Democracy will come! However, it will probably come through a painstakingly slow process of multiple phases. A calmer and less bloody phase would now hopefully be the first
ORWA NYRABIA, a film activist, was a prisoner of the Assad regime in Syria before international pressure got him released. He later became artistic director of the International Film Festival of Amsterdam, a post he has just stepped down from. Countercurrents.org did an email interview with him on the present situation in Syria.
Many people in Damascus and elsewhere were seen celebrating after the fall of Bashar al-Assad regime even though the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies were taking over. Is that what Syrians wanted?
Syrians, or at least a vast majority of them, from the country’s many, various, ethnic and religious groups, are going through an unprecedented experience, and part of that is a collective joy that we have never experienced before. We are happy. We got rid of a dictatorship that confiscated our hope over five decades. We now have hope. This experience of joy also extends to many in Lebanon, who have experienced the criminality of the Syrian regime since 1978.
The collapse of the regime came after 14 years of the Syrian revolution. The cost of which has been tremendously painful. At least since 2017, we have been coming to terms with defeat, as a society, as a people. The regime was about to collapse in 2013-2014, and the military intervention of Russia and Iran prevented that. Extending the life of the regime has been the result of foreign interests, of external military intervention. After 54 years under one of the most brutal regimes in history, the bar becomes lower and we can be happy to cross this barrier. We now know that nobody can be as brutal as Assad’s regime. This is an accomplishment of the Syrian people, not of any one group.
It has been shocking to realize how much the world does not know, does not want to know, about the level of criminality of the Assad regime. Most Syrians are victims of this regime, in one way or another. The number of political detainees over five decades rarely leaves a Syrian family unharmed. Massacres by the regime started in the late 1970s, and continued until 2020. The regime normalized extreme torture in ways that are incomparable to other regimes around the world, and in numbers that are much larger than in other countries. It is common for us, Syrians, to share a bitter smile when people speak of the horrors of CIA torture, or even of the Israeli torture, with all the ugliness of these examples.
Historically, the regime always used the actions of small groups of religious extremism/Salafist Jihadism as a pretext to crack down brutally on political dissent in the country. It presented itself as an expert in fighting “terrorism”, long before Benjamin Netanyahu did that. As pupils in the 1980s and 1990s, we started our mornings in school by shouting the slogans of the ruling Baath party. On every morning, the “military education” teacher would shout “Our Pledge is…”, and we’d all have to shout back: “To combat Imperialism, the Reactionary, and Zionism, and to crush their criminal instrument, the treacherous Muslim Brotherhood gang.”
Furthermore, when we speak of the corruption of the Syrian regime, we are not talking about conflict of interest, bribery, or such practices. We are talking about systemic, deep, and resilient structures. The Assad family’s regime failed to manage the country’s wealth, which is not massive, but is not too small either. Mismanagement meant that the people lived in much worse conditions than they could have. A parallel corruption economy was established and maintained. To compensate for the low salaries, to keep the pretence of being socialist, regime operatives and officers were given free hand to exploit their power the way they like. We used to call that “direct tax collection” when we tried to laugh at our catastrophe. The tax system was only comparable to mafia extortion, and it was repeatedly manipulated to pressure bourgeois and petite-bourgeois dissidents. Pyramids of corruption started with the traffic police, with almost every civil servant you would ever meet, who paid up the ladder to their superiors, and so on.
After Hafez Assad’s death in 2000, a dispute started between the Assad family and a Swiss bank that did not accept to hand a few million dollars in a bank account belonging to the dead man, because he did not think he would die, so he did not leave a will. We now know that Bashar Assad, as a “refugee for humanitarian reasons” in Russia, is living in one of many high-end residences he personally owns in Moscow. Over the past decade, it is not a secret that the regime facilitated and made money from the world’s largest Captagon tablets producing and smuggling networks, which might have amounted to 80 per cent of global production of the drug. This corruption did not stop at the economy, it expanded deeply into the social fabric of the country. I still remember, when I was a teenager, how a kid in my neighbourhood got rid of his violent father by reporting that he was an Islamist. Fear of an informant in the family penetrated many homes in the country.
A big question today is, where is the Syrian Left? The answer of this question is not different from that in various countries. The Left is in a crisis. A crisis of capacity, of rejuvenation, and of real relationship with the street. Since the 1970s, the Syrian Left has been split twice. The first time when the Syrian Communist Party stood against Assad’s despotic plans, and particularly his 1974 Disengagement agreement with Israel, that was seen as a huge compromise. This was faced by a mighty push back from Moscow, taking the side of Assad. It caused a division between the communists who are not in line with Assad and Moscow, becoming banned and persecuted, and those who do whatever those two ask.
A few years after that, another split happened between those who believe the regime is the priority enemy, and the emerging Islamist movements are an organic part of society that should be taken seriously and with whom we must build bridges, and those who believe that democratic project should only be concerned with those who believe in democracy, that it is acceptable to wait for the regime to get rid of Islamists for us, and then we combat the regime. Both sides were brutally persecuted, imprisoned, and exiled.
In my own small Leftist family, which is not an exception in Syria, my father was detained and tortured for five years, an uncle of mine was detained and severely tortured for 19 years, and another uncle for 4 years. As a child, I used to explain the absence of my father by saying that he’s in Argentina, and my uncles were in Brazil. Because when people know you are from a dissident family, they fear being associated with you, and you get stigmatized, even targeted, by the regime informants spread in all society. Sill, in comparison to other families, we were lucky!
So, Syrian Leftists are part of every side in the current experience. Many are working in journalism, in culture, in human rights, and they are also spread around with many diverse opinions and approaches. However, there are barely any Leftist political structures that are truly effective at this moment. Much work to be done.
In 1982, the actions of an armed Jihadist Salafist group that might have comprised 250 members around the country were believed to be centered in the city of Hama, and that was the pretext for the Syrian Army Special Forces led by Bashar Assad’s uncle Refaat to destroy large parts of the city. They executed more than 40,000 of its inhabitants in 20 days; 40,000 is the most probable number of victims, but estimates go anywhere between 25,000 and 150,000 killed in three weeks.
This happened in February, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon came right after that in June. Before that, in 1979, a failed assassination attempt on Hafez Assad made the regime send soldiers to the infamous Tadmor Prison where they executed no less than 600 Islamist political prisoners in their prison cells, as a form of retaliation. Just before that, a Unions’ Movement, 1978-1979, demanding controls over corruption, and a shift towards democracy, held conferences around the country and spoke out – it was met by mass detention of Union leaders and members.
The Syrian uprising started in the most peaceful way imaginable in 2011. The man who famously gave roses to army soldiers, Ghiath Matar, was tortured, maimed, and mutilated to death in an underground detention centre. He became one of the revolution’s great icons. The (verified) total sum of victims since then is over half-a-million people killed, over 150,000 disappeared, and more than 11 million displaced. But, over the past few days, as rebels opened all the country’s political prisons and secret detention centres, it now seems that less than 10,000 were found alive. The country is now trying to accept that about 140 thousand more were silently murdered in detention while their loved ones were still waiting for them.
This history is long, and needs much more than my words here to be explained or exposed. However, this is to say that Syrians are celebrating the end of this criminal regime, and not only one group that happened to lead this final moment. However, the emergence of such groups did not come out of the blue. There’s a history behind it.
The leader of HTS, Ahmad Al Shara’, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al Jolani (note that his nom de guerre refers to the fact he hails from the Israeli-occupied Jolan (Golan) Heights), went to Iraq in 2003 to volunteer to fight against the US invasion as a 21-year-old young man, and witnessed the terror of the American destruction, and George W Bush’s offensive rhetoric. It was there that Al Shara’ was, like many others, radicalized. At those moments of extreme terror, radical religious thought was an effective shelter for many. Later, he was imprisoned by the Americans in Iraq, where he was radicalized even more, and then he joined Al Qaeda, and broke up with them a couple of years later in Syria. So, it is all connected.
To answer your question, the end of this regime was what most Syrians wanted. I cannot speak of how many of them do welcome HTS or similar groups as leaders. Their crimes are not forgotten by most, but there’s a clear will to try and open a new page. This new power is now a defacto leadership, and many are waiting to see what will happen. It has only been a few days, and there are surprisingly good signs, and then other signs that are deeply worrying too.
What must be said is that this new power showed an unprecedented level of restraint and control over the past historical few weeks. Vengeance acts are almost non-,existent and the discourse, though it is a highly restrictive religious one, is much more open than anything we have seen before. Then, we also see scary signs that they see themselves monopolizing power, that they do think their ‘victory’ entitles them to do that. This calls for a different approach. It is still early to judge, especially because they are learning very fast, and they are adapting in an impressively quick manner.
This is not only special in the Syrian context. The Salafist Jihadist movement altogether is going through a historically unique experiment today. Its ranks include, like any force, both hawks and doves, and it seems to be trying to reconcile two dreams now: the dream of going to God’s heaven, with the dream of being liked by the people on earth. Until today, only one approach towards them was tested, since the start of this wave in 1950s. We’ve always dehumanized them, infantilized them, saw them as a disgrace, and murdering them was seen as a necessary evil, even sometimes as a great accomplishment. It has always been the same and it always resulted in more angry, more violent reincarnations of this movement.
Today, this group is saying, and they have already showed in deeds, that it wants to “protect all the communities of Syrian society”. While we will always be very much worried about their understanding of “protection”, we can also take note that they are breaking with the notion of Takfir. The Salafist-Jihadist notion of considering anybody who is not exactly on the same page with them to be an infidel, and thus, unworthy. They are showing a pragmatist approach, rather than an entirely closed dogmatic one. We can also see this as a window for work, as an opportunity to try and push them to focus on the second purpose, being liked by people, rather than reverting back to the first, that of being liked only by God.
Still, do we trust them? Absolutely not!
History does not rely on trust. We also have to be realistic and see that we do not have power, or even a choice. But we can work to prevent, or put certain controls in front of their overwhelming influence over the near future of the country. This requires serious and responsible political work, rather than clear-cut judgments of who is good and who is bad. And here, international pressure could help. Because Syria will need a lot of help from the world now.
Another important factor here is the fact that Syria, with all its diversity and socio-economic complexity, will not be easy for any new government to lead. Whoever will try to lead now will have to adapt, will learn that they need the others on board, or they will fail.
It is a new chapter and those who were dissidents in that regime are already prepared to be dissidents to any new one! It is not over, just the most brutal chapter of our history is over now. We get to celebrate that.
Do you think that many people who fled Syria during the Assad regime will return to Syria?
It is still to be seen. There is no doubt that the majority of displaced Syrians, inside Syria and in neighbouring countries, have been living in refugee camps under terrible conditions and with no hope. Some have already started to return to their homes. As for those who already established quasi-normal lives around the world, a new government will have to show its intentions first. People have children in schools, and jobs in more than 100 countries now. We have been living with no hope of returning home for years already. It is all too sudden. It will take some time for each family and each individual to find their way.
We know that the country needs everyone. Both for its well-being, economy, education, health, etc, and for its political future too. EU governments would like to keep the so-called “well-integrated” Syrians, especially those already contributing to the economy. Germany’s health sector has already announced that it is scared of losing the 5,800 Syrian doctors in Germany today.
In Syria, the new defacto forces are calling on all to return, and rightfully saying that the country needs all of us, but not yet realizing that they also have to pay a price for the return and the contribution of everybody. Such a price compromises of guarantees over participation, personal rights, the rule of law, and a civil state, not a holy one.
What is the ethno-religious composition of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other important rebel groups? Are they all composed of native Syrians, or do they have significant numbers of foreign fighters?
There is a minority of their fighters or collaborators that come from various Arab and Muslim countries. Think of this as an Islamist Jihadist global solidarity movement. It is radical Jihadists‘ own version of the 15th brigade in the Spanish Civil War. They do believe they are all one nation. There are many voices demanding their expulsion, but unsurprisingly, those who fought right next to them see them as valuable comrades.
However, the vast majority is made up of native Syrians, and time has proved that they are not homogeneous in their political and social beliefs. This is not a small group of people indoctrinated with the same dogma. It was like that before it was besieged in Idleb province over the past years, and thus stopped being a secret organization. Now it is a massive grouping of those who found meaning through fighting with, under the leadership of, one of the few groups that did not lose hope already.
Many commentators are suggesting that HTS and its allies achieved this success at lightning speed because they were supported by Turkey, USA/NATO and even Israel. What is your opinion?
That is, in my opinion, another condescending colonial interpretation of these events. Every power in the West made it clear that it is not willing to invest into Syria’s opposition in any way, at least since Barack Obama dropped his chemical weapons red line in 2013. That was after the regime used Sarin gas to kill over 1200 civilians in their homes at night near Damascus, after which Vladimir Putin’s propaganda worked hard to spread the lies that it was the opposition (referring always to Islamist opposition and making sure the existence of any other opposition is always forgotten) who killed their own children to blame it on the regime. A spread of hysterical lies that unfortunately found ears with various Leftists around the world; those who found it a more convenient narrative than admitting that a seemingly anti-American regime is actually a criminal one.
It was after that moment that Western powers started to propagate the idea that “there are no good sides in Syria”, and that “moderate opposition is a myth (what contributed effectively to the decline of moderate opposition). While at the same time, Putin’s own imperial ambitions found a new foothold, got a number of military bases in Syria, a large military airport, and direct access to the Mediterranean. A former dream of Russia since 19th century, that was only attainable in a deal with Assad, for the price of keeping him in power.
The US was taken by surprise since November 27, just like the Russians. They expected a push from north, but did not expect the regime to collapse so fast. Remember that supporting the Kurdish armed structure, SDF, has been the strategic choice of the Pentagon for years. We should not underestimate American intelligence’s manipulative capacities, but we also should not overestimate them. They are a super power, but not a mythological level of genius.
As for Turkey, and although there is no clarity here, it has been investing in the so-called National Syrian Army, where its main interest was to block the Kurdish SDF. It had connections to HTS, but it did not seriously support it. However, there seems to be some understanding between the rebels and the Turkish government over the past few weeks. Then, the rebels are repeating that Turkey did not directly support their efforts, and I do tend to find that more plausible. The priority of Turkey is to corner and control the power of Kurdish forces, and by tracking the rebel groups that prioritize that, one can see Turkish influence more clearly.
All that said, Turkey, and others, seem to have hopped on this train only after it moved successfully, they probably did not move the train. I think the example of Hamas and October 7, 2023, might apply here. As we now know that Hamas did reach out to various powers nearby seeking help before the operation, and they were told they should go ahead on their own and then they will be supported. Nobody takes more risk than that in this region and in this context.
Commentators suggest that the timing of the attack by the rebels was crucial when Iran and Russia were weakened by wars in Ukraine and Lebanon/Gaza. The power that is benefited most by the regime change in Syria is Israel. Do you see an Israeli hand in this operation?
Again, there is a colonial view of all of this. International forces are never irrelevant, and conspiracies are not always imaginary. However, to keep on prioritizing theories that ignore the local people, their will, and their work, should be questioned. When it comes from the West, it is colonialism; but, when it comes from the South, I wonder if it is not cynicism, a reflection of our very own despair, our own belief that we do not, or cannot, own our choices and actions.
October 7th did result in more than weakening the so-called ‘axis’. Iran’s regional influence, its meddling with the internal politics, and of armed militias in the region, is severely diminished now. Its fight with Saudi Arabia over regional influence, dressed up in a sectarian narrative, is totally different today. Hezbollah, whose members supported Assad and infamously committed many massacres in Syria, against civilians and with the most sectarian way, paid the price of expanding its numbers dramatically to do that. Hezbollah could be destroyed by Israel as we watched, because of the inflation in numbers and in structure that it had to implement, to support Assad and protect Iranian interests in Syria. It is also relevant to mention that Assad had disappointed Putin recently, when he refused to make peace with Turkey in a deal that Russia brokered and wanted.
Israel used this moment in the most irresponsible, arrogant, and opportunistic manner. The claim of Netanyahu that the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria was signed with the regime, and as the regime fell, the agreement is null and void, will be remembered in history as a case study in political evil. The fact that the world does not stop Israel is not new. It did not do so in Gaza, nor in Lebanon, and now in Syria. What Israel did recently, invading more Syrian land that it occupied first in 1967, and liberated by Syria in 1973, is relevant in more than one way to our future.
There is a pain here that will live long. A pain of being abused in your rare moment of happiness. A bad learning that happiness is vulnerability. But not a new practice to the history of the Israeli war machine. To invade with impunity, to claim historical rights to the land of others, or, to market a blatant aggression as a necessary act of self-defence, none of this is new.
However, it is not a matter of dispute that Israel’s actions, destroying Syria’s military capacities in what they called the largest air force operation of their history, comes as a result of what we, Syrians, always knew: Assad’s regime has always been speaking against Israel, but acting against the Palestinians. The regime always used its fictional war with Israel as a justification for dictatorship. The enemy was always more important than us, but we never really confronted the enemy, we lived a practical peace since 1974. The Arab Nationalist regimes never saw the current Syria as a convincing border for its power. Hafez Assad always saw himself as the leader of all Arabs, and, thus, he never respected the leaderships of Palestine or Lebanon. Overall, Israel felt safe with this regime in power, even though it had a problem with how it recently allowed an arms highway between Iran and Hezboallah.
On the other hand, it should be clear that the Syrian people, in general, are not just pro-Palestine. We do not have a merely ethical or a political solidarity with Palestine, because we all live, day in and day out, with our Palestinian refugees, our friends and relatives displaced from the Occupied Jolan (Golan Heights, as Israelis call it), with our Palestinian relatives and our Palestinian partners. The relationship between Syria and Palestine, as well as Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, is much more organic and profound than any solidarity movement.
Remember that the current borders between these countries were all imposed by colonial powers after World War I. Then, neither Syrians nor Palestinians are one block of homogeneity. We are many, and we have different opinions and approaches. The rest is international political convenience that favours hearing only those of us who serve the moment’s preferred narrative.
So, we also have a lot of work here. But it is not what it seems from the outside.
After the takeover of Syria by the rebels, Israel has bombed Syria hundreds of times, especially hitting military targets. Do you think that it will weaken Syria militarily and shift the regional balance of power in favour of Israel?
I think I partly responded to this question earlier.
Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian author and Leftist activist, in a 2022 article, accused Noam Chomsky and other Western Leftist intellectuals of having a Western bias in interpreting events in Syria. He said, “Washington’s role in the world has ossified into a theology, with the US as a malevolent God.” Do you think that the Western Leftist interpretation of Syria was skewed in favour of Assad?
In this very important essay, Yassin was much more kind than I would have been, towards the Western Left. First, it is not only in the West, it also applies in India, for example. There’s a history of defending the narrative. Cubans have been living under a terrible dictatorship for decades now, while we, Leftists around the world, easily discard their pain because we cannot imagine our own selves without the image of the great Cuban revolution. We discarded Cuban dissidents as CIA agents for a long time! One might even say that we must have pushed some of them to become so, as we left them no other path. So, not so differently from imperialistic powers, the Left did prefer the narrative of propaganda and, in practice, the Cuban people were acceptable collateral damage in the service of the greater good, just not for the good of Cubans.
The fact that the atrocities of Assad’s regime are always underrated, the theories that Assad is innocent of all the massacres he perpetrated, or the ongoing denial of Syrians’ joy these days, are all painful to watch and interesting to study. The inconvenience of a narrative that challenges our simplification of the world is interesting to study. How is it Leftist to deny the joy of the millions, or, to teach an entire nation from the outside about its own life?
The priority of Islamophobia, or even the massive fear of Salafist-Jihadist movements, the exaggeration of their role in the world, and the clarity that they should all be exterminated, were all ideas that Assad and his father were selling since the 1970s, and they only caught fire after 9/11. This fixation, the denial of facts, of the complexity of the Syrian experience today, the reduction to this one challenge, is in itself anti-Marxist to me, even more widely, it is anti-philosophical.
So, we here have a long list of priorities and historical compromises to be made. We need safety, dignity, justice, and we need freedom, liberties, and an inclusive democratic system that allows us to shape our future as a people. We know that we will not get all we want at once. We know how long, profound, slow, and painstaking change is. We now accept that the next chapter will be just better than the previous one, relatively speaking, and we prepare to keep on fighting for it to be better and better.
We have no money, no power, and we are traumatized, in pain, and in mourning for all those we have lost. But, we have hope today. We did not have that until a few weeks ago.
The only serious Leftist approach today would be to stand by the side of the people – as opposed to protecting a comfortable, simplified narrative, or prioritizing hurting the oppressor over solidarity with the oppressed. That is a defining responsibility. All narratives are being skewed to serve our hatred of American imperialism, rather than our love to the world’s oppressed. We can/must work on that.
Syria is now controlled by many groups supported by many outside forces. Do you see a balkanization of Syria?
How do you view the fate of the Kurdish resistance movement in the new scenario, given the fall of the Assad government and the increased role of Turkey?
I will combine the two questions
A balkanization needs active external support, and that is non-existent today. Interest in Syria dried out substantially over the past few years. A renewal of that interest is yet to be seen. Balkanization was a possibility until a week ago, when we saw the parts of society that we always saw supporting Assad celebrating his regime’s demise, and showing the rest of Syria the hidden injustice and exploitation they have been enduring under his iron fist. When we first demanded democracy in the Spring of Damascus, 2000-2001, the regime called it “the Algerization of Syria”. Since 2011, we heard “Afghanization” and “Somalization” very often. This format becomes somewhat cynical with repetition.
A serious plan for a democratic and dignified future for the country would almost certainly need to rely on a new Constitution that recognizes and protects the rights of Kurdish people, and of others, and a federal system, where various regions, notably the Kurdish, have a guaranteed right to a functioning autonomy under a collective national structure. Many Arab and Kurdish thinkers and politicians believe in this. However, there are historical sensitivities, and even more pressing recent ones that prevent a faster and safer process. On the Kurdish side, as much as on the Arab side, there are various fractions – there are hardline nationalists, and there are people building bridges.
The historical injustice that the Kurdish people endured (in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran) should not be expected to bring about a coherent front of Kurds of the same colour. The over romanticization, sometimes even the fetishization of Kurdish fighters and their just struggle, is yet another example of a self-serving global Left narrative. It takes away the actual complexity and the richness of Kurdish people. The need for outside support is making Turkey a leading power. Not many others are showing interest in supporting a new Syria. This reality does put any serious chance for a better Arab-Kurdish future in the country at a serious risk.
The uprising against the Assad regime in 2011 was for democracy. What has now happened is that Syria is being taken over by Islamists groups! Do you think that the revolution was sabotaged? Do you see democracy coming to Syria in the near future?
I do not think the revolution was sabotaged. I do think that some, not all, Islamist factions proved to be resilient, committed and hard-working. The fact that I stand against them in many ways should not prevent me from noting this. It has been a long journey, and the rise of these powers, in my opinion today, is linked to two factors: A history of oppression, and external manipulation, through funding mainly. It is a reality. Progressive forces did not engage in building military power. There is a price to that, as much as a virtue in it.
Democracy will come! But it will probably come through a painstakingly slow process of multiple phases. A calmer and less bloody phase would now hopefully be the first.
How does one neutralize or even stay safe from Israel and USA? And is a truth and reconciliation process possible to initiate given that virtually all parties have blood on their hands?
A reconciliation process is indeed a necessity. First, loss of this recent victory was that both rebels and civilians celebrated by destroying many secret prisons around the country. With that, huge amounts of important documents are already lost. However, the legal and human rights side of opposition has developed greatly over the past few years. I do have confidence that even if the new defacto powers do not invest enough into this process, there are others, many great people who are already working day and night to find pathways towards justice. For it will be a key factor in a process of building a new social contract, and in showing any future government that there are checks and balances, even when the world does not want to help.
Courtesy: countercurrents.org
https://countercurrents.org/2024/12/what-syria-needs-now-is-international-solidarity-orwa-nyrabia
Picture of Orwa Nyrabia courtesy: countercurrents.org
Pictures above: Gaza and Istanbul, Turkey.