Second World War

Syria awakes

March 25, 2011
Protests in Syria have usually been directed at foreign enemies. How will the regime react when the crowd's anger is directed closer to home?
Protests in Syria have usually been directed at foreign enemies. How will the regime react when the crowd's anger is directed closer to home?



The great waterwheels of Hama don’t turn much anymore. Their once labourious groan has been silenced, as the Orontes River has been reduced to a muddy, green stream. Now, in this Arab spring, Syria has blossomed. In the southern city of Deraa, protestors have taken to the streets to voice allegiance with their Arab brothers and against President al-Assad. In response, the government has announced that it will examine the possibility of lifting the state of emergency, implemented by Hafiz al-Assad in 1963, as well looking at wage rises, health reforms and the possibility of multi-party elections.

However, Bashir al-Assad has also responded to dissent with brute force. Police have sealed off Deraa, as the armed forces showered the streets with live ammunition. As the numbers swelled to mourn the dead, the secret police continued to kill indiscriminately; at least 100 Syrians were shot dead in a mosque in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The events in Deraa are reminiscent of one the most barbarous breaches of human rights since the second world war. When the Islamic Front took over the city of Hama in February 1982, the current president's father, Hafiz al-Assad laid waste to the city. After besieging the perimeters and declaring anyone who remained inside a combatant, security forces moved in, destroying most of the Old Quarter and murdering up to 25,000 civilians.

Yet Deraa has a different atmosphere to Hama. The south of Syria is more cosmopolitan, comparatively, than the north, with Damascus as its centre. It is a region influenced by Jordan, where life is slightly more prosperous, and a little freer; Jordanians do at least have the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

In Hama by comparison, the pace of modernisation moves only a little faster than the dormant water wheels. The city is deeply conservative and observes religious practice fastidiously. It is the exception as opposed to the rule to see a woman uncovered, reflecting the sensibility of a city where life remains unchanged in the face of the state’s secular agenda.

Since the Hama massacre, dissidence and organised opposition has been non-existent—until now. Journalists usually attribute this lack of opposition to two factors: fear of the secret police, and the popularity of Bashir al-Assad. The latter assertion is dubious at best, for al-Assad’s presidency bears all the hallmarks of the worst totalitarian clichés: posters bearing his moustachioed face loom over every street corner, and in 2007, al-Assad won an uncontested, fraudulent election with over 97 per cent of the vote.

The Ba’athist regime’s response to Deraa has done much to shatter this false illusion. Resorting to force, al-Assad has reverted to type, though this ought not to be a surprise. Syria is the only Arab state vehemently opposed to the international intervention in Libya. Evidently, the president does not wish to set a precedent that could result in meddling in Syrian affair—yet this also demonstrates how far out of step with the Arab world Syria has been since she aligned herself with Iran during 1980s.

This alliance is a marriage of convenience in many ways. Historian Peter Mansfield describes it as a “bizarre friendship between a professed Arab nationalist and an Iranian Shi’ite fundamentalist.” Syria benefited from a regular quota of free Iranian oil and from the sympathies of pro-Iranian Shi’ites in her client-state, Lebanon. This “axis of evil” continues today, funnelling weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas.

This week’s protests are of tremendous significance. Discontent has already forced the government to promise democratic reforms only hinted at since Hafiz’s death in 2000. A more open Syria could be drawn out of the Iranian orbit—a longstanding aim of Israel, which views the ‘Syrian track’ as a navigable route to peace.

For now, however, it seems that the Ba’athist regime is unlikely to fall as easily as those in Egypt and Tunisia, if it falls at all. Despite recent concessions, al-Assad has displayed little appetite for reform and has shown no mercy towards his people. It remains possible that the world will witness another Hama, or that the green-brown Orontes will run red before the seasons change to summer.