Damascus Avoids Blood of Uprising, but Not Pain

By NADA BAKRI

Published: February 3, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The bloody uprising that has coursed through Syria has begun to upend daily life in Damascus, the stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, reordering the lives of residents who complain of hardships as simple as getting to work every day and finding bread.

Electricity is rationed. People are stocking up on food items like milk, rice, sugar and even drinking water. Cooking and heating gas has become expensive and hard to find. Prices are soaring, with some things costing as much as three times what they did a year ago. Some international schools have shut their doors.

“It is a different Damascus these days,” said a 32-year-old woman, a marketing specialist from Damascus, who asked for anonymity because of the volatile security situation around her.

Unlike the capitals of Egypt and Tunisia, where the dramas of the moment played out, Damascus, like Tripoli before it, waits for the uprising to come to it. Many there now speculate that perhaps what will drive this city to join the revolt is not demands for more freedoms and political rights but a drastically deteriorated living situation.

“Pretty soon we will start demonstrating against poverty and not politics,” said Abu Omar, 60, a shopkeeper here. He said his son spent three hours on a recent day looking for bread in nearby stores, only to come back empty-handed. “The people are very angry at the government. We can live without electricity and gas, but we can’t live without bread.”

The situation in Syria remains remarkably fluid, even as the uprising turns increasingly into an armed struggle. For the first time, rebels have made their presence felt in the suburbs of Damascus, and gunfire can be heard in the capital, long the citadel of the Assad family’s rule. But as the state security apparatus remains intact — and willing to fight — and the government continues to count on support from Russia, the shift in mood in Damascus may prove to be a more telling insight into the government’s fate.

The government has relied on support in Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, to buttress its contention that the insurgency lacks the broad appeal of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt. That may be true, in part. But the shift in mood could change the calculus for the leadership if the struggle turns into a war of attrition, as seems the case.

Many Syrians were on the move. Immigration to Persian Gulf countries has increased, especially among families in the majority Sunni Muslim sect. Many Alawite families who have lived in Damascus for years, some of them enjoying special privileges by virtue of belonging to the same minority sect as the president, have also started returning to their places of origins — coastal villages and towns overlooking the Mediterranean.

“I know of at least 10 families my age who left to Dubai in recent weeks, and most of my relatives moved to Beirut,” said a 32-year-old businessman from Damascus who gave his name as Abu Walid.

Once-busy beauty salons that had catered to rich and trendy Damascenes are almost deserted. In the old neighborhood of Bab Touma, hip pubs that often stayed open into the early morning are closing before midnight.

A luxury car dealership that used to sell up to 60 cars a month before the revolt started last March now sells no more than one a month.

“Nobody is comfortable anymore,” said the marketing specialist, a stylish socialite who finds the capital’s atmosphere too depressing to go out shopping anymore. “Nobody is in the mood to do anything.”

The woman was at a nail salon, getting a manicure, but she said her twice-a-week salon visits before the unrest had been scaled back considerably. “And I paint my nails black when I come, just like the situation,” she added.

Darkness wraps the city by late afternoon. Most people interviewed for this article said they did not venture outside their doorsteps after 7 p.m. unless for an emergency. On a lucky day when there is electricity, they sit, their eyes glued to their television screens, following the latest developments, some of them going on just a few miles away in the turbulent suburbs.

Soldiers stand guard in major public squares and in front of important government buildings — a scene that was unusual 10 months ago in a country that lived largely quietly under the dictatorship of the Assad family for more than four decades.

As Damascus braces for what some fear might prove a reckoning, residents lament a life that has become at times unbearable.

A 34-year-old teacher from the Alawite sect said her life had changed in ways she never imagined. Six months ago, she started covering her head like Sunni Muslim women, hoping not to stand out. Her husband, an officer in the Syrian Army, rarely leaves his base to come home. She said she and their two sons had not seen him in months.

A few weeks ago, her landlord, a Sunni, asked her to leave the house because his newly married son wanted to move in. “Sunnis have begun to feel empowered,” the teacher said. “A year ago, no one would have expected this to happen.” She had already made plans to return to her village.

The teacher said that most Alawites in the Damascus neighborhoods of al-Hajar al-Aswad and Qadam had left or were planning to go to their native villages. So are families in towns on the outskirts of the capital, including Douma, Saqba and Arbeen, where heavy and persistent clashes have occurred between state security forces and rebels for the past two weeks.

“Who lost a son or a brother wants revenge, and he will take vengeance from Alawites before anyone else because most Alawites are commanders of security forces,” the teacher said. “I am sorry to say this, but I think the Assad regime is using us in the crackdown, and when it will falls, they will run away, and we will pay the heavy price.”

Reporting was contributed by an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria; a Times employee and Hwaida Saad from Beirut; and Liam Stack from Cairo.

A version of this article appeared in print on February 4, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Damascus Avoids Uprising’s Blood, but Not Pain.

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