Silent Syria

While the Egyptians and Tunisians managed to topple their authoritarian dictators, Syrian President Bashar al-Asad seems to be maintaining a solid grip on his "throne."  Since 1963, the highly hierarchical and centralized Ba'ath party has been ruling the country without any opposition party or movement. The Syrian state as a result, is embodied in a single political party. Thus, the Ba'ath ideology is the "only game in town." The Ba'ath party, with its totalitarian character, engulfs each and every bit of Syrian society from military, trade unions to student organizations.  As the interests and identities of the Ba'ath party and the Syrian military overlapped, any dissent against the regime faced brutal repression by the military. For instance, in February of 1982, in the city of Hama, the military violently clashed with the Muslim Brotherhood insurgency. The army literally leveled the city by using helicopter gunships and bulldozers, killing 20,000 people in total. As the regime did not hesitate to kill its own citizens ferociously, it had guaranteed its survival. For more see: Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, (London: Routledge, 2002)


After this harsh crackdown, the anti-regime opposition lost its fervor and mobilizational power. I doubt that the Syrians are ready, or willing, to confront the one-party rule en masse even today. It seems that the regime is too successful in spreading fear throughout the society. The people in the bazaars, or in meetings with friends, are too scared to talk about politics. They are afraid of the fact that someone asking them a political question might be a member of the Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence service). In case of any criticism they make about the Ba'ath country, they might face a series of interrogations. Whenever a new shop is opened, or some renovations are done in a private enterprise, one important step to do is to buy a nice photo of Bashar al-Asad and hang it on the wall just in case a party sympathizer drops by and sees that there was no sign of regime allegiance.  In other words, people are totally de-politicized in order to be on the safe side. When I see Syrians embracing Bashar al-Asad, I am not convinced they do it because they wholeheartly support his cosmetic reforms or his vitality. Maybe, they foresee no opportunity for change and they do not want to be marginalized and play the role of loser in their lives by confronting the status-quo.

Moreover, in comparison to the other more touristic Middle Eastern/Maghrebi countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco, we can definitely say that Syria is a much more closed country to outside influence. A vivid civil society life, which will nurture the seed of free discussion and provide citizens with an outlet to channel their grievances, is restricted. Morever, economic privatization is going slower in comparison to most of the Arab states, which impedes the transfer direct foreign investment and ideas to the country. However, the dissemination of the satellite channels and mainly the impact of al-Jazeera provided people with new methods to think critically about the status of the Middle Eastern regimes in general. Thus, these new outlets triggered people to ask questions, criticize and challenge the corrupted governments rather than simply obeying their decrees.      

Despite this silence, there are some anti-regime activists in the field (see Al-Jazeera's interview with one of the famous activists, Suhair Atassi). They are calling for political reforms and the cancellation of emergency law, which has been in effect since 1963. They managed to organize and mobilize their protest thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, calling it a "Day of Rage." They showed up in the famous Bab Touma square. Although it was a peaceful sit-in, Atassi says, they were harassed by regime thugs. Thugs accused them of being Israeli agents. The protest did not manage to attract masses to the square, says NY Times, unlike in Tunisia and Egypt.

The Ba'ath sympathizers are crafty when it comes to coming up with a formula to muzzle the discontented masses. They pose the question, "Do you want chaos, or do you favor stability?  While they might be right in the sense that the struggle for freedom comes with many sacrifices such as lives, energy, and money, however democracy-mongers' feat of ousting autocrats makes them proud of themselves (many first time as a free citizen).  This success demonstrates to the rest of the world that they are just as capable as everyone else to end tyranny and open the path for free elections and an accountable government.

Who knows when the Syrian opposition will be mobilized and willing to replace the decades of rotten regime with a clean-slate democratic counterpart. I am not very optimistic about this soon to happen as Daypress of Syria put it firmly,"Syrians make it clear the situation in Syria cannot be compared to other countries in the region. “Look what is happening in Egypt now – people don’t want that type of violence here,” said a taxi driver in Damascus yesterday."