12 | NEW STATESMAN | 21-27 SEPTEMBER 2012

Ideas |Science |Events |People

IN THE PICTURE15 September 2012: Lebanese soldiersguard a branch of Burger King in Sidonthe day after protesters attacked other

US fast-food outlets in response to an American-made film that insults the

Prophet Muhammad

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Commons Confidential Kevin Maguire on IDSs wheelchair troubleScience Michael Brooks on the search for the elixir of lifeEducation Rowenna Davis on whats wrong with the EBaccReligion Omar Shahid on gay Muslims who speak outEconomy Gavin Kelly and Nick Pearce on tough choices for Labour

SYRIA

Death rains down on AleppoToby Muse

quickly stubbed out theircigarettes and did what theycould. They applied a tourniquet as a bright-red puddle spread out underneath the woundedman. Dozens were killedyesterday in Aleppo and dozensmore will die today.

When Syrians learn that ImEnglish, they ask me why Englandor the United States or the worlddoesnt do anything to stop themaiming and end the killing. Yet theres also a resignation that the world will not help. One rebel commander told me:The world knows what it shoulddo. We are not interested inbegging for help.

Beyond wordsBreadlines are a daily sight.Dozens queue for the staple thataccompanies almost every meal in Syria. Human Rights Watchhas documented multiple cases in which heavy artillery has firedon these lines, dismemberingwomen and children.

Ive rarely been so self-consciousabout the limitations of my job as a journalist. Im reporting only onehalf of this story; I cant speak tosoldiers fighting the rebels or thecivilians who support PresidentAssad. (Journalists working inAleppo take it for granted that iftheyre caught by the army, theyllbe detained indefinitely or killed.)

As I was getting ready to leavethe city, I was frustrated that I couldnt convey the sheer scaleof what is happening here. Noreport prepared me for what I sawin Aleppo and I know Im equallyincapable of explaining it to theoutside world.As I left, it wasnt the sight

After a two-hour drive, the car came into Aleppo.As I was grabbing my bags and getting out, a mortarexploded two blocks away. Andthen another. Every inner voicescreamed I should get back in the car and race to the safety of the border.

What caused me a momentsterror has been daily life for thecitys two million inhabitantsover the past six weeks. Aleppocan be overwhelming. The combathere is unlike any Ive coveredbefore; much of it isnt evencombat. Day and night, the Syrian government is engaged in a campaign of bombing andshelling, using aeroplanes,helicopters and heavy artillery.

In an instant, death comes fromabove and theres no telling whereit will fall. Government MiG jetfighters perform elaboratemanoeuvres against civilianneighbourhoods, diving to dropbombs on their targets.

In the emergency wards, onesees the daily mutilation of thecity. Heavy shelling rocked the area around the hospital allafternoon, causing deep rumblingsthat upend the stomach. Withoutfail, minutes after a shelling, a carwould screech to the hospitalsfront doors and one or twoinjured civilians would be carriedin. One middle-aged man wasbrought in half conscious, hishead lolling back. His left leg hadbeen blown off below the knee.

With the hospital alreadyattending to dozens of otherpatients, the only space left wasthe floor by the door, just feetfrom the pavement. Doctors in bloodstained white coats t

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Observationsof the dead girl that remained

with me and it wasnt the group of Syrian fighters who stood inthe middle of a main avenuethrusting their Kalashnikovs into the air, defying the MiG jet screaming overhead. It wasntthe brigade commander sitting in the flickering light, focused onthe chessboard as heavy artillerylanded all around outside hiscommand centre.

It was a suitcase. On one of myfinal nights, I slept on the frontline. Civilians had left the area,leaving the rebels and the army to fight over the deserted homesand blasted-out buildings. EvenAleppos ubiquitous stray cats had fled the constant mortarattacks. Four fighters twobrothers and two cousins had taken over an apartment.

The spacious home had oncebelonged to a well-off family. Inthe living room, the fighterswould relax at night, watchingclips from around Syria showingcombat with the army or the latestcivilian bloodshed on a huge, flat-screen TV.

With the customary hospitality,they put me in what they said wasthe safest room: what was oncethe childrens room. Two smallbeds lay side by side, each madeup with matching sheets showinga smiling sun. A stuffed elephantsat on the shelves. On one bedwas an open suitcase. It wasalmost fully packed, with T-shirtsand shorts adorned with drawingsof animals and Minnie Mouse.

I can see a young girl, maybe ten years old, selecting herfavourite clothes, neatly foldingthem into the suitcase. I canpicture her and her familyfrantically fleeing their home,every second affecting theirchances of survival.

Without even time to grab that bag, she had taken her time to pack thoughtfully. I imaginethis girl now with her family, a few more faces among the200,000 Syrians living in misery in the refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan.

Or perhaps she never took thatbag because one day she and herfamily were killed in shelling.lToby Muse is a video journalist and documentary film-maker

The light fantastic: players enjoy a game of Johann Sebastian Joust

We are circling each other,me and the tall, beardedman. As the music speeds up, he lunges, aiming forthe microphone-shaped object in my hand. I spin away too fast,as it turns out. The light bulb ontop of the object turns from purpleto red and its game over for me.

Im nearly 29 years old, so I havent played anythingapproaching tag in public fortwo decades but here I am, at theHide and Seek Weekender at theSouthbank Centre in London,making a fool of myself in front ofstrangers. The game were playingis called Johann Sebastian Joustand its an experiment by theDanish developers Die GuteFabrik. Two to seven players holdmotion-sensitive PlayStationcontrollers which look likemicrophones with an illuminateddoorknob on top and listen to theBrandenburg Concertos. Whenthe music starts, at a slow tempo,the controllers are extremely

sensitive; as it speeds up, you can move more quickly. If you bust the limit by lunging wildlyat another player or having your controller jostled theilluminated knob changes colourand youre out.

Shower sceneAlthough Johann Sebastian Joustis technically a video game, itrequires no screen and no specialknowledge. It is part of a growinggenre called digital folk gamesthat attempts to capture theexperience of playground classicssuch as tag or grandmothersfootsteps for adults.

The creator of Joust is DouglasWilson, who is studying for adoctorate in interaction designand design theory at CopenhagenUniversity. His guiding principlewas simple: Moving in slowmotion is rad and we should do a game about that, he told theonline magazine Verge.

Joust isnt available commerciallybut you can play it at gamesfestivals and expos around Europe.The Verge writer Griffin McElroyrigged up a laptop with an earlyversion of it in his flat (at one point,he hid in his shower, hoping hisfour opponents would knock

themselves out) and also playedoutside at night, making theglowing tops of the controllerseven more important.

After playing Joust (and losingevery single game throughoverconfidence), I moved on toRomeoke avant-garde karaokemeets Asteroids in which youcontrol the movement of balloonson screen with your voice. Yes,you feel stupid going oooOOOin public: thats the point. Digitalfolk games are designed to breaksocial taboos, to get strangerstalking and interacting and tomake public spaces feel morefriendly. Theres a video on Die Gute Fabriks website of Joust being played on the streetsof Copenhagen. Curious crowdssoon gather around the players;before long, they are joining in.

This all might sound like anexcuse for a bunch of adults to larkabout but the gamers are beingsupported by academic research.Play is being recognised as avaluable antidote to more intensejobs and more atomised urbanlives. As Brian Sutton-Smith, theformer dean of play studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, onceput it: The opposite of play isntwork. Its depression.l

GAMES

For folks sakeHelen Lewis

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