Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect (10 page)

The US invasion of Iraq, which was supposed to spread democracy throughout the region, actually had the opposite effect. The Iraq War intensified Sunni-Shia conflicts and general political chaos. In comparison, many Syrians saw their own government as relatively stable and secular.

I interviewed Taleb Ibrahim, who fled Quneitra as a young boy and later became a political analyst in Damascus. He said when US officials talked about promoting democracy and “regime change,” many Syrians were skeptical. The United States “found it very easy to change a regime, but it's impossible to force security and stability in the region,” he told me. “They are having a hard time in Iraq. The population doesn't trust the United States. When I was in the university, I dreamed of going to the United States. But now, I would never go.”
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Dr. Mahmoud al-Agassi, an influential Muslim cleric and a critic of President Assad, also told me that US calls for Syrian regime change had backfired. He later died, but his words in 2006 were prophetic. “The pressure exerted on Syria is actually unifying the Syrian people. I do recommend that the US government not impose democracy. Give us the opportunity to make our own democracy. The United States is not aware of the structure of Syrian society and the Arab world.”
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Prior to the 2011 uprising, the Syrian opposition rejected US interference and called for significant, but peaceful, change. Back in 2006, Basheer emphasized the need for a Syrian solution to Syrian problems.

We want peaceful change, without any war. We don't want to depend on foreign forces. Reform must come from inside Syria. We can compete with the Baath Party if given a fair chance. We don't want the government to fall; we want it to change from internal pressure. And we want gradual change. The opposition and government must work with each other. Let's learn the lessons from Iraq. We don't want chaos.
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Assad rejected such overtures, however, convinced that his brand of secular nationalism would prevail. In January, just two months before
the 2011 uprising, Assad said, “Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people…. When there is divergence…you will have this vacuum that creates disturbances.”
⁴⁶

Both Assad and the traditional opposition proved tragically wrong in the face of a grassroots movement we now call the Arab Spring.

A huge sculpture of a food vendor's pushcart stands not far from the town center in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. The larger-than-life stone wheels and tilt of the carriage propel the sculpture forward as if it could move without human touch. The artist intentionally spray painted English graffiti at the base:
For Those Who Yearn to Be Free
. The sculpture commemorates the life of street vendor Mohammad Bouazizi, who immolated himself on December 17, 2010, initiating the Tunisian uprising and eventually the Arab Spring.

Bouazizi was protesting the confiscation of his goods and harassment by city officials. His self-sacrifice touched a chord. Workers, intellectuals, small-business people, and other ordinary people had been suffering for decades under the rule of the military dictatorship led by the pro-Western Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Bouazizi's immolation lit a fire that spread quickly. Within a matter of weeks, mass demonstrations forced Ben Ali from power.

When I visited Sidi Bouzid in 2012, the dictator was gone, but the struggle for economic and political justice continued. On the day of my visit, demonstrators at city hall demanded jobs, a key issue that sparked the original demonstrations. Residents said that although they enjoyed greater political freedoms, they continued to suffer from the crony capitalist economic system. “We're just struggling in the same situation,” said protestor Alawi Tahrir. “I have a master's degree in English language, and I'm still unemployed for five years.”
¹
The demonstrators' chants merged with the muezzin's call to noon prayer in this hardscrabble, agricultural city 175 miles south of the capital, Tunis. Islam has deep roots here, and it's reflected in the politics. Conservative Islamists from the Ennahda Party emerged as the strongest single
political force in postuprising Tunisia. Ultra-right-wing Islamists had some popular support. They played a destructive role by blockading streets and assassinating two progressive political leaders.

Unlike other countries in the Middle East, however, Tunisia's leftist trade unions, women's rights groups, and other secular movements also developed a significant political base. They forced the adoption of a constitution that protects civil liberties and restricts the role of Islam in government. While the battle certainly continues, Tunisia has made the greatest strides in the region toward achieving the popular goals of the Arab Spring.

In early 2011, the Tunisian uprising inspired similar protests in Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other Middle East countries. Conditions were ripe in Syria as well. Poverty and unemployment were on the rise, particularly among young people. President Bashar al-Assad had implemented neoliberal economic policies that privatized state-owned businesses for the benefit of a small elite while ordinary Syrians suffered. They lived under a dictatorial regime where criticism of the government meant jail and torture. Assad allowed no genuine opposition parties, functioning trade unions, or opposition media. Facebook and other social media were banned prior to February 2011. Assad lived in a political cocoon, however, absolutely convinced that he was immune from the Arab Spring. He believed his own public-relations propaganda that Syrians would never rebel against a pan-Arabist, anti-Israel, anti-imperialist fighter like himself.

Rarely has a world leader been proven so wrong so quickly.

The antigovernment demonstrations began in the southern city of Daraa in March 2011. Police had arrested several preteen school children for writing antiregime graffiti on walls of a school. As in the past, police beat and tortured the youths. But this time, the people of Daraa reacted angrily and publically. Over six hundred protestors confronted the local governor, demanding freedom for the injured children. Security forces attacked and killed two protestors.
²
Daraa is located in southern Syria near the Jordanian border. Local tribal clans remain
strong. Some residents had immigrated to wealthy gulf countries and become prosperous. Residents of Daraa weren't willing to accept the old ways. Word spread quickly via text messaging about the brutality. Syria had its Mohammad Bouazizi, and its Sidi Bouzid was Daraa.

By mid-March demonstrations broke out in Damascus and other parts of the country. The demonstrations were nonviolent and secular. In the northwestern city of Banyas, protesters tried to attract the generally pro-Assad Alawite religious minority by chanting, “Peaceful, peaceful—neither Sunni nor Alawite, we want national unity.”
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The regime faced the biggest crisis in its history. Assad cracked down mercilessly on peaceful protestors. Police and soldiers opened fire with live ammunition. Security forces arrested and tortured anyone suspected of participating in the protests. Then, thinking it occupied a position of strength, the regime offered the occasional olive branch. In late March, Assad lifted the state-of-emergency law, which was declared in 1962 and implemented at the time of the first Baathist coup in 1963. The law had been used as an important repressive tool by successive governments. Assad also legalized the status of some 300,000 Kurds who had been stateless since the 1960s (see
chapter 9
).

On July 10, a number of prominent opposition figures from different religious and ethnic backgrounds tested the parameters of the new political openings by holding a conference in Damascus. They were allowed to raise criticisms of the regime, and the state TV network broadcast the conference live. On July 24, the Syrian parliament passed a law allowing additional opposition parties. Since the early 1970s, the National Progressive Front, a coalition of minor leftist parties, had been legalized as a sort of loyal opposition. The regime planned to open this door a bit wider, but the Syrian Constitution still contained a clause stating that the Baath Party was the leading party. So the new parties had little actual power.
⁴

Steps that would have been hailed as tremendously progressive a few years prior had no impact in 2011. The main opposition groups rejected the weak reforms and continued to call for Assad's overthrow. In July, 400,000 people rallied in the central Syrian city of Hama after security
forces had withdrawn. They put forward a nonviolent message inviting participation by all faiths, and the demonstration had a strong presence of women.

In October 2011 I was able to report from Daraa. The government was in nominal control of the city, but antiregime sentiment remained strong. I tagged along with a group of Ukrainian dignitaries and journalists on a trip organized by the government. We drove out of Damascus at about 9:00 a.m. in a large convoy of buses and minivans, accompanied by a police car lettered
Protocol
. While ordinary cars were stopped at military checkpoints along the way, we sailed right through.

Outwardly, Daraa was calm. Its streets had few shoppers, but there were no outward signs of unrest. We met with Daraa governor Mohammed Khaled Hanos and the local attorney general, Tayseer al-Smadi.
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These government officials spun a well-developed narrative to explain events. They admitted that people in Daraa and elsewhere began with peaceful protests and legitimate grievances asking for democracy. But almost immediately, extremists seized control of the demonstrations, they claimed. Extremists began a campaign of shooting and violence against security forces.

These agitators were armed and paid by Saudi Arabia and the gulf state of Qatar, according to the officials. The demonstrators were politically and militarily backed by Israel, the United States, and Europe. As a result, over 1,200 police, army, and other security personnel had been killed by demonstrators. The government provided no statistics on the number of civilians killed.
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The regime's narrative contained some elements of truth. Syrian demonstrators never adopted a Gandhi-style campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience. When government forces fired live ammunition into crowds, the protestors hurled rocks. On March 20, less than one week into the protests, demonstrators in Daraa burned an office of the ruling Baath Party and the local courthouse. In Damascus I interviewed Mahmoud, a twenty-six-year-old activist in Daraa who asked that only his first name be used. As the repression continued for months, he told
me, “People in Daraa used Molotov [cocktails] and rifles. But it was a reaction to the government arresting and killing protestors.”
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Mahmoud admitted that tribal groups, who are allowed to own personal weapons, also used them against the government after months of nonviolent marches and rallies. “Daraa is known for big tribal clans. When they use arms, it's to defend themselves. They use them when the government arrests people and invades people's houses. The big families of Daraa oppose the government and they use arms.” But local people taking up arms in self-defense is a far cry from CIA/Israeli/Saudi-sponsored rebels attacking the Assad government. Officials clearly exaggerated the violence in an effort to discredit the opposition.

While there were sporadic armed incidents during the first eight months of the uprising, protestors predominantly used nonviolent tactics. They held marches and rallies and spread the word through text messages and sometimes with social media. They relayed developments on the ground to satellite TV stations such as
Al Jazeera
and
Al Arabiya
.

The opposition movement grew as new organizations sprang into existence. The Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) developed spontaneously in many cities as the mostly young activists created grassroots groups unaffiliated with the traditional opposition. The activists included leftists, liberal secularists, and conservative Muslims. They developed an alliance similar to the coalition of secularists and Muslim activists in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The LCC in Syria wanted no hierarchical structures. The movement ostensibly had no leaders, no common ideology, or even a short-term political program. But they all united on the need to overthrow Assad, hold free elections, and establish a parliamentary system with civil liberties. I had a chance to meet some secular LCC leaders in Damascus toward the end of 2011. I had taken a circuitous route through Damascus's old city to a clandestine apartment, as described in
chapter 1
.

After a long conversation, we took a break to drink tea. I looked around the apartment. The beds were unmade, the dishes unwashed, and dust balls were scattered around the room. It could belong to a
single guy in his twenties who hadn't done the housework in a while. I found out later it was an LCC safe house paid for by an upper-middle-class sympathizer.

I asked Ahmad Bakdouness how they continued to organize, given harsh government repression. Bakdouness is a civil-society activist who was later jailed and tortured by police. He told me that demonstrators gathered outside mosques on Fridays because that was one of the few places people could still congregate. They used code words over mobile phones to organize demonstrations. “We say, ‘We are going to a party' or ‘Come to the wedding,'” said Bakdouness. “People know there will be a demonstration on Friday. They know the mosques where people demonstrate. For demonstrations during the week, we know each other and call on mobiles.”
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Protestors only occasionally used social networking sites because they were closely monitored by the government. They said theirs is not a Facebook revolution. They used Facebook and similar social networking sites only to alert the outside world that someone famous would be participating in a demonstration. I asked Bakdouness how people can demonstrate in the same location each week without being crushed by the security forces. “In the same area, there are a lot of roads. They can't block every road. For the big demonstrations, the government can't enter.”

Protestors adopted innovative tactics to reach the public. One day, activists wrote the word “freedom” on five thousand ping-pong balls. They went to a hilltop in Damascus and dumped the balls on the heavily trafficked park below. Leen, another LCC leader at the safe house, chuckled as she explained that the security forces spent the rest of the day chasing their balls.

The heady, early days of the uprising saw Syrians reexamining many of their political values. But the society remained deeply conservative in cultural matters. Syrians continued to hold antihomosexual attitudes, even among many opposition activists. That didn't stop a few brave gays from joining the uprising, as I found out when I met Mahmoud Hassino.

Hassino knew he was gay at age twelve. He wasn't attracted to girls, but he was very interested in his male friends. Later, as a teenager growing up in Damascus, his mother figured out his sexual orientation and gave him what he later realized was good advice. “Don't admit your homosexuality,” she cautioned. “You will have trouble finding work and socializing with people.”
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Despite tight cultural restrictions, Hassino told me, he had no problems finding gay partners. “There are gay men everywhere,” he said with a quick smile. “You just had to have good gaydar.”