The Battle for Home by Marwa al-Sabouni - Detailed Notes

Acknowledgments

• The author expresses immense gratitude to her husband, Ghassan Jansiz, Professor Roger Scruton, and Lucas Dietrich for their vital roles in developing this work.
• Special thanks are extended to Professor Scruton for his profound mind and heart.
• Gratitude is also expressed to Jenny Wilson, the book's editor, for her dedicated and valuable work.
• The author prays for peace to find its way to the souls and lands of her wounded country, Syria.

Introduction

• Syria has been in the news since 2011, with the world witnessing the destruction, violence, and displacement of its people.
• Images of demolished buildings, destroyed cities, and vandalized archaeological treasures have become common, but the reasons behind these events are rarely questioned.
• In politics and history, narratives are often biased, but architecture offers an objective viewpoint, reflecting the lived stories within urban configurations.
• The book aims to demonstrate how the built environment serves as an indicator of past events and a predictor of future occurrences.
• It explores how architecture in Syria has contributed to conflicts by facilitating poor choices and limiting viable alternatives.
• The author discusses the shape of settlements, related economic systems, the moral code inspired by architecture, and how architectural choices influence identity and home.
• Even countries seemingly distanced from Syria's misfortune face similar threats to identity and home.
• The world has expressed anguish over the destruction of treasured sites by ISIS, such as Palmyra in Syria and Assyrian towns in Iraq.
• The losses of ancient buildings and relics are incomparable to the human losses, but they serve as further motivation to examine the role of the built environment in the ordeal.
• The failure to create architecture that provides a home for its users stems from a loss of identity, rooted in the psychology of the people.
• The disconnection between Syria's rich heritage and the imported modernism is glaringly apparent in the current construction practices.
• The reaction to the violence against ancient buildings should be compared to the reactions to the mass destruction of entire cities, questioning why ancient sites hold so much significance.
• The book explores how Syrian cities were vandalized before the war and how to rebuild in a way that prevents future destruction.
• The author shares her personal story, intertwined with the story of her city and country, hoping to offer insights that can help avert similar destruction elsewhere.

The Battle of Mortar: Traditional Ethics vs. Modern Life

• Mortar missiles have caused many innocent lives in Syria, becoming a symbol of the cowardly nature of the conflict.
• Initially, people believed that their everyday lives would soon return to normal, but the anguish has continued for years.
• Warring factions rushed to TV channels to announce imminent victories, but war has a way of staying one step ahead, presenting new forms of torture.
• Syrians have adapted to the war in different stages, but it constantly presents new challenges.
• The period of mortar-shell 'rain fall' and the time of kidnap were among the worst phases, particularly in Homs, where sectarian divisions and hatred were nurtured by urban zoning.
• During the war, Homs experienced mortar revenge, with deaths occurring in schools, markets, and residential streets.
• The warring factions had marked their positions above the destroyed city, forcing thousands of families to leave their homes.
• After the initial battles, remaining neighborhoods were surrounded by stacks of crumbled concrete, creating a surreal and unsettling skyline.
• People adapted to the ugly reality that the situation was unlikely to change soon and that their homes would be reduced to rubble.
• New population densities formed as huge numbers of displaced people left Homs, replaced by refugees from other parts of the country.
• The inhabitable neighborhoods shrank from approximately 42 square kilometers to only 11, compelling extraordinary measures.
• Families were squeezed together in inhumane circumstances, and the next round of hostilities would begin just when they had adapted to their new reality.
• Civilians became the scapegoat for a revenge served hot and sweet, and never cold.
• Mortar attacks were never announced, creating constant fear and uncertainty.
• The author recalls a day when a mortar landed next door, killing children playing football and people trying to make a living.
• The streets, buildings, and wounded hearts bear the marks of the shards from the attacks.
• People had to continue going to work and children had to go to school, as the war's end was uncertain.
• Detecting patterns to the attacks and marking certain areas and hours as risky became a necessary skill.
• Snipers would make deceptive changes to the patterns, adding to the unpredictable nature of the attacks.
• The urban setting, lacking playgrounds, shelters, and cohesive urban planning, made crowds easy targets.
• The new demographic distribution, based on sectarian differences and social classes, created warring sectors with minimal exchange.
• As available space decreased, people re-opened small businesses, schools became oversubscribed, and abandoned storage spaces became valuable habitats.
• The schools became recurrent targets for mortar attacks, with one incident leaving many dead and wounded.
• Syrian people displayed their compassion and empathy, with countless young men risking their lives to rescue the wounded and the traumatized.
• A young man recounted how he rushed to help after an attack, only to have his friend killed by a follow-up missile while he was comforting a little girl.
• Similar tragic stories were shared in different neighborhoods inhabited by people of different 'belonging'.
• The vicious cycle of revenge was made possible by sectarian urbanism, which is surprisingly recent in Homs.
• Homs had previously set an example to other Syrian cities through its integrated urban fabric.
• Despite its considerable area, Homs always felt more like a large village comprising neighborhoods with distinctive characters based on social class, creed, and economic power.
• These neighborhoods were surrounded by a green belt of orchards, and further out were the residential clusters that formed the rural communities.
• Buildings, homes, and clothing were strikingly similar, with differentiation primarily through conversation.
• Homsis used brief street encounters to exchange news, family history, and updates rapidly, a practice akin to a 'Time Line and Walls'.
• Social prejudice and power control depended on a hierarchy that favored certain wealthy Sunni Muslim and Christian families.
• Despite the established hierarchies, Homs never openly betrayed the distinctions between its native citizens, and status was not easily discernible from appearance or lifestyle.
• Damascus, in comparison, experienced mortar bombing on different grounds, with the conflict aimed at pressuring the ruling authorities rather than sectarian revenge.
• Damascus differs from Homs architecturally, demographically, and psychologically, resulting in different types of economy, urbanism, and architecture.
• A typical Damascene is portrayed as a 'poker player', sharp-tongued, cynical, and always seeking the upper hand, as reflected in the proverb 'a hair off the pig's behind is gain'.
• A typical Homsi is described as 'simple', peaceful, humorous, but prone to superficial observations and narrow-minded judgments, leading to a lack of ambition. However, his feelings are easily manipulated, but on the other hand he is very hard to lead.
• Homs and Damascus have both experienced an influx of newcomers, leading to urban sprawl, but the form, extent, and reaction to this expansion have been significantly different.
• Old Homs was formed of Muslim and Christian city-dwellers living in harmony behind a protective wall, sharing house walls, shops, and alleys.
• The Great Mosque in Homs, originally a Temple of the Sun and later a church, exemplifies this coherent living, with part of it sold to Muslims and rebuilt as the Great Noori mosque after an earthquake.
• Despite the inspiring fabric of Old Homs, many phases of deterioration, including urban and architectural vandalism, divisive sectarianism, corruption, and narrow-mindedness, led to its downfall.
• Homs's flat, fertile land and flowing river attracted country-to-city migration, leading Bedouin groups to settle around the old core.
• Syria has been described as a country of ‘rainbow colours', but in outlying areas, groupings have tended to be sharper and the 'colours' usually monochrome.
• With each wave of newcomers, the city expanded with growths that turned out to be tumour-like, as Sunnis, Alawites, Shiites, and Christians of all creeds sought a life in the prosperous city.
• Closed communities could not integrate easily, resulting in distinct districts defined by creed and a false sense of settling, lacking room for belonging.
• The common experience of the city was lost, and any sense of belonging dissolved at the boundaries of inward-looking groups.
• To be part of the city, one must belong and be accepted by the city, which was not achievable for the newcomers, leading to a lack of shared experiences and exclusion from the economic cycle.
• The Old Souk in Homs is not just an economic center but also a place of constant interaction, where new encounters happen every day.
• Trade offers not just cash and deals but also new faces and mentalities, making room for more acceptance on all levels.
• The urban configuration of the Old Souk compels a special code of conduct based on mutual respect and love for one's neighbor, perpetuated by religious teachings and the accumulated wisdom of the human condition.
• All the old souks in Syrian cities share the same configuration and code of conduct.
• Aleppo's souq al madina, or 'city market', combined under its gabled roof and behind its stone facades an incredibly wide variety of goods, historically meeting all the community's needs.
• The merchants of Old Aleppo believed in being good to their neighbors and earning their place in the community, as perpetuated by the architectural configuration of facing shops, a shared route under one ceiling, and one sky above them all.
• Newcomers to Syria's ancient cities were mostly deprived of such an engagement, unable to fit in with the market or compete for a share of it whereas Indigenous inhabitants learned from an early age how to be one of 'the market sons'.
• Even ‘the market sons' had become corrupted, tempted by modern lifestyles and easy money, with the alternative in Homs being employment by others.
• The shift from self-governing trade to secure employment was a major blow to the built-in cohesion of the city and its urban integrity because it meant building over expropriated productive land, more migration towards the city, and the abandonment of 'old ways of life'. Those things changed the economic cycle; hence, reducing encounters with others and losing ethical custom and personal responsibility while becoming more dependent on the distant state rather than the present community.
• This change was encouraged by official policies and the nature of the newcomers.
• Religion in villages and among nomadic tribes is less adjusted to modern circumstances than in cities, where enlightenment, questioning, and scientific knowledge prevail.
• In Old Homs, neither Christians nor Muslims had to prove their social status through their religions; they belonged to the city, and the city embraced them through a common experience of the built environment.
• Alleys embraced houses, mosques opened their front doors to the facing doors of churches, and minarets and church towers raised their praying hands in unity above the rooftops.
• These cities offered free drinking water fountains, benches, and cool shade, which served as a model for residents to follow and created a shared morality.
• The buildings, streets, and trees were the very soul of the community, creating the faces, shops, and the shape, sound, and feel of every footstep, shaping our shared experience of belonging and the collective conscience of the city.
• Newcomers, settling in new developments outside the center, were far from the reach of these 'lessons,' missing the diversity, exchange, and economic cycle.
• There was an evident difference between the mentality of a Christian from the city and one from outside, with the urban citizens free from sectarian traits and endorsing the shared civil peace.
• Newcomers often assumed a posture of superiority to the Muslims, considering themselves more cultivated, open, and free from 'religious shackles', superficially following Western habits.
• Inferiority complex in regard to the West isn't restricted to one community and architecture becomes a way of differentiation in the new, unsettled world, losing its humble utility and acquiring new blemishes.
• Careless expansion and renovation tore Syrian cities apart, with Homs suffering the consequences of building new suburbs based on sectarian differences, creating mutually antagonistic neighborhoods.
• Parallel lives were already being lived, and during the urban segregation the city died , which then turned into sectarian conflict.
• New suburban Homses failed massively in social integration, enhancing social stagnation and introversion, since they created no shared identity or attachment to a place.
• When religions were truly embraced within communities, they radiated affection, respect, and compassion, establishing identities through harmonious architecture.
• Fear that one's identity is threatened leads to anger and hatred, and concrete barracks stimulate that fear, providing no shared place to belong to.
• The traditional urbanism and architecture of cities assured identity not by separation but by intertwining, perpetuating the 'moral economy' tangible in the streets and markets.
• The cities along the ancient Silk Road became radiant centers of civilization due to wealth and the openness taught by seeing new faces, talking different tongues, and learning to live in harmony.
• Trade relies on controlling human greed, but with no guarantees; religion forms the civil order so communities remember the spiritual values on which their togetherness depends.
• Places of worship, located at the heart of every node of the city, were part of the city's spirit rather than affirmations of rival ‘identities', while concrete barracks have become warehouses of social disaffection.
• 'Renovation' in Homs and other Syrian cities was accompanied by unexplained acts of removal, such as pulling out fruit trees, demolishing ancient buildings and closing main streets.
• These acts left open wounds in the hearts of the people, speaking to them of government corruption and ruined settlements.
• The built environment should create an experience of generosity and tenderness, like a mother caring for her children, fostering brotherhood and sisterhood among neighbors.
• Old cities offered this with indigenous plants and materials, an accumulated knowledge of design that cannot be rediscovered by a single person.
• Newcomers were excluded and categorized according to their religious affiliation.
• The Alawites, for example, lacked craft skills and money and worked as service workers before settling in cities but had their life chance through government expropriations, which didn't foster economic interaction with the city.
• Along with employment came corruption, easy money, little work, and much free time.
• When war broke out, the religious and moral deterrent was already long lost, with stereotyping as the easiest way to comprehend the chaos.
• Those outside the cycle of city life, those who didn't suffer from having their precious environment destroyed, are known as enemies, easily identified and labeled.
• Battles of mutual kidnap started to occur, and raids of revenge cracked open the city.
• Al-Husn Castle also witnessed brutalities by identity labeling because people were competing for government funds that was in the hands of the corrupt. This highlights the architecture to be what had the lack of a humanizing role.
• The conflict in Damascus began as a battle of country vs. city with many of the city dwellers becoming an enemy in any conflict.
• Mistakes of strategic urban planning resulted in the death and division of cities.
• Social status is a significant part of life and influences life choices, and Homs is strengthened by community bonds, although not as business or cultural advanced.
• Homes in Damascus influence people and their activities that may be directed by urbanization.
• The Homsis wanted to invest more in cattle but had an opportunity for textiles and crafts but wasn't fully capitalized on.
• The traditional craft economy and the Old City of Damascus were spared which made for better destruction prevention than Homs. However, irreversible damages were still inflicted.
• In the second half of the nineteenth century modernization was influenced through architecture and urbanization. The new railways affected the livelihoods of many Bedouins.
• The French who occupied Syria (1921-1946) had a far greater impact on urbanism, architecture and social structure and applied Versailles and Haussmannian models to Damascus.
• The French planners expanded and solved problems by uprooting landmarks and cutting the city off from lush lands.
• Following that new urban plans were developed causing many traffic jams and pollution that weakened that once organic structure. In fact by 2009 65% of the plan had been realized.
• Because cultural life and social life were developed through French culture it was an upgrade but those same concepts didn't allow the habitants to adapt to city life. Today some of the urban areas bear the scar-face of those French enforcements.
• In addition, Le Corbusier proposed to demolish Paris and create highways regardless of terrible social consequences.
• In Homs, the kids weren't as knowledgeable about culture and as result their parents had fear of them being innocent in the new capitals open atmosphere.
• Sectarian's had marginal division were open with many beliefs and Homs tells that same tale to the present day.
• The authorities of Syria are daring to further attack the urban texture by developing new unorganized housings and regulations.
• The government wants to plan mega projects for owners by giving them shares, new housings, and rent exchanges but it makes it difficult for those to have a place to protect from madness.
• The government in this plan to transition it's market should not be mad at losing their source of income due to this new process.
• So far in Homs things can improve in Damascus with corruption and a shaken structure through the environment and built spaces.
• Local trade should be controlled because moral and built environment are also key for the future. Ultimately one table to build peace is better than one alone with the shape and organization being key for experience and establishing shared rules.