By 2011 the Alawite community was in complete control of the military-security apparatus, the economy, and most of the religious institutions. Meanwhile, 30% of the Syrian people, overwhelmingly Sunni, were living below the poverty line. The younger generation had been mobilized through education and they were led to believe this would get them a decent job, make a living, have a family, and have a future, but they were clearly not getting these things that their government promised them. The Alawites who made up the most loyal divisions of military were used to start the violent crackdowns in early 2011. Standing up to these death squads would’ve been a daunting task to anyone. Syria’s security services are omnipresent. They are a way of life. There are 70,000 full time security agents and hundreds of thousands of part-time personnel. By 2011 there was one intelligence officer for every 240 people. The Syrian regime’s funding for these security services came in at $3 billion every year. That’s one third of the budget. The fifteen different security branches were not only oppressive, but also random. They practiced a pre-emptive intimidation that created an atmosphere of constant paranoia. All the phones are monitored. No one can trust anyone else. Even the taxi drivers are hired to serve in the state security apparatus. Anyone can be incarcerated and tortured at any time. It was a constant threat that people lived with every single day. Silence was the order of the day. Any political expression meant to put both yourself and your family at risk… but along came 2011. Along came the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, sacrificing themselves en masse for a revolution, and that’s all the Syrian people needed to see. The socialist and pan-Arab rhetoric was promoted relentlessly by the Ba’ath Party and a job in the army or in the city became the only door for achieving any upward mobility in Syrian society. These two choices were intimately tied to the militarization of the state and to the support of an exploitative upper class. It very easily could’ve been Syria’s back who broke first and inspired Egypt’s rebellion instead of the other way around. Bordering on that fine line between failing state and failed state, all that was needed was a precise combination of sparks to set off the Syrian uprising of 2011, much like the Palestinian intifadas of the past. The Syrian people did not need a Western imperialistic attack to make them suffer humiliation for decades and decades. The Syrian regime did not wait for a Western imperialist attack to implement its neo-liberal policies of economic strangulation. When it comes to stealing national wealth for the interest of a small elitist group of people and the corporations that they run, the Assad dynasty is guilt ten times over. Any vocal criticism of the government made one a target of persecution by the police state long before the eruption in the spring of 2011. Syrian individuals who I have personal friendships with often repeat a similar mantra when discussing their past lives with me; “The walls had ears.” In 2011 after decades of sustained oppression the political culture of Syria suddenly tried to assert its full mental and emotional capacities. Many feel it was long over do. The uprising of 2011 began in the Syrian town of Deraa, which was thoroughly under Bashar’s thumb. Home to about 100,000 people its rural, agrarian based economy was suffering greatly due to an ongoing drought. The three tyrants of Deraa included the governor, the head of the security forces, and the Ba’ath Party leader. The security chief was a cousin of Bashar. During the first week of March 2011 ten children, aged 9-15 years old, were feeling inspired by the slogan proclaimed by Egypt’s January 25th Movement; “Down with the regime.” The children wrote this on the wall of their school. Artistic expression, such as graffiti, remains an important venue for people in the Arab world because it’s one of the only ways they can express anger at their government besides organizing demonstrations. They know the presidential elections are not real. They know the voting booths don’t work for them. They literally have to write their feelings on the wall in order for their government to maybe see what they are experiencing. The Syrian town of Deraa near the Jordanian border is poor and religious with a failed economy and too many mouths to feed. It was a victim of overbearing security forces government cronyism for years. Hamza al Khatib, a 13 year old boy from Deraa, became the personification of the Syrian government’s annihilation of its own people. Following his political expression on the walls of his school he was arrested and his dead body wasn’t returned to his family until a month later. It was obvious that the young man had been tortured to death. Both of his knees and his neck were broken and his genitals mutilated. It was a clear signal to the people from the regime; “If you revolt, this will be what happens to you and your loved ones.” On the 18th is when the people of Deraa went to Atef Najib and demanded the release of their children. Atef’s advice to the people was to not only forget about their children, but that they should send him their wives so he could rape them and thus make new children for them. In response a massive demonstration was organized and it marched out of the Umari mosque. Atef Najib told his superiors that a coup to overthrow him was underway. Sixteen regime helicopters filled with security agents from the counter-terrorism unit landed near the town. Four people were gunned down in the street. It was the next day, following the massive public funeral for the demonstrators, that people began to call for Atef Najib’s resignation. Following the government crackdown on demonstrators anyone who tried to get to the hospital was either arrested or executed. The hospital had been occupied by security agents. Donating blood was forbidden and a Palestinian resident of Deraa was shot on the spot for entering the hospital and trying to do just that. The sit-in outside the Umari mosque only increased. On March 23rd came a massacre at the hands of state security. The tents were smashed, the mosque was broken into and vandalized, and seventy to one hundred people were gunned down. By March 24th a demonstration of 100,000 people were screaming what their children had scribbled on the walls of their school; “The people demand the fall of the regime.” It was during this demonstration that news of another massacre surfaced; twenty people had been killed in al Sanamayn. The people of Deraa were infuriated; pictures of Bashar al Assad were torn up and a statute of Hafez was toppled. Snipers on top of the governor’s mansion were shooting anything that moved. The people overtook the governor’s mansion in an effort to stop the sniper attacks and the building was set on fire. This same month, March of 2011, is when Vogue magazine featured Bashar’s wife, Asma al Assad, calling her “a rose in the desert.” -_-
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 02:11:48 +0000