There are many questions to be answered whether rebuilding would ever authentically restore Aleppo's old city to what it had been for centuries.
Would "restoration" render it a sterile or glitzy place with the main focus on the tourist dollar? Which countries would help rebuild it and where would the money come from, and could Syria and her experts influence and oversee the reconstruction? One professor of Archeology at Aleppo University asked, "Could a rebuilt Medina souk ever again be 'my neighborhood, the cherished neighborhood of my youth and of my family over preceding generations?" Many of the individual souks, maybe 12 feet by 10 feet were valued at close of one million dollars and restoration would cost hundreds of millions.
Locating experts in areas amidst fairly intense government security concerns and measures which are much greater than in Damascus was not always easy. It was compounded by the fact of 2 hour per day electricity and water shortages, yet one still had the opportunity to discuss and learn from a cross section of this community including academic, governmental, business and citizen activists.
Three tentative conclusions arrived at by this observer from fascinating and heart felt discussions include one from Professor Lamis Herbly, Chairperson of the Archeology department of Aleppo University. This warm and elegant lady's eyes welled with tears, being the mother of two youngsters and who worries daily about the safety of her children while insisting that they stay in school despite the dangers, described her and her communities losses. She also expressed the concerns of her academic colleagues that if and when reconstruction begins in the old city of Aleppo that it must be done with utmost care and under Syrian experts control. She explained what she meant was that reconstruction in Syria not mirror what was done in Beirut to renovate the 'downtown' area which separated Muslim and Christian militia along the 'green line' during Lebanon's 15 year (1975-1990).
One professor declared the reconstruction of downtown Beirut and the filling in of Beirut harbor with thousands of years of antiquities as Saudi financed, behemoth Mercedes Benz earth movers shoved much of Lebanon's history into the sea to make way for upscale fancy tourist attracting shops catering to rich Gulf tourists (of whom there are very few these days). "So they can buy yet more jewelry and Paris fashions?" she asked. Someone else joined in saying what happened in Lebanon was a cultural crime.
"Downtown Beirut is an obscenity," one PhD candidate, a young lady who formerly lived near the old city insisted. This student is among those who joined efforts that began nearly two decades ago to preserve and protect one of Aleppo's two remaining synagogues in the Samoua neighborhood. She vowed that citizens of Aleppo must not and will not allow what happened in Beirut to happen here in Aleppo.
Another concern, discussed with citizens in Aleppo is the often expressed worry over whether other countries that unfortunately had, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, a hand in the destruction of much of Syria cultural heritage would be willing to help with its preservation and reconstruction. This observer, who has studied the subject over the past two years in Syria shared this concern, but sought to assure Aleppo interlocutors that indeed many governments acknowledge with gratitude the work of the Syrian people in protecting our mutual global heritage, in the custody of country's people for millennia, share their horror over what has happened and indeed want to help as soon as a lasting ceasefire can be achieved. This subject was one of the most frequently raised by both experts and average citizens in Aleppo.
Archeological and restoration experts in Syria tend to agree with international research findings that estimate that despite the vast heartbreaking destruction, looting, politically motivated desecration of countless mosques and churches as well as thousands of years of pagan artifacts, that approximately 96 percent of our shared cultural heritage in Syria can be repaired, restored, or even replicated when no other option in available. What is urgently needed before more damage is infected is a ceasefire or freeze in place and is being discussed by UN mediators. Objects that have been blow up in a frenzy of ignorance and malevolence are lost and irreplaceable. The tens of thousands of illegally excavated and looted priceless antiquities now scattered to private collections and speculators have been routed through, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Iraq and Jordan. They must be returned as part of a massive international antiquities retrieval campaign that should include an expanded role for Interpol, auction houses and governments as well as international institution of the UN. One student at Damascus University told this observer recently that she and fellow students have started an international campaign focusing on auction houses and governments seeking the return of stolen Syrian antiquities. They have named their student led organization: "I'm Syrian and I need to go home. Please help me."
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