Friday, March 29, 2024
This video message to Australian members of parliament (MPs) was recorded in Madam Janset Kazan's office, Damascus, 21 September 2019. Captions were added by Sarah Nachar, and Rana Alkhayrat and Rasha Milhem translated the interview with Madam Janset. In this country, we believe in all religions, so we took the concept of forgiveness and reconciliation from all the religions that...
I was in Damascus for just over a week, and in a taxi with Athar and Rana on our way to the old city. First for a stroll in the Souq Al-Hamidiyah and then onto Beit Jabri for a juice and maybe lunch. It's September 2019. Life has its burdens for the locals, no doubt, but they can still smile....
In his 1988 LA Times article below, journalist and columnist Charles Wallace captured beautifully Syrians' love for the game of backgammon; the magic of it. (However, in 2020, it should be noted that today if Syrian women don't enter a cafe, it is because they choose not to, not because they dare not.) This game of backgammon in Beit Jabri was...
In September 2019 on a visit to Damascus, I interviewed Athar, a Syrian woman who has been in her church scout group since she was 15 years old. We chatted in Beit Jabri, a popular restaurant in old Damascus. Athar explained that her scout group meets once a week for band practice and for activities for the children. Also, at their...
Souk al Hamediyya is one of Damascus’s most famous landmarks. Throughout the war it has never stopped being the centre of trade and shopping in Syria’s capital. All walks of Syrian life congregate here, and have done so since Roman times. The souk starts at the centre of the modern city and ends at an intact Roman arch and...
 'Syrian School' (Part 3)  'Being Inspired' Syrian School Episode 3 of 5 Five-part series following a year in the life of four schools in Damascus, a high pressure crossroads in the Middle East. It concentrates on some remarkable characters finding their way in a country that has never before opened ordinary life up to the cameras in this way, challenges the usual cliches of...
This account of a young German tourist's recent visit to Damascus can be found on this Youtube site. A comment on the YouTube page captures the impressions one gets from the tourist's short stay in Damascus: This was beautiful. So much history here. The architecture is still amazing after all these years. Thank you for sharing.    

Palm Sunday – Interviews

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Martin Luther King's Anti-War Stand Sunday 25 March 2018 - Interviewer: Susan Dirgham - Camera: Sean Hwang 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. I interviewed people at the Palm Sunday March in Melbourne to bring attention to Martin Luther King's anti-war message and to consider its relevance today. Those interviewed included an Australian Defence Force chaplain and Rev Andreas Lowe, the...