Daraa Protests Are The Spark Syria Needed

The security forces' violent clampdown on protesters in Daraa will inspire repressed Syrians to finally break their silence

By Maher Arar
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 23/03/2011

Protesters gather near the Omari mosque in the city of Daraa, Syria. Photograph: Khaled Al-Hariri/Reuters

 

Syria seemed relatively stable before massive protests erupted last week in the city of Daraa, a small city south of the capital. Demonstrators chanted for freedom and for the end of corruption.

These protests were met with violence from security forces that claimed the lives of five innocent civilians. In a rare interview accorded to the Wall Street Journal at the end of January, Bashar al-Assad claimed that Syria was immune from such unrest because he had always been close to his people and he, unlike Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, understood his people's needs.

To prove his point, Syria's first lady, Asma, embarked on a public relations campaign by giving a candid interview to American Vogue magazine. This interview, which refers to the first lady as the "rose of the desert", was undoubtedly targeted toward the sensitivities of a western audience, proclaiming that the Assads are an open-minded and tolerant family, and leaving the reader with an unmistakable impression that, in consideration of the presence of the Syrian Christian minority, the Assad clan would be the best choice to continue to rule this conservative Middle-Eastern country.

But, here is what the article did not mention.

At the time of his ascent to power in 2000, still only, the young president promised major reforms were coming.

Popularly elected by 97% of all votes, Syrians of all stripes thought they finally had a glimpse of hope after the 30-year, iron-fist rule of his father.

Assad pledged he would fight corruption, would guarantee his people more freedom of expression, and would adopt a more liberal market policy. He may have partially succeeded on the latter point but it became clear a few years into his rule that he miserably failed on the first two, leading some Syrians to speculate that the new president was simply a puppet in the hands of his father's old camp.

Furthermore, Syria's human rights situation steadily deteriorated under the new ruler, especially after the unofficial alliance with the Unites States to fight al-Qaida, a historically common enemy. For instance, it became clear around 2001 that Syria was a preferred rendition destination for terror suspects. The cases of Hydar Zammar, Ahmed El-Maati, Abdullah El-Malki and my own are only a few examples . Bob Baer, a former CIA official, stated at the time: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria," something to which I can personally attest.

Last year, Human Rights Watch published an extensive report about the human rights situation in Syria in which the organisation concluded that Assad's decade in power was marked by repression.

This may explain why the majority of Syrians have preferred to remain silent, at least for now. One need look no further than the scandalous five-year sentence the blogger Tal al-Mallohi, 19, received recently because she "was found to be spying for a foreign entity". Countless other activists, such as the 80-year-old veteran Haitham al-Maleh, who was released two weeks ago because of his age, have been jailed simply because they voiced their opinions on matters related to good governance and social justice.

Another factor that may contribute to this silence is the ethnic divisions among Syrians. The ruling Alawite minority, to whom Assad belongs and whose members have full control over sensitive military and intelligence posts, is only one of many. There is also the powerless Sunni majority, Christians , Kurds, Ismailis and Duruz. There are also over 1 million old Palestinian immigrants and, more recently, more than 1 million Iraqi refugees have decided to make Syria their home. All these groups have competing and conflicting interests. These ethnic divisions make it extremely challenging to have a unified popular voice, but what is encouraging is the fact that the Syrian youth who are leading this nonviolent reform movement have made it clear that it is purely secular in nature and they will not allow it to be hijacked by any opportunist ethnic group or opposition party.

It is too early to ascribe the "revolution" label to this Syrian youth movement. But what is clear from the Tunisian example is that revolutions need a spark and it seems Assad has already ignited it in Daraa.