kif halak sami

I tried for couple of years to get married using this arranged meeting formula. what a process. it is really buying and selling 100% on both sides. I realized that for men it is a lot easier and cheaper to find someone in the west. even the fat, uneducated ladies want tons of financial gifts before, during, and after the marriage ceramonies. it is a joke indeed that you have to pay a woman upfront cash, diamonds, cost of the wedding, provide a fully-paid-for and furnished house just that she would accept to be your wife. Western women: you give it up so cheap. there is an easier way to make it in life than to go to college and build a career. Just get married the middleastern way.

Speaking of Damascus and LOVE ...please tell Meshaal if he has any real love for the Palestinain people...then he needs to start seriously thinking about cutting a deal with the Israelis and/or Abbass..and freeing Marwan and Gilad needs to be part of the deal and needs to happen now...the US and Israel will walk away from Abbas and shortly install Dahlan as President and he will make sure Marwan NEVER gets out...moreover, Hamas has no future once Dahlan is in power...if Hamas loves the people of Palestine it time to move soley into the political arena ...its time to get Marwan out of prison and unite and secure a Palestinian state...its time for Hamas to act with love an not just hate as a motivation...Meshaal, please make the fricking deal for Gilad and Marwan prison exchange or you are handing over Palestine to Dahlan...

Great article, as usual, Sami.

However, there are always some exceptions, even in the love stories of Damascus. One of these is what happened with me: coming from a famous and very old Armenian Damascene family, I nevertheless, and despite the staunch Armenian traditions, had my courtship and love affair with my wife, Lamia. She happens to be from a traditional Moslem Sunni family (Gheibeh) of Damascus. It was not easy, but it was great, and still is, after more than 25 years! Thanks God, we do have 2 beautiful children (Nadine & Danny), who always benefit from that kind of great love between their parents.

All the best Sami,
George Y. Krikorian
Orlando, FL

Human beings any where are almost the same except for their exterior outlook.Here or there men behave in same way.Women are always acting a second fiddle.To truly uplift them ,they require priorty over men in education jobs and inheirtance .They would be loved more then. Let the women of the world make it difficult for men to get them for lust and fun.Let the women of the world unite and let the males pay for their warmth and companionship.Women have one worst enemy that is women.Unless women like mothers ,mothers in law sisters and sisters in law unite whole heartedely for women ,women emancipation will never see the light of the day.Oh women rise ,unite ,enlighten and lead.Men will follow you like the shadow exists till the sun is around

Human beings any where are almost the same except for their exterior outlook.Here or there men behave in same way.Women are always acting a second fiddle.To truly uplift them ,they require priorty over men in education jobs and inheirtance .They would be loved more then. Let the women of the world make it difficult for men to get them for lust and fun.Let the women of the world unite and let the males pay for their warmth and companionship.Women have one worst enemy that is women.Unless women like mothers ,mothers in law sisters and sisters in law unite whole heartedely for women ,women emancipation will never see the light of the day.Oh women rise ,unite ,enlighten and lead.Men will follow you like the shadow exists till the sun is around

Human beings any where are almost the same except for their exterior outlook.Here or there men behave in same way.Women are always acting a second fiddle.To truly uplift them ,they require priorty over men in education, jobs and inheirtance .They would be loved more then. Let the women of the world make it difficult for men to get them for lust and fun.Let the women of the world unite and let the males pay for their warmth and companionship.Women have one worst enemy that is women.Unless women like mothers ,mothers in law ,sisters and sisters in law unite whole heartedely for women ,women emancipation will never see the light of the day.Oh women rise ,unite ,enlighten and lead.Men will follow you like the shadow exists till the sun is around

Well, what is your point? Love has always flowered and prospered in Syria and especially Damascus since the beginning of human conscience, it is everywhere. Nowadays, there is an endless abundance of love in Damascus; you just need a heart to find it, not articles.

Sami Moubayed's article is rather pathetic as it attempts to gauge the status of "love" in marriages within Damascus. His views are more the irrational meanderings of a lovesick poet than an insightful journalistic observation on the state of the Damascus family.

And such liberal arts Whitmanesque pandering to the sensibilities of Western liberals is both humiliating for Mr Moubayed as well as contemptuous towards his own people, culture, beliefs. But it seems imperious, Neo Con WaPo searches for just such pandering from foreign poets/writers/journalists to feed its American readership who still believe America has the answers to all the world's problems as if only those poor, noble savage people knew it.

I can't speak on behalf of the people of Syria, but I assume many people leave their pedestrian village lives to pursue their ambitions and other personal interests in Syria's largest and most vibrant city. How do similar such cities in America manage in their marriage and divorce rates?
And Syria is caught between several competing beliefs and concepts which are poised to shape Syrian society: between socialist Arabism, western
liberal humanism, Islamic traditionalism, and Islamic revivalism. These are the concepts which shape families and marriages within Syria, not the presence or absence of westernized love stories.

Sami Moubayed's article is rather pathetic as it attempts to gauge the status of "love" in marriages within Damascus. His views are more the irrational meanderings of a lovesick poet than an insightful journalistic observation on the state of the Damascus family.

And such liberal arts Whitmanesque pandering to the sensibilities of Western liberals is both humiliating for Mr Moubayed as well as contemptuous towards his own people, culture, beliefs. But it seems imperious, Neo Con WaPo searches for just such pandering from foreign poets/writers/journalists to feed its American readership who still believe America has the answers to all the world's problems as if only those poor, noble savage people knew it.

I can't speak on behalf of the people of Syria, but I assume many people leave their pedestrian village lives to pursue their ambitions and other personal interests in Syria's largest and most vibrant city. How do similar such cities in America manage in their marriage and divorce rates?
And Syria is caught between several competing beliefs and concepts which are poised to shape Syrian society: between socialist Arabism, western
liberal humanism, Islamic traditionalism, and Islamic revivalism. These are the concepts which shape families and marriages within Syria, not the presence or absence of westernized love stories.

Damascus is a city like any other, where people are preoccupied with their daily lives. Would a commentary about love and marriage in Washington DC, Moscow or Jerusalem be dismissed or pushed aside merely because of the presence in these cities of nefarious characters on government payrolls plotting acts of violence outside their frontiers? (A rhetorical question.) Once, long ago (1985), I stumbled on a coffee shop in Abu Rummaneh with a secluded upper floor that was a rendezvous for "secret lovers," mostly of university age. (It was called "Cafe Marrakesh," now gone and occupied by a very different establishment called Scoozi's.) The secret lovers' hormonally fueled yearnings were almost palpable, and I wondered how these couples could stand it given the rules of public decorum that they had to observe at most other times. Anyway, I hope that everyone had a happy Valentine's day.

So much for the argument traditional marriage holds over Gay marriage.

This is a very thoughtful piece about love. You must be a very romantic man! Love is often irrational, emotional, messy, short lived as much as it is thrilling, nurturing, inspiring ...and you will certainly not be able to put "romantic love" into play in societies that do not allow women to have mad passionate love affairs because they fear their father and brothers will disown/or beat them or worse, that their heads will be cut off!...

SAMA,

You are almost as poetic as Omar Khayyam, Hafez, Mirza Ghalib, Umm Kulthum,and Khalil Gibran combined.

Like hope, love springs eternal and gushes forth from the most likely and unlikely places alike. I am grateful for the discussion between Tammy, Mohammed Malleck and Moubaid about love and its true essence and its far reaching ramifications, an eye-opening and heart-warming trialogue indeed. But like beauty, love is also a child of luck, its allotment haphazard, its commencement unpredictable and its end unforseen. While love needs cultivation and a fertile soil in which to grow, it can drive many a botanist to despair. Its beauty derives from its power and its fragility at once. Love's ephemeral and eternal natures constantly taunt, tantalize and torment. So, perhaps, Damascenes shouldn't be so hard on themselves, theirs is the story of man and woman, of love and life.

I think the Syrian people have a serious problem that they must address before they can even comprehend the meaning of love. Damascus is notorious for being host to the most murderous terror organizations in the world. In addition to that, it actively supports terror and destruction next door in Lebanon and is the major ally of the Iranian mullahs.
In a country like that, love cannot even be a dream.

Damascus also celibrates Hassan Nasrallah and his Syrian associates who killed Rafik Harrirri in cold blood. Just today Damascus celibrated a mass murdering terrorist named Imad Mughniyeh.
After Hezbollah started a war with Israel that destroyed south Lebanon, Damascus called the crushing destruction of thousands of homes a "victory", and celibrated that, too.

How about celibrating the honorable and wise people in Damascus who seek peace?

Happy Valentine's Day to those who do!

Tammy,

I met my wife with whom I am married for the past 30 years only after my parents had already agreed to our marriage. Of course, either party could have got out of it, but clearly it was not a 'love marriage'.

We both love each other so tenderly, in spite of our having had to live separate from each other for 10 years, for inevitable that I don't ned to get into here. We have three well-balanced children. My daughter has had a love marriage. My sons seem more likely to be ready to fllow my experience although I have insisted that it is all THEIR choice. They fully agree with the facts and the statistics that Mr Moubayed deplores, and they seem (I specify 'seem', but they are totally free and maybe they are feigning although I have no evidence of their feigning on anything) to be intrigued by the thought my wife and myself (both 'Easterners', of course) have at times voiced out to friends or to ourselves in front of them (but not TO them) that arranged marriages are not so stupid after all.

If when I was between the ages of 19 and 27, having acquired a University education in Canada where often I was the life of the party among the group of gradute students that daily went to the pub even though I am a teetotaller, I had been told that I would accept an arranged marrige, I would have told my interlocutor that he is raving mad. But, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

What I meant by the quote about the Little Price is that love is a rapport to another person that one can (actually OUGHT TO) consciously cultivate rather than to imagine it as a romantic construct that strikes you like a thunderbolt or is the result of "Oh, how cute!", "Phew! The chemistry, The Electricity! How Sexy" moments.

Moubayed's article summarizes a dilemma the Arab culture faces: dominance of collective thinking and a static interpretation of culture vise-a-vie the desire, by many to celebrate life and to move on. Damascus needs to resurrect 'individuality' as it embarks(?) on a Valentine like culture.

It seems that individual choices to cupid for instance, is trumped by a culture that gives minimum weight to the wants, desires and needs of the person. Arab culture, as it is lived today, reduces a person to be a mere cog in the wheel of culture.

Absence of love and lovers from the Syrian landscape is a symptom of a cultural (Arab) malaise.

Mr. Moubayed's thesis that social, moral and institutional progress is at least somewhat dependent on the flourishing of romantic love is an interesting idea that I had not considered.

I disagree with Mr. Moubayed about the motivation of T.E. Lawrence's comment about Arab's being a "silly people." I think Lawrence's comment was possibly informed by some ethnocentric chauvinism, like Mr. Malleck's ethnocentric, stereotyped description of the west as being devoid of true romantic love that lasts. However, Mr. Moubayed makes a provocative point about the capacity to love and the priority on love on the marriage relationship affecting other areas of human relationships, and political relationships, in society - not just the upper social classes in Damascus.

Hi,

Your argument would be a lot stronger if the love oriented marriages in the USA had some exceptionally low divorce rate compared with that of Damascus. Maybe American marriages with all of their love beforehand including the ever popular pregnant bride or even a well started family is no better than what you see as the problematic Damascus marriage.

You're on the right track, Mr. Moubayed, and I appreciate your well-thought-out perspective.

Ignore Mr. Malleck. He is clearly part of the problem. He says: "Love is the feeling that the Little Prince has for his flower, that he loves because he has cultivated it, because he has revived it when it was withering under the burning desert sa[n]d, because he made it bloom not only by watering it with water, Holy Water -- zamzam water when no other type of water was available -- but even by fertilizing the soil around it with lowly compost." Which is his fancy way of describing a marriage in which the woman is not an equal partner, but a thing to be "cultivated," and a being who should then be forever grateful to the patriarchal chauvinist who feeds and clothes her in return for her being his living, breathing Chia Pet.

Real love, of the sort Mr. Moubayed refers to, is between two whole, complete human beings who each are responsible for their own happiness and their own sense of self - and then share this with their partner, each helping the other to become their best self, and each encouraging, supporting, believing in the other. No country's people has mastered the ability to encourage only the healthiest types of relationships - but only countries in which all people are free have the good fortune of being locations where relationships that don't require 1 person to not exist as an individual can flourish.

You're on the right track, Mr. Moubayed, and I appreciate your well-thought-out perspective.

Ignore Mr. Malleck. He is clearly part of the problem. He says: "Love is the feeling that the Little Prince has for his flower, that he loves because he has cultivated it, because he has revived it when it was withering under the burning desert sa[n]d, because he made it bloom not only by watering it with water, Holy Water -- zamzam water when no other type of water was available -- but even by fertilizing the soil around it with lowly compost." Which is his fancy way of describing a marriage in which the woman is not an equal partner, but a thing to be "cultivated," and a being who should then be forever grateful to the patriarchal chauvinist who feeds and clothes her in return for her being his living, breathing Chia Pet.

Real love, of the sort Mr. Moubayed refers to, is between two whole, complete human beings who each are responsible for their own happiness and their own sense of self - and then share this with their partner, each helping the other to become their best self, and each encouraging, supporting, believing in the other. No country's people has mastered the ability to encourage only the healthiest types of relationships - but only countries in which all people are free have the good fortune of being locations where relationships that don't require 1 person to not exist as an individual can flourish.

Incredibly disappointing, Mr. Moubayed.

Why do you mot stick to political analysis, where the cynicism that you no doubt are familiar with, and have yourself imbibed a good dose of, is the currency?

Love, Mr. Moubayed, is a many-splendored thing, but different from fireworks, however glorious the shapes and colours modern technology can wrap it in, and however sweet or moving or even triumphant is the music that accompanies it. Love is the feeling that the Little Prince has for his flower, that he loves because he has cultivated it, because he has revived it when it was withering under the burning desert sad, because he made it bloom not only by watering it with water, Holy Water -- zamzam water when no other type of water was available -- but even by fertilizing the soil around it with lowly compost. Then the magic colours of the bloom, the heavenly fragrance of the air that exudes from its petals, make even invisible surounding angels briefly become visible to pay their homage -- to make their 'sajda'

You write, Mr. Moubayed : " [The propective bride and bridegroom] do it to settle down—because it is expected by family and society—or as some people say, only to have children. That argument, I believe, does the institution of marriage—and love—a great injustice. It dwarfs both and reduces marriage to a robotic sexual activity with one clear and defined objective: making babies."

No, Mr. Moubayed, they do it, just as the Little Prince 'did it', to create a whole new world of their own making, a lifelong mutual commitment and intimacy to sustain and honour, to help in times of trouble and to share in times of joy and plenty, bearing and rearing the fruits of that love -- children raised in care and dignity, in compassion and hope, in resilience and resolve when confronted by adversities.

In the East (Damascus IS the East, as are Cairo and Isfahan and Tehran and Lahore and Lucknow), our communion with love is an intense, deeply pesonal devotion more comparable to worship than Western shows of dazzling but shortlived adoration.

Maybe Damascus has been becoming too westernized. In your political articles, you make the right distinction between westernization and modernisation. That distinction applies even more dramatically to the Eastern idea of love and the western idea of romance.