By: Azzam Al-Turkmani | Tharwa
Exclusive | May 26, 2008
A month has passed since the
latest Ba’athist “Act of Generosity”, this has been accompanied by an insane
increase in the price of goods and necessities. This is best evidenced by
the current bread crisis which can be seen by a trip to any overcrowded bakery.
The long lines at the bakery seem as though they will likely continue.
I went through a long tour of the
bakeries of Damascus without any success. The queues in front of the bakeries
make you want to instantly give up. My need for bread led me to the Al-Mazah
bakery. Much to my surprise, the line in front of it was similar to the line I
saw in front of the automated bakery in Al-Zahirah, even thought it was 1 a.m.!
I decided to enter this marathon with hope that God could get me through.
The situation was indescribable…
a flow of people from here and from there, and their final destination was the
bakery’s three windows. The unorganized, overcrowded lines quickly became
chaotic as there was nothing to organize us but the screams of those who felt
that others were cheating the line.
Perhaps what eased my wait, was
that I met an entertaining friend in the queue. Although I did not know him
beforehand, the time that we spent together in front of the bakery made me
categorize him as a friend, and I called him “entertaining” because he made me
forget the long hour and a half wait. When I arrived, I heard him
confidentially murmuring to himself that he owns a taxi, and that this endeavor
to buy bread forced him to stop driving his taxi one hour every morning and two
hours every night.
When I asked him “why do you not
send any of your kids to bring the bread instead of you?” He told me that one
of his sons was studying to earn his bachelor’s degree and that the other was
too young and was at home sleeping. He also informed me that for two days now
he had not had any bread in his house.
The “Entertainer” arrived here
following an unsuccessful attempt, in front of one of the other bakeries, which
took about an hour and a half. After expressing his complaints, the
“Entertainer” started telling jokes mixed with sorrow and frustration, in an
attempt to pass the time and forgetting what was happening around us.
I would divide the time I spent
waiting into two periods, the external and the internal. During the first period,
we all waited on the stairs outside for about an hour. We waited impatiently
for someone to leave with bread in his hand so that the queue would shorten.
Yet, with no rhyme or reason the queue would shorten and then lengthen again.
When I finally arrived at the bakery’s window sill, the queue suddenly froze
for half an hour. I realized that there was no rule guiding this process. The
reason the queue froze was because of intrusions by policeman, army officers
and even the baker’s friends. Their way was open and easy. Their easy way
complicated and lengthened the crisis.
The internal period was like
swimming in waves. I witnessed events that made me simultaneously laugh and
then cry. I heard uproars that the ears cannot stand and comments that
made me laugh out loud. I also saw pushing matches that quickly escalated to
fist fights. What pained me most was when a disagreement over whose turn it was
in line escalated to a clash between two people. No one moved a muscle to break
up the fight, I even heard someone say, “Let them kill each other..I won’t lose
my turn because of them”.
Often my attention was turned to
the cheers of a woman, who would let it be known that she got her quota of
bread. It was like a perfect marriage, the groom wants the bride (or in this
case the bread) and the place is even full of attendants. The questions that
remains are: Will the attainment of one day’s worth of bread become something
to be celebrated? Will the citizen have to contribute three hours out of every
day to get this bread?
The most troubling aspect of all
this is the negative more moral outcomes, as the overcrowded bakeries and the
unruly crowds outside of public transport buses foster aselfish disregard for
others. For example, I saw an old man ask a young man in line if they
could switch places, the young man harshly refused and told the old man to get
to the end of the line. After two hours of waiting, I reached the end of
the line, where the master and lord of order, the baker, who distributed bread
with arrogance, as if he were a King distributing his endowment to peasants,
gave me my bread, which I accepted with gratitude. I went swimming back into
the crowd, leaving behind a crowd that never decreased. I thanked God fifty
times for coming out of this war safely. Who enters there is lost and who comes
out is born.
Outside I asked a man, named
Mohsen Abdul Rahman, waiting in the queue, what he thought about this? He
answered, “I consider this crisis to be the making of some individuals, as
bread has always been available”. He believes that there is no connection
between the rise in price of mazot (gas/oil) and this crisis. When I asked him
if he thought there had been a codification of flour, he responded, “I do not
think there is rationing, but vulnerable souls are the ones causing this
crisis, as I have read in some newspapers, there is bread smuggling, as I
learned there is an increase in the price of fodder.” He continued, “Solutions
don’t come that fast, but I think that the Ministry of Economy should intervene
in the matter”. Mohsen added, “I came here yesterday to buy bread but the
bakery was closed, and I usually buy five packages of bread to save myself
coming here and waiting in front of the bakery. What got my attention was the
ban of the sale of bread in the shops and grocery stores, which was leading to
price control”.
We asked Mohsen about his
proposal to resolve the crisis, he answered: “the solution is to educate
people, and for us to tolerate each other, and as long as bread is available,
why do people fear it’s cessation and flock profusely to the bakery? I do not
think that the crisis will drag on”.
During our talk with Mohsen,
someone returned escaping from the crowd, we asked him:
“Why did you return without
buying bread?” He answered: “I think you need five hours to get the bread and
get out”. He went on, “Usually we don’t find this kind of pressure on the
bakery…it is almost 1am now and the crowd is growing”. He pointed out
that there are some bakeries that sell the bread for twenty lira, which is five
lira more than the usual price, among them the Al-Zahrah automated bakery. He
added, “I am a resident of Sahnaya, and there is only one bakery there, so how
will it alone fulfill the needs of the people?!”
In response to the question of,
“Where are the other bakeries?” Mohsen replied that they are not functioning,
and as you can see there are more than three hundred people here.
The crowd that was assembled with
us in front of this frightening scene of over crowdedness and push and shove,
appealed to the government to find a solution for this crisis. It is
unreasonable – according to them – that a citizen waits for three hours to get
bread!
Mohammad Hassan, an employee in
the media, expressed his pessimism in regards to the situation saying, “This
situation is unacceptable, and shameful indeed, these queues are unreasonable”.
In regards to the reason of crisis he said, “The bakeries do not receive
adequate allocation, also some of them don’t work because of the price increase
of mazot”. He pointed out that the quality bread that used to sell for 40 lira,
sells now for 50 or 60 lira because of the current crisis. Mohammad said that
he waited for more than two hours and did not receive the quantity he desired.
Mohammad believes that government should raise the price of bread of provide
flour to the bakeries, anything to help solve this crisis.
During our tour, we met with the
manager of Al-Mazah bakery, who refused to reveal his name. He blamed the
current situation on the citizens who roam to Al-Mazah bakery from other areas
and neighborhoods. He said, “The citizens come from far away places to get
bread, and they mentioned that the bakeries there aren’t working”. He
added that some come from Al-Hajjar Al-Aswad and the Yarmouk camp, knowing that
there are more than ten bakeries in these areas and he wondered aloud, “Why are
they all closed?!”.
The manager of the bakery denied
that crisis was a result of the unavailability of flour, he said, “flour is
always available, despite the different specifics of each bakery”. He told us
that his bakery works day and night. He blamed the bread crisis on the
“director of supply and the owners of the non-functioning bakeries.”
A citizen tired from the long
wait blamed the crisis on, “the arrival of the villagers to the bakeries of the
city”. He continued that maybe “the rise of the price of mazot to 25
lira, forced private bakeries that buys mazot for that price, to stop working,
because in that case, they would lose money”.
Anas Hamdan, a bookshop owner,
said that the Ministry of Economy has to intervene. Quality bread prices
have increased, and he fears that this price increase could extend to normal
bread.
Asked if he had suggestions to
solve this crisis, Hamdan said, “I suggest that people voice their opinion in
the media, and the government has to hold a media and advertisement campaign to
inform people and provide them with reassurances that bread is available and
bakeries continue to produce it”. He added, “I think the crisis worsened
since the increase in price for mazot and gas, and there are some people who
trade in bread, as they buy it from the bakery for 15 lira, and then sell it
for 25 lira, which increases the pressure on the bakery”.
Whatever the background and
justification for this phenomenon is, it must stop. The decision makers in the
government, specifically the Ministry of Economy, have to intervene to protect
the livelihood of a large section of the population. The citizen that works 14
hours a day, and barely survives on that, cannot contribute an additional three
hours waiting in line for bread. These chaotic and unfamiliar scenes bring
further hardships to those who are already exhausted.