to you,’ he said. ‘I’ll post it tomorrow.’

  Skittle thrust a card at him. The Pyramid Power address. He chewed his lower lip, snorted, porcine.

  ‘People like you make the society break down. Fucking Arabs and shit.’

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said Sami, and turned away.

  He checked his optimism level and found it much diminished. His shoulders were cramping. He felt distaste for the revellers. Not very representative, the revellers. Not what you could call the masses. Just a sect, a minority trying to feel like a majority. Didn’t think much of the music either, or of their dancing, which was shambling and crashing and fists shaking from stiff elbows. As they did at televised party rallies in Syria. With our soul… with our blood… we sacrifice… Opportunists shaking their fists and looking bored. These London counterculturalists weren’t bored, but the politics was just as false. They were here for the fun of it. Not ready to be shot at. Not ready to be crushed by tanks. So not much of a revolution. They knew they were going home when it got dark, earlier if the beer ran out.

  Sami saw people on their phones, blocking their free ears with palms. More people than was natural. Obedient to the herd, he unpocketed and checked his own mobile. Seven missed calls. And very few knew his new number. Strange. Plus two messages.

  The first from Ammar:

  Subhanallah! Victory! Brother Come West! Urgent!

  The second from Muntaha:

  Habibi were at Babas house come watch.

  The first time since he’d left that she’d initiated communication. And the ‘habibi’ was encouraging.

  He blocked an ear to call her. Network busy. Meanwhile, the crowd around him was rapidly diminishing. Like tired children suddenly giving up their naughtiness, Street Reclaimers were dropping their banners and sloping sheepish through police lines. Sound system faltered. Something was afoot.

  Tried calling again. Network busy.

  30

  Historical Events

  He walked for ten minutes, very conscious of car carbonate. Toxic syrup sliding down his windpipe. He kept on calling, but either the network was busy or Muntaha’s phone was engaged. Something important was happening in the world. Who could have died now? His mother? Aunt Hasna? But this was a public event. Everyone was reacting.

  He waved down a cab. He wanted to ask the Somali driver what he’d heard, but the driver was screened off, gabbling into his mobile, driving one-handed. Sami saw him thin and toothy in the rear-view mirror. They drove past a betting shop where people huddled around a screen. Too much sky on the screen for it to be sport. Past an open-door pub and again a screen gathering. Something urgent or celebratory about the angles of the heads, the grip of hands on arms. Every driver they jostled with was talking on the phone, or dialling. Perhaps that was normal. The only phoneless traveller was a cycle courier darting around cars and vans, grinning as he succeeded in each manoeuvre, each dart an inoculation against despair.

  Muntaha stood in the door of her dead father’s house. He had the shock of familiarity when he saw her, like looking in a mirror but seeing something more solid and knowable than himself. He wanted to hold on to her face.

  ‘You’ve lost so much weight!’ she said, with that Arab concern which thinks a thin man is an ill man.

  ‘You look more or less the same.’ He kept his eyes on hers to show this was a compliment. In truth she was a little thicker, a little more written upon.

  She thought he looked too calm for the situation. She checked, ‘You know what’s going on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? The whole world’s talking about it.’

  ‘Not to me. The world’s talking on the phone.’

  What was going on was this: first one tower of New York’s World Trade Center had been hit by a passenger plane, then another. Technology crashing into technology. Then both towers fell. But it was bigger than that. It was a collapsing tower of Babel to start the millennium.

  Sami laughing. ‘Nah! Be serious!’

  The Pentagon had been hit by a third plane. A fourth smashed from on high, a fallen techno-angel, into a field.

  Sami chuckled, ‘What you on about? Talk sense!’ Conscious that he hadn’t wanted to patronize her any more, that he’d planned to respect what she said, even if it didn’t make sense to him – but the circumstances weren’t on his side. ‘Stop, you know, babbling, Moony. Tell me what’s going on.’

  He entered the sitting room. No Marwan there. Obviously. Aunt Hasna paid him no attention. She was attached to the TV as to the Egyptian soap-opera episode of the decade.

  TV. What we take for proof. The first plane ramming purposefully into the building, and the second. Again and again, for emphasis. To drive it home. The smoke bloom pink in the clear New York morning. Seeing is believing. But still.

  Sami
took Marwan’s seat as Ammar burst in, saluting.

  ‘I’m back for a while only. The brothers are calling a meeting.’ He had returned from the mosque: ‘What’s happening now? I need an update.’

  He was activating his laptop as he spoke, and pacing between the slack-jawed beady-eyed others and the TV screen, and unshrugging his jacket to reveal a tight black buttonless shirt. On its front it said: ISLAM. On its back: THE ONLY SOLUTION.

  What was happening? Sami couldn’t tell. He had no scale to measure the event. Nothing inherited from Mustafa. No nationalist way of judging. No Qabbani verse to help him. Here was life imitating disaster movies, more or less. But where was the hero?

  The screen showed the second plane hitting the tower. The plane appearing from icy blue, out of normality, and exploding, again, melting the frame of everything, making history collapse. The voice-over reported a claim of responsibility from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

  ‘Yo!’ said Ammar. And: ‘Booyakka!’ But remembering himself, ‘Masha’allah! It’s the Jabha! PFLP boys! It’s the brothers doing it. Now we’ll see what goes down. It’s us against them now, you know what I mean.’ He bounced from foot to foot, stabbing a witnessing finger in the air. ‘It’s the Muslims, blood. It’s us. Get on the train before it leaves the station.’

  There was a buzz and a click as the internet connected.

  ‘There were people in that plane,’ said Muntaha without breaking her gaze.

  ‘No there wasn’t.’

  ‘There were. Pay a bit more attention.’

  ‘No, man, there wasn’t.’

  He pranced balletic to the corner of the room, to the laptop, texting on his phone as he went.

  The screen showed the second plane hitting the tower. Boom! A moment of history. It made you feel special to be seeing it. The voice-over reported a claim of responsibility from the Japanese Red Army. Revenge for Hiroshima.