Trip to Damascus

Hasan Abu Nimah

Last weekend I was tempted to go to Damascus. Altogether, the trip took just about 15 hours, of which almost half was spent driving and handling border transactions, but it was still a lot of fun.

It is not that I have not been to Damascus for long; actually I did the same trip, by taxi, less than a month ago, accompanying family and American guests, and it was also fun, despite the fact that half the time was also used driving and on border dealings.

A friend from the diplomatic community in Jordan who takes this trip quite often invited me with my wife to accompany her this time. She knows a lot about the city, its historic splendor, and the many interesting locations one would want to visit. She also offered to use her diplomatic car, which I thought would save us some time at the border.

We set off at 7:00 last Saturday, hoping to be in Damascus by 9:00. We arrived in the city centre at just after ten; paper work at the border, exiting Jordan and entering Syria, needed well over one hour despite the fact that we were accompanying an accredited ambassador travelling in her official vehicle.

Admittedly, there was nothing inappropriate or even unpleasant on any of the many stops on both borders. Immigration and customs officers were all courteous, correct and noticeably polite; the problem was in the very complex existing procedures on both borders. Yet the trip, and the time spent walking through the ancient markets in downtown Damascus, around the Umayyad Mosque, was delightful as well as very relaxing.

The people are genuinely warm and friendly. We were not strangers there, after all, and we never felt that way at all.

I counted seven stops on the Jordanian side alone and an almost equal number of stops on the Syrian side. As we approached the border complex we needed to stop at the first checkpoint where an officer looked at the passports, matching them with the car occupants. The next stop was for purchasing stamps (in the value of JD8 for each Jordanian) to cover exit fees (foreigners pay JD5). The third was for organizing car insurance, the fourth was to check that exit fee stamps were properly affixed on the proper forms, the fifth was for clearing the car papers. The sixth was for passport control and the seventh, and last, to check that the passports had been properly stamped and that they matched passengers.

Most definitely these numerous measures can be reduced without compromising the necessary security requirements and the equally important customs controls, which need to be meticulously observed under the prevailing circumstances and on such a sensitive border.

Visa requirements have long been abolished between the two neighboring countries, on the basis that they are part of one Arab nation striving one day for unification. This should obviously be seen as an encouragement for people to travel for all kinds of purposes, including for holiday and the usual pursuit of legitimate leisure. Worldwide tourism is one of the most popular activities of people nowadays, despite rising costs and travel complications.
Jordanians like to travel too. For many, a trip to Syria, Lebanon or Turkey, individually or as part of a group when not possible to travel further, is a deserving holiday for exploring, shopping, enjoying and breaking the routine.

Undoubtedly bureaucratic border delays, which sometimes take several hours for groups travelling in one bus, must be a keen discouraging factor. Equally discouraging must be for smaller car passengers, private or public, who may opt for sacrificing the advantage of leisurely travel to avoid unnecessary border delays. This applies to both outgoing and inbound traffic, and it includes Jordanians and non-Jordanians alike.

And there is the exit tax, which the Jordanian authorities collect from all passengers exiting the border. The Syrians charge Jordanians an equal amount before leaving Syria. It is not clear who started this tax and who is reciprocating. Either way, this tax is unjustifiable and should be abolished by both countries. No other country I know imposes such a tariff on its nationals, or on foreign nationals for that matter, just for leaving the country on a short holiday or even a daytime outing, or for any other purpose.

Taxes are normally collected for a specific purpose, in the absence of which they become like punishment fines. This is exactly what I felt when charged money upon exiting both Jordanian and Syrian borders.

Even before the Europeans created the Schengen regime, travelling in Europe was very easy. I served and lived in Brussels during the 1980s. I travelled regularly by road for business or pleasure to all neighboring countries: Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Although I needed a visa for Germany and France, and I always made sure to have a valid one, I was rarely stopped at the border and that was for a very short visa check, without having to leave the car.

The Europeans had security concerns, too, and they had customs regulations, but they had different ways of handling such matters, and they were no less effective. Searching each car and each passenger at the border could have paralyzed life in Europe, where millions take to the roads and cross borders daily. Now, with security requirements stiffer, Europe expanded further and freedom of movement for the population of at least 25 EU countries has become even easier.

We should have a good look at the European experience and learn from it. It provides much-needed relief to people to break away from boring routine and be able to travel for the sake of change, if not for more. The grass is always greener on the other side, it is often said very rightly. The Dutch crossed into Belgium for shopping, dining, picnicking, visiting friends and interesting sites, or even working; the Belgians did the same in Holland. The same applies to all European countries, in fact to all countries in the world, including here.

It must be alluring to people in neighboring countries to exchange visits on regular basis, and there should be a policy to encourage and facilitate such visits, which would help promote popular interaction, and social and economic activity, with clear benefits for all. That should not be at the expense of security or custom regulations. Neither should it detract from internal tourism; in fact, it would enrich it, with neighboring visitors frequenting attractive sites on regular basis.

As a result of the deteriorating political developments in the region in the past few decades - the occupation and its ever-aggravating consequences, much of the territorial space which existed before has been steadily diminishing. In the good old days, when neither roads nor cars were as good, it took from 50 to 90 minutes to be in Jerusalem or Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin or Tulkarem, to enjoy the charm of the historic cities, and it took less than half an hour to be in Jericho whose restaurants, just under the famous citrus trees, were very attractive in winter. The West Bank and its many beautiful and historic locations were indeed within reach any time when it was part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. And although the situation at the northern borders is still the same, it was less stressful to drive to Beirut via Damascus and delight in both places.

Unfortunately things are not the same anymore. Yet, there is still space to move and to breathe. It is up to us to know how to make the best out of it by reducing unnecessary restrictions and by removing meaningless hindrances on “blessed movement.”





*Published in Jordan's THE JORDAN TIMES on October 14, 2009.