The Question: Is Christmas a bigger event in your country than it was ten years ago? Is this a sign of Westernization or just commercialization?

I come from a particular country that is non-Christian, but where Christmas has been—and hopefully forever will be—a national holiday, celebrated freely by Christians and respected universally by Syrian Muslims. Bigger celebrations of Christmas—in my book—do not mean Westernization. Christmas came from over here after all, from the East.

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The Current Discussion: Australians are voting online for a "Word of the Year" from a list of new words to be included in the dictionary: among the frontrunners, "Chindia", "globesity," and "password fatigue." Create your favorite new word of the year that tells us something about trends in your country.

If it were up to me, I would promote the word “Syrianism!”

Some people, however, cannot even pronounce it—let alone promote it.

This word—the S-Word—runs contradictory to popular rhetoric in Damascus that dates back to 1916. For years, Syrians have been studying the elementary and high school curriculum of the veteran academic Sati al-Husari, an Arab nationalist who introduced the theme: Arabism First! For years “Syrianism” was taboo in Syria.

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The Current Discussion: For Valentine’s Day, this question: What is the future of love?

There are 12 marriages per 1,000 citizens every month in Damascus, according to official statistics. Yet the Syrian capital also has a staggering 40% divorce rate. That means that out of every 1,000 people who get married, 400 of them then get divorced. The divorce rate is much lower in outside Damascus, in Latakia (9%), Aleppo (8%), Hama (7%) and Raqqa (3%). This shows that the Damascenes are the first ‘to fall in love’ and the first to get an early divorce.

Why is that?

My argument always has been that Damascus is a city that does not celebrate real love, or lovers, despite the grand commercial celebrations we have copied—with zero understanding—from the West on Valentine’s Day. It champions a variety of other ideals, like chivalry, nationalism, Arabism, and entrepreneurship—but not love. At a grassroots level, and with few notable exceptions, people do not get married because ‘they are in love.’ They 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.

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The Current Discussion: Australia is suffering from a drought of men - about 100,000 of them, most of whom have gone overseas to travel and work. China has the opposite problem - a shortage of women. Which is the more worrisome problem? Should we be worrying about a "depopulation bomb?"

When Syria declared its independence in 1946, an optimistic Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey famously declared:

"Syria has been subjected to more trial since the armistice (in 1918) than any other Near Eastern country. All is not lost, however, there is room for hope. The territory we have been left with, greater than the area covered by Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland put together, is a vast playing field for our young people and for their entrepreneurial spirit. The Syrian soil is fertile, we produce cereals, cotton, fruit. We have oil. Our artisans are some of the most ingenious in the world. Our people are sober, tough, resigned and hard-working. Syrians are found all over the world, and everywhere they occupy important positions. The past and the future are ours. We have every reason to believe that Syria will survive."

Mardam Bey never imagined that Syrians would start flocking out of Syria in large numbers as a result of the never-ending coups and counter-coups that shocked Damascus starting in 1949, and climaxed with the ill-fated Syrian-Egyptian Union of 1958. The only logical thing for an optimist like him was for Syrians to learn, live, work, and die in Syria. He never imagined that one day, during his life-time, major depopulation would start in Damascus.

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The Current Discussion: A London publishing house was firebombed for agreeing to publish 'The Jewel of Medina', a controversial novel about Muhammad's wife, which Random House dropped earlier this year because it feared terrorist threats. In hindsight, was Random House in the right? Does this justify censorship of this kind in the future?

The latest controversy over the book, "The Jewel of Medina" has caused a storm among intellectual circles worldwide. It is a novel by Sherry Jones, scheduled for publication by Random House in August 2008. The project was canceled, and moved to the U.K., because it tells a fictitious tale about Aisha Bint Abu Bakr, the daughter of Islam's first Caliph and second wife of the Prophet Mohammad.

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