No McDonalds Here!

During the 1960s and 70s, Gamal Abd Al-Nasr of Egypt and Hafez Al-Assad of Syria set their respective countries on a path towards ISI (import substitution industrialization) to build up their own economies while effectively keeping them out of the world market. The idea was to cushion their countries with subsidies in order to boost industrialization and production rather than open the floodgates to allow for other, cheaper products from around the world to infiltrate and reduce Syria and Egypt to being producers of only cheap labor or very very cheap goods. I could go on and on about political economy, but I believe I have made the basic point that Syria is and has been a very isolated country economically for this reason.

There are no McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King or Subway like you will find in nearly every other Middle Eastern country. The only chain in existence is a Costa Coffee, which is basically an Italian Starbucks. This is disappointing for those of us who need a taste of home every once in a while, but at the same time makes me proud of Syria because their policies force internal growth. In fact a Syrian version of Starbucks, which is called In House has opened up in 4 or 5 locations around the city and is very successful. And all of the profits stay within Syria.

Another result of these protection policies is that all of the jobs here at every level, are filled by Syrians (although with the Iraqi refugees this is changing a little bit). The street cleaners, the builders, the manicurists at the salon- all Syrian! In Jordan this was much different. Egyptians were always the ones doing construction and picking up trash. And Pilipino and South East Asians were live-in maids and worked at the spas and salons. Kuwait is much the same, but with more international representation. (To read about the awful conditions of guest workers in the Gulf check out this article)

Syria is still a very poor country, mostly because of the massive amount it spends on its military, but in the end it has been able to maintain its identity and a very rich culture that has been somewhat diluted in other more economically open countries.

Respecting God's Creation

I was 'schooled' by a six-year old a few days ago. I was sitting with my host family at dinner, we were all just politely chatting and someone brought up how they never see fish served in restauraunts here like they do in the Gulf. I commented "ana ma baHab asSemach," (I don't like fish) in a Kuwaiti dilect to be funny. The laughs tapered off as Sa'id, the six year old son, opened up a long tirade about how you should never say that you don't like something from God's creation. God created fish and all the animals for our benefit, so if we say that we don't like something from his creation we are disrespecting him by not receiving his gifts. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. Next time I will be sure to say that I prefer not to eat something because it makes me sick!