The killings mount up here; 800? 1000?
And the regime keeps on with the crackdown, shuffling the same security forces from one city to another while most of the military is confined to bases … Dera’a, Banyas, Homs … the list goes on.
Outside, people are wondering how far they will go; here we wonder the same thing though at least we know our own history and reality (PLEASE don’t get me started on the ignoramuses pontificating like the twit Friedman who is claiming that 1982 was a sudden storm; you allegedly were here, that took SIX years and was a near civil war! Or the LaRouchite claiming it’s all about bread prices … and DON’T get me started on the fools who make them look informed!)
ANYHOW …
There always is reality … and serious questions … like
What do they think they are doing?
I wish I knew! From where I’m sitting, it looks like the regime is losing the people, fast: those who were never with it are now joined by those who just wanted to enjoy a quiet life, make money and be happy; this isn’t good for business, to say the least, and those who put their economic interests above mere freedom are falling away. The regime had given security – and ask anyone who has ever been here about how safe it has been on the streets here – and stability. All of us are more than familiar with what the alternative could be: we live between Beirut and Baghdad …
But that’s gone now …
Even inside the regime itself, things are cracking: I hear rumors of whole cohorts of Baathis ready to walk from the party, members of the government who are in near open revolt …
A security state only lasts so long as the population is scared of it. And the fear is dissolving
I hear rumors to of plans for talks and consultations between the government and the opposition …
So … maybe they want to negotiate an end to this. There are ways and they know it. We don’t want civil war and a bloodbath; I would guess they do not either.
So is that the game? To kill enough of us, crush us enough that they can say, “OK, you have seen what we are willing to do; now let us talk?”
Maybe.
But negotiations that begin with an ante of blood have a way of going wrong. Do I need to recount how many times we’ve seen both the Israelis and the Palestinians do that? Where one side thinks “if only we kill enough of them, that will make them think seriously about negotiating with us”? And how many times does that plan “backfire” when “killed enough to be taken seriously” crosses over to “killed so many that only vengeance matters for the other side”? And the violence builds only greater until it can only be “solved” by masscre.
Now, that is one of the issues we are facing. They keep killing us and, before too long, a point will be reached where the people around this regime will come to realize they have crossed the threshold where they have killed so many that, if they stop the killing, there will be no peaceful ending; this side will want only vengeance. And when they realize that, they will say to themselves, “we cannot stop.”
We’ve all watched as the regime in Tripoli has crossed that line; they cannot lose because, when they do lose, all of them will die. Other places have come close: thank God that in Palestine and even Lebanon, they’ve never quite gotten there, but all sides stopped before massacre of the whole of the other side became a necessity for self-preservation.
Iraq, though, that was different: regime after regime and rebellion after rebellion sowed the seeds for the next time, when vengeance was assured.
Up to now, the Syrian situation has not been the Iraqi. We may have a common language and culture in many things; we even had sister parties in both, but on this we parted ways.
The 'Syrian way' has not been peaceful but, even then, it has always been to use just enough violence to make a 'credible threat' to break any resistance; then, imprison and exile anyone still outloud in opposition and let the rest pretend they never stood opposed. When governments changed and coup followed coup, even when there were armed uprisings, that was the way for every party: shoot as few as possible, let the rest get away or go to prison. Revolts might be broken but, so long as the state was preserved, things carried on.
The ‘Iraqi way’, on the other hand, has always been different, even before anyone had heard of Saddam. There, each change of government, each rebellion came with a slaughter of the opposition and sowed the seeds for the next round. Those who survived as individuals thirsted for vengeance. Saddam crushed multiple revolts with absolute brutality; killing whole families, erasing villages ... and those rebels did the same when they could; during the 1991 rising in the south, whole families of Baathist officials were hacked to death after the women were raped ... so, there, all sides knew that any loosening of the grip meant that, when the regime fell, there'd be massacre and counter-massacre.
Here, even when it has been most brutal, the regime has so far stayed within some boundaries. I damn with faint praise but it is true; they could have opened fire on whole crowds repeatedly; I have seen with my own eyes where they have had enough guns and enough strong positions to kill us all. But they didn't; they've held fire, used less than lethal force, or have shot a few as 'examples' rather than rake the whole crowd. Only a thousand dead all told … Saddam or Stalin would have left not one stone standing on another in Dera’a. But still a thousand too many!
This regime is not stupid, I will give them that, and that's too has always been a major difference between Iraq and Syria. Our dictators and their government are clever. That too is the Syrian way; we know that nothing lasts forever, no king no kingdom, so we think ahead to our legacy.
We know and the regime knows that too much brutality now leads to only one end; more massacres in the future. The child who saw his parents killed by laughing men grows up to hate them and all their kind; that leads to checkpoints where the wrong name, the wrong accent gets people killed for being the wrong sect. We know that, know that when in power, be careful for the other side is keeping track of all your crimes and writing down your names. They know that; if they repress too hard now, the result eventually will be that, when they do fall, not just the regime but the whole of the Alawi sect will be hunted down and killed, even the dissidents. We know that; they know that. Both sides have seen how the other one’s cousins in Iraq acted when they had the chance: inta Umar? Inti Aisha? Now die for the sins of a thousand years ago …
We do not want that for our beloved bilad. They do not either.
So the key then to avoid a sectarian bloodbath in the future is for them to hold fire in the present.
But can they do that? Can they stop the killings before they have reached a point where negotiation is impossible? Or will they reach a point where they realize that they've killed so many that, no matter what concessions come, the day of reckoning follows and they will be hunted down?
I know what I would choose if it were my decision to make.
5 comments:
You make an interesting point about the Syrian government having not completely unleashed a massacre and being clever about not going "too far." As you say, it is faint praise.
As an historian I have to say that throughout history regimes achieving longevity have quite often done so by showing a moderate "iron fist" followed up by some crowd-pleasing reforms.
The British were particularly good at this in maintaining their empire once they learnt the lesson of losing the American colonies and it served them well for nearly 200 years.
Hello Amina,
I wonder if at some point you could give us a breakdown of the various factions at work here.
I've heard of the Baath party, mostly because of Iraq, and I know something of the difference between Sunni and Shia and roughly about bedouin, but I would be interested to hear more about groups like the Alawi sect. Also, who are the Druze?
I could go look them all up on the interwebs, and I probably will, but I also enjoy reading your explanations of things. So uh, if you have time in this whole revolution thing to write such a post, I for one would welcome it.
-Strum
you are trying to bring out the contrevecial sides when you say the regime kills and the regime kept his nerve.. That would go on people abroad where they know nothing about Syria and found what you are writing is interesting for them!! For me what you wrote was bullshit, a tragedic way of writing ignoring the most crucial point in the story which is the armed gangs who have killed hundred of military and security forces, so, we are in war not in a peaceful protest as you are trying to sell!! So when you say we and them you put yourself among those people who are killing in one hand and raise peaceful slogans in the other .. And one more thing.. your speech about the sectors in Syria and one side would hunt the other is disgusting!!!!
In today's world oppressive regimes that effectively seek to cling onto power are also good at targetting blogs and other opinion sections of the internet. Just look at any major newspaper website that opens an opinion piece about China and see how quickly the government stooges are all over it.
They seem a bit slow in Syria but seem to now be rearing their ugly heads on this blog.
I'm a big fan of ur elegant storytelling, i back in all of ur cuases as gay girl and as human seeking freedom. BUT ur information about the historical conflicts of the region is so superficial: 1- there was mass killings done by the regime in syria in 1982. 2- In iraq there was wars betwen the political parties but there wasn't any sects conflicts as u mentioned until the american invasion, and the killing betwen shiaa and suni started by the infulance of suadu's who didn't want a Democratic model in the area, there wasn't any killing for the suni's in the west of iraq in 1991, although there was killing for baathis shiaa and suni. 3- the regime in syria is not pushing the killings to far in fair of the west as happning in libya.
I witnesed the conflicts ur talking about, u knew about them through foriegn news channels.
Hope soon you will gain freedom and publish Ur books
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