Blog: keffiyehs and baseball caps
We’re very excited with our first guest blog from a member of the Pool community. Thanks Susan!
Photographer Susan Dirgham tells us what motivates her to share her work on Pool.
One reason I persist in uploading images and, more recently, audio from Damascus, Syria, is because I believe that to avoid future conflicts and their resultant crises we must let go of the false dichotomy between “us” and “them”.
“The exotic is a state of mind. It doesn’t really exist.” Monty Don (Around the World in 80 Gardens, ABC1, 16/6/09).
It’s easy to capture images in Damascus in which the people and culture appear ‘exotic’ in the eyes of an Australian without a Middle Eastern background. It is a city of contrasts, so there are niqabs (a veil over a woman’s face) and cleavages, keffiyehs (a traditional Arabic headdress for men) and baseball caps. You might imagine Syrian women were a different species if you simply saw the niqabs.
Damascus is a city with a 5,000 year history. And if you spend time there you quickly begin to feel at home in the alleys, on the roads and in the courtyard restaurants. You can be enchanted by the city’s diversity, its colour and humanity. You feel part of a shared history. And you may find yourself next to someone in traditional dress using their iPhone to capture the same image you have sighted and notice when you have eye contact with them that they have an open, friendly demeanor and that the sparkle in their eyes mirrors yours.
Most Syrians know two languages. They watch Friends, Oprah, Anthony LaPaglia in Without a Trace, Turkish soaps, political discussions from Lebanon, Dubai, London and Washington, and they listen to the best of Middle Eastern as well as Western pop on the local radio. On my recent visit the image of former AFL player Shane Crawford was on a billboard at a busy intersection, and posters of Hugh Jackman, the star of Wolverine, appeared to be everywhere.
Damascenes live in a much wider, sophisticated world than most of us imagine, so they often see shades of grey where others might see black and white.
Aware of the bad press they can get, they are eager for their voices to be heard in the West. For me, chatting with them was much the same as chatting to neighbours or friends in suburban Melbourne, except for the urgency in their voice.
In the coming weeks, I look forward to uploading onto Pool the interviews I conducted with Syrian university students and their teacher, a sculptor, a film-maker and a nun. And also some interviews with a few British, Italian, German, and Australian expatriates. I hope, also, to present the ambience of a courtyard restaurant and the spirit of the call to prayer.
Realising there is no “other”, that the exotic is a state of mind, has been a long journey for me, and the Syrians I’ve met have helped me come much closer to a comfortable destination.
You can see more of Susan’s work here.
Please feel free to comment on this blog post as we always love to hear your comments and thoughts. Log-in to Pool and you’ll see a comment box below this post. If you’re not a member, why not take a moment to join Pool first.
Image above by Susan Dirgham licenced BY-NC-SA.
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4 comments
23.06.09 — surfingbridge
Hi Susan,
Thanks so much for your thoughts about the exotic and life in Damascus. It's interesting to see how cultures may be globalised yet still exoticised. I took a subject at uni on Contemporary Europe a few years back and I remember looking at this concept of "The Other" and how that plays out. And later, looking at the way a culture is "westernised" through the mass media.
I think though, cultural differences do exist and they are what enrich us. However, is it that when they impede us/challenge us that we use "the Other" and the us/them dichotomy to create barriers?
Anyhoo, waiting with interest to hear those interviews with those from Syria.
All the best,
Bridget
(Pool intern).
24.06.09 — susan.dirgham
Hi Bridget, Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that cultural differences enrich us. But I worry about the concept of "The Other" . especially when power and politics are involved. The Italian priest I interviewed in Syria is quoted in National Geographic (June 09) as saying, "Muslims are us. This is the lesson the West has yet to learn."
For me as a child, China (before globalisation) was 'exotic'. This attracted me and I went to live there in '75. But it was the surface things - language, landscape, music, stories etc - that were exotic or very different; the people were people, with human qualities that were familiar. They responded to their environment in human ways I recognized. While living there, I was 'Chinese' and 'Australian'. We were all people doing the best we could, responding to the world we were in. (I had lessons to learn from the courage and humour of friends I made there.)
China was only 'exotic' from a distance, before I went there to live and it became a second home to me.
21.06.09 — susan.dirgham
Thanks, Brian!
I'm listening to some jazz from Damascus as I write this. Hope I work out how to upload that soon - it's beautiful. It smashes stereotypes, too.
(PS. Your comment has taken me to your page. Thank you!)
21.06.09 — Brian Howley
Gorgeous image and narrative.