The same day president Assad said on the TV that the crisis is over (absolutely untrue) I met Abdulkarim (name changed), an Islamist supporting the rebellion. He was introduced me by a European acquaintance, who is worried for my growing sympathy for the Syrian government in the fight against the Islamists. For some reason the West combats Islamist movements on their own soil and in many other places but support them in Syria.

Abdulkarim is 32 years old engineer who doesn't meet my stereotype of an Islamist. He speaks perfect English, has refined manners, has traveled all over the world and has a French fiancee converted to Islam. I thought they were poor people who had nothing to lose.

Abdulkarim demands democracy but as an instrument, not as a value. He wants free elections but I get the idea that he believes that his side would win and then more election would not be necessary ever again. He says that democracy means that the majority has the power and there is no room for minorities. Some Islamists demand expulsion of the Christians (10% of the population) to Europe.

Abdulkarim thinks that not only Syria but all the countries of the world should follow sharia. He admires the Taliban regime in Afganistan but according to him they should have taught sharia to people, who were confused for not knowing it. He says that the Christians don’t have to be afraid because there have never been violence between the ethnic and religious groups in Syria. According to him, the threat of sectarian violence has been invented by the government. I have read very different history of Syria where churches have been burning. Anyways, Abdulkarim is angry because he saw somebody drinking beer in a park during the Ramadan - a clear declaration of war.

Erfan invited me to his home to see his photo and video works. He lives far away from the center in an illegally built area but I wouldn’t call it a slum in the context of Damascus where most of the areas are a bit informal and chaotic. Erfan said that when the chaos makes him anxious, he goes to Sham City Center, which is a western style shopping mall. It reminds him of Vienna, where he studied fine arts. Pushing the shopping cart around the supermarket relaxes him, though he can barely afford to buy anything.

Erfan told me, both on video and face-to-face, his experiences as a second generation Palestinian refugee in Syria and Libya, where a classmate shouted him to go back to his country when he had no idea of the concepts of country, Palestine or refugee.

Erfan's parents flew from Palestine in 1948. Erfan was born in Syria but emigrated as a baby to Libya. He dreams about going one day to his Palestinian home village he has never seen. Erfan doesn’t have any citizenship but a Syrian passport stating that he is a Palestinian refugee.

Erfan defines himself culturally Muslim though he doesn't believe in God. He is against the Islamist rebels and supports the Syrian government in these difficult circumstances. He thinks that the rebellion is controlled and financed by Saudi Arabia, the United States and the European Union. He thinks that there will be never justice in the world, the rich are always against the poor.

Erfan asked if I wanted to go to his favorite mall but I preferred him to take me to a Palestinian refugee camp. He said it was not interesting, that there was nothing to see, but I insisted and finally he accepted. We cabbed to the camp and it looked like any other part of the city. The only difference was that there were less photos of Bashar al-Assad and photos of Yasser Arafat were everywhere. Erfan says that if I want to see misery I have to go to see the camps in Lebanon. Erfan has no bad word about the treatment of the refugees by the Syrian government.

I was looking for a present for my one-year-old son. Erfan suggested a toy AK-74. I was horrified by the idea but he said Palestinian kids play fedayeen.

I went to the souq, the huge market, and bought for my wife some Syrian fantasy lingerie, available next to kids’ clothing, spices and teapots. It’s a bit like the stuff that can be found in sex shops in the West but more humorous and playful. Many Muslims equip their honeymoon with an enormous number of different sexy outfits. The idea of finding that under a black jilbab is exciting. The Syrian Christians I’ve met, consider this kind of underwear vulgar, it’s exclusively Muslim culture and people from all Middle East come to Damascus to buy this gear which is made in Syria, not in China. I got panties that play lambada and a tiny bra that has multicolor glimmering led lights. The Quran advices the wives to entertain their husbands.

I met again Abir and she took me to All Art Now, a non-profit space she runs and the only place to see contemporary art in Damascus. The space is in the old town in a rundown building which permits a flexible use of the galleries and keeping traces of previous projects visible. Now the activities have been paralyzed during the crisis, even Egyptian artists are afraid of traveling to Syria.

All Art Now had on view still a smoothly curated group show of Damascene artists. The theme is memories and most of the artists had treated the issue from a personal point of view but it was impossible to see the works without the context of the current situation. The exhibition curated by Abir presents five installations that become sequels of a horror film scenery about the history of this complex country. Nisrine Boukhari shows an installation with 30 hanging knives in between curtains - I found this out when one of the knives was situated an inch from my eye. Erfan Khalifa's installation is closed because he has lost his memories due to an electroconvulsive threrapy. In a keyhole you can see a stack of white plastic chairs.

We walked to a restaurant to meet most of the artists of the show: Erfan, Muhammad and Nisrine. I was of course asking about the politics. Everybody talked me like the official propaganda of the government and now I was speaking with Sunni Muslims, who are, according to the Western media, supposed to support the rebellion. What I don’t understand is that why the situation is painted so black and white: Assad’s dicatorship Vs. Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist regime. Of course, I’d pick also the current regime of those two but I refuse to believe that there are no other options. The most important thing to these art world people is to keep the religion out of the politics and develop the country even more secular if possible.

I’ve been lonely and I my injured foot has limited my movements in Damascus but this week I decided I had to meet more people and move around despite of the pain and the incapability of the Institute to introduce me to any people. I’m making good work – Syria for Dummies slide show has now almost 300 photos - but if I don’t meet more people I don’t understand myself the work I’ve done.

I’ve been speaking to people at falafel stalls, carpet shops and bars. A common attitude towards the political situation is not to support the Islamist rebels but neither to back blindly the regime. Many Syrians hope that Assad would reform now when he has been challenged. An Islamist revolution would destroy the fragile multiculturalism of the country. This is the only place I’ve seen where niqabed and miniskirted women buy the same halal meat in the same butcher´s shop and girls in hijab go to rock'n'roll concerts.

I met finally Abir who runs All Art Now, a non-profit space that is the only place to see contemporary art in Damascus. I asked how big is the art world in the city and first she said that it’s formed of about fifteen people but later reduced it to seven. Abir seemed to like Syria for Dummies but said that she could not exhibit it because of the photos of the photos of the president. I find it interesting because I just make something that anybody can see visible. It’s too much to juxtapose some transitory consumer goods and the eternal political leader.

Thursday night is when the weekend begins here and people go to party, most of them without getting drunk. I found a bar with dancing and drinking people and talked all night with a 24-year-old Muslim DJ. He kept his hand front of the mouth and whispered me that he wants to kill the president with his own hands. His cousin had been just killed by a riot control sniper (if you ask some other people, they would say that the sniper was in the orders of the Islamists). But what really got me surprised was that a Muslim could drink much more than a Finn, I hardly was able to walk back home.