The memory of ordinary, everyday intercultural or interreligious relationships, in brief
Something of the historic interreligious relationships among the residents of the Old City of Homs is known to an international public. The relationships surrounding the market and traders of the Old City touched the whole of the city’s population. Less well known are the relationships which developed in the newer suburbs of the city, amongst populations which moved in and lived together in neighbourhoods and in towns nearby. Here, middle class and poorer residents encountered each other in person, and in the context of their everyday occupations, and not only through sectarian propaganda.
The context in which these relationships made a difference at the time
Like many Ottoman cities, Homs depended on interreligious encounter for all manner of activities: economic, political, social, cultural. The Old City long maintained visible signs of these multicultural and multireligious relationships, especially in trades and professions visible in and around the market areas. The city could be said to have been marked historic by a hyper diversity: Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen, Greek and Armenian; Sunni, Alawi, Greek and Syrian Orthodox, Assyrian, Maronite, Protestant. Across its history, Homs has also been attacked many times. Through much of its history, the spaces in which diverse relationships were normal also contrasted with narratives of conflict and division in which religion and culture were used as markers and causes of separation. The Memory Bank is intended to show that sectarian division and competition can be seen in a very different light through the eyes of those who also knew the reality of everyday relationships across different parts of society.
What has happened since, which makes the memory valuable
As with other Syrian cities, across the twentieth century the suburbs grew to take in poorer citizens, particularly from Sunni families, and immigrants, notably Armenians. The violence following the 2011 uprising meant much of the city was devastated, and sectarian narratives, drawing on divisions between parts of the city, have been used to pit citizens and refugees against each other.
How might the memory be used in bringing people together in practice now?
Homs has been held up as a city which could gain from initiatives to recreate its public planning so as to draw citizens together, instead of reinforcing division. The city’s diversity has not been destroyed, but support for those who make deliberate efforts would be required in order to revive the broad and optimistic pluralism that existed previously.
Additional context/Some additional reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homs
Marwa Al-Sabouni, Building for Hope: Towards an Architecture of Belonging, 2021.
Marwa Al-Sabouni, How Syria’s architecture laid the foundation for a brutal war, TED-talk, 2016, https://www.ted.com/talks/marwa_al_sabouni_how_syria_s_architecture_laid_the_foundation_for_brutal_war