Videos

Our new series features Syrian cafés and restaurants in Melbourne and the Syrian Australians who have established them. We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Safi Ayoush, the Syrian Australian owner of Raqwa Café and Beer Garden. Safi was born in Australia, but he spent his formative years in Syria, hence his close connection to Syria. Safi hopes to attract members of the Syrian...

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...

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...

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.    

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...

 '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...

 Tima Kurdi, author of ‘The Boy On The Beach’ (Simon & Schuster, 2018), was born and raised in Damascus.    In 1992, she immigrated to Canada but maintained close links with her family in Syria. There were joyful reunions back in Damascus, but in September 2015, a personal tragedy struck the Kurdi family. Tima’s younger brother Abdullah, his wife Rehanna, and their...

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...