“Tourists at any cost”. It should be the name oftravel agency who organized the excursion for a small group of Italian tourists in Syria. The Syrian Ministry of Tourism did not miss the opportunity to celebrate “the group of Italians who visited the city of possible”, with a post on the Facebook page.
On the other hand, the link between the remains of the city of Ebla and Italy is strong. It was he who discovered it an Italian archaeologist, Paolo Matthiae, recently – about a month ago – decorated with great pomp by President al Assad himself for his merits and for certainly being a friend of the Syrian people. Of which Syrian people the illustrious archaeologist is a friend, it is difficult to know: if of those who live in refugee camps of the Middle East or the one who sits at caviar and champagne ceremonies.
But the little taste, on this occasion, is that of war tourism. Go to a country torn apart by civil war – as if nothing had happened! – to visit the archaeological remains of a civilization that disappeared millennia ago. It is as if, in the midst of the war against the caliphate, a picnic had been organized in Mosul to take a tour of the market and breathe in the Arab exoticism. Or if, almost at all costs, the tourist agency had organized a nice Milano Marittima-Kabul bus to go and see the remains of some disappeared civilization.
E it doesn’t matter what the situation is in the country, of women forced into the burka or of summary killings. How little does it matter that Syria is still being bombed and that people, over half of the population, do not have access to health facilities. The important thing is to have a packed lunch in the shade of Ebla. And in our hearts we hope that it is just the umpteenth hoax, the umpteenth lie of the Syrian regime’s propaganda, aimed at normalizing a country that is normally it has nothing left. Not even tourism.