ALEPPO, Syria — He's not wealthy or famous, a man of high education or rare breeding. Nor does he make much of a rebel. Yet here he is, a reluctant political operative deep into a declared "war" against Syria's Baath Party.
A harried photographer and curator, Issa Touma is the son of an Arabic language teacher bewildered by his exploits and a homemaker who laughs and then weeps at them. She fears Touma's audacity will get him arrested.
Touma, a 40-year-old Armenian Syrian who has never married, has pushed his homeland further than most people thought Syria could go. He has ignored orders from both the ruling Baath Party and the Culture Ministry commanding him to halt all unauthorized activities.
He has continued to throw some of the biggest and most ambitious international art festivals this country has seen. He has also endured years of investigations, interrogations and run-ins with government officials. He undertakes this political work with a weary resignation shot with flashes of spiteful defiance.
"I enjoy the victory -- yeah, I enjoy that. If you do something well, you aren't going to enjoy it? Of course you are," said Touma, a dapper, bustling man with a balding pate, round spectacles and a serious air. "But the victory only brings more problems. And in the end, this is not what I want. What I want is to do my photos. Only that."
This is not another tale of a human rights activist, journalist or fledgling political candidate tossed into an Arab jail. You will not hear Touma utter the word "reform," and politics leave him cold.
But it is a story about authoritarian rule and the improbable politicians it can create. Touma is a rare success story in a land where underdogs are traditionally crushed. He doesn't fret over nationalism or Iraq; in conversation, his talk careens from pigeon trainers to fat men to Antigone.
"I know people would love to say it was Issa against the Baath Party, and in reality it was like that," he said. "But the politics I did the last two years, it was only to survive."
Touma calls his gallery Le Pont, "The Bridge" in French, and adorns its walls with all things scandalous -- pieces by Jewish artists, portraits of nude men and women, videotaped performance art verging on the pornographic -- none of it submitted to government censors for approval. His festivals lure artists from around the world to spill American jazz and African drums and Sufi dance into the chalky alleyways of this industrial town in the northern hills.
