An attempt to explore the different layers of the Syrian war
It‘s always easier to regard a complex situation from a certain point outside than standing too near at it respectively inside. I‘m not an expert for the complexity of the conflict which causes in the meantime a desperate situation for the Syrian population by devastating the country since more than two and a half years. But with the time I tried to dig into a field of perception that is troubling more an more the eye witnesses worldwide and making it nearly impossible to find solutions which will solve the crisis in favor of the suffering civilians and create a platform of hope on which the crushed country can become rebuilt.
Daily we are confronted with horrible images reaching us from different locations inside Syria. The news machinery is producing frontline footages which became the taste of a disgusting routine; shelled areas, car bombs, field executions, the discovery of mass graves and what else we can expect as results of a war which is getting more and more out of control. Control means in that case the expectation of clear frontlines between good and bad. And there exactly is the problem located: what started as an uprising against injustice and randomness has become a puzzling nightmare staged by powerful actors and socio-religious circumstances making it impossible to figure out the main screenplay of the drama.
The spark which incited the uprising in Syria was similar to the occurences during the Arab Uprising beginning in 2011 (I avoid to use the term Arab Spring, it turned out to be an artificial expression used by the Western press locating the incidents during the wrong season, in fact it was winter when the people in the Arab and North African countries rose up): a handful of teeners wrote the word ,7orriye‘ (freedom) on a wall in Dara‘a, a city south of Damascus, and became arrested for their deed. The inevitable avalanche became rolling, the thought of risking to raise the voice against the strong dictatorship spread throughout the country; via the capital it reached after a time cities like Homs and Hama (the last one was becoming in a horrible way famous for the massacre Hafez Al-Assad‘s troops were having committed in 1982) and finally this spark incited the moderate, if not to be conservative called merchants‘ metropole of Aleppo in the North.
In the first months the term ,7war‘ (dialogue) was still circulating among the population in the hope the regime will turn its‘ moderate side out and move towards the Syrian civil society trying to find a way to open up the claws around them. Especially seen in the ruler himself, Bashar Al-Assad, who gained after getting into power in 2001 the aura of a reformer and who represented at least hope into a real change in favor of the people who were mainly suffering under the brutality the ,mukhabarat‘ (the secret service) and the ,shabi7a‘ (the ghosts), their loyal merciless henchmen were spreading since years.
But after the first reactions of the regime on the people‘s demands - opening fire at unarmed protesters, mass arrests and executions - the mood turned from dialogue to toppling the dictator and his system. Baathism (the political form of ruling Syria) became a system unbearable for the Sunni majority and the call for intervention like the international community did in Libya became louder. The frontline between the people and the regime harmed. Consolidation was getting out of reach.
Those who risked in the meantime their lives - and the lives of their family members - by participating at anti-regime protests were brandmarked by the ruling despots as ,terrorists‘. The soldiers made no difference between men, women or even children. The case of Hamza Al-Khateeb, a 13 years old puber who just wanted to carry some bread to besieged fellows in a neighbor district and was arrested and tortured to death for this ,crime‘, was circulating around the globe; he became the first famous teenager ,sha7id‘ (martyr) of the Syrian Revolution.
Meanwhile the list of those ,sho7adda‘ (martyrs) is long, civilians of all generations have lost their lives during the continuing struggle for the restauration of ,karama w 7orriye‘ (dignity and freedom).
So far the beginning of the conflict between the people and ,al-nizam‘ (the government, i.e. the regime). It turned out to be a typical revolt from those ,below‘ against those ,upside‘.
But the regime under the control of the main families, the Assads, the Makhloufs and the Shaleeshs, was clever enough due to its‘ knowledge of the socio-generic structure of Syria itself and the whole region to trouble the image of that uprising. What appeared on the surface as a citizens‘ revolt turned with the help of neighboring allies - Lebanon‘s Hassan Nasrallah and his Hezbollah f.ex. - into a conflict of complexity soaking up different interests and goals to become that kind of disgusting war meanwhile we are facing.
Referring to the title I‘ve chosen - the war scenario compared with a tower - I like to present the different floors of conflict:
The People vs. the Regime
The origin of the conflict based on the demand of the removal of certain regime behaviors (not the regime itself, that demand appeared later after the conflict became one-sided violent). By analyzing the process of the struggle for dignity and freedom the Syrian civilians have to become pardonned - let me say it without insulting them and in no way questioning their courage - for their naivety trying to change respectively bring down an iron system of surveillance and repression. The regime itself which at no point of time wanted to give up even a millimeter of power was hiding itself behind argumentations that ,terrorists‘ and ,foreign conspirators‘ were standing behind the popular movement against the Syrian rulership.
Sunni vs. Shia (respectively Alawi)
The Baath system was founded by Bashar‘s father, Hafez Al-Assad and the family belongs to the religious group of the Alawites, an offspring of the Shia community who lives a more moderate way of Islam (maybe not easy for some of us to understand imagining dark-clothed, long-bearded Mullahs by hearing the term Shiite or Shia). As a minority in-between the Syrian religious society the Assads understood well to build up their power with a lot of restrictions and control organs. Only certain Sunnis became favored to serve under the Alawi dominated rulership. So seen the conflict potential between both religious streams was programmed.
Western proxies vs. Eastern proxies
The axis of allies supporting the Assad regime reaches from Lebanon‘s Hezbollah over the clerical ruled Iran to Russia. The last mentioned makes it until today impossible to reach a common condemnation of the crimes against humanity the regime in Damascus is clearly responsible for. On the other hand a weak appearing Western coalition in which the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the main actors continuingly fails to support the uprising faction with necessary equipment at least to guarantee stable conditions for the refugees and the suffering civil society in-between Syria. Every side is stubbornly following its‘ own goals and interests disgracing the term of diplomacy not only in the eyes of the Syrians themselves. The recent tragical chapter of that kind of policy, the usage of chemical weapons and the inability to condemn those grave war crimes is giving the proof of the actual stalemate on the political level.
Religious vs. Seculars
This conflict can also be named as Hardliners vs. Moderates. A conflict which is throwing up the question whether a common political system after the fall of a dictatorship should be handled under the law of the sharia by installing a ,dawla islamiya‘ (Islamic state) or handled under the law based on democratic, liberal and pluralistic ideals by installing a ,dawla madaniya‘ (civil state). How hard the frontlines in this conflict are at the moment we can witness in Egypt where the Seculars (under the guide of the SCAF, the Security Council of Armed Forces) and the Religious (under the leadership of Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood) are fighting each other to gain - and regain - power. A clash which is continuing over decades now by the way. In Syria this clash is fought out between the moderate wing of ,gesh-al-hor‘ (the Free Syrian Army) and groups like ,Dawla Islamiya al-Iraqi al-Sham‘ (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Those clashes between regime rivals are all in all in favor of Assad.
Arabs vs. Kurds
Fortunately this level of conflicts hasn‘t reach the dramatic potential of the recent mentioned ones. But it bears in fact the risk of long-term poisoning the relations between both ethical groups. The Kurds, fighting for decades now for regaining their independence mainly in Turkey, may see their chance to get back parts of their origin homeland and the danger of a radicalization is still pending like a Damokles sword over their heads. As long as they can identify themselves as part of Syria - and for that process granting pluralism is one if not the most important precondition - the Afrin Kurds and the other tribes will work together with the Arab-rooted Syrians for a common Syrian Nation.
Tribes vs. Tribes
In my estimation the core of the conflict problematic the Syrians will have to face. For our Western perception the term ,tribe‘ might be difficult, the best way to translate it into our understanding is ,big family‘. Indeed the main part of the Arab societies is formed from big families, the relations might reach over nations‘ borders and could have a size of thousands of family members. Those tribes are the core even of a nation like Syria is, and it is all but coincidence that the victims of the regime‘s attempt to crackdown the uprising are belonging to certain big families a.k.a. tribes. The complexity of the tribal system makes it for those ones searching a socio-political reform difficult to reach their goals without collaborating with certain tribes. The tribes themselves are often deeply divided; some are standing unquestionably at the regime‘s side due to the favors they are profitting from, others keep in silence waiting until one side gains the momentum of power and other ones have decided to fight side by side with the armed revolutionaries. The regime always used the divide-and-conquer tactics to its‘ own favor especially in-between the tribal mechanisms - and to grant itself the survival as a minority rulership.
All in all these different conflict levels are making it impossible to find a short- or mid-termed solution for the actual tragedy. With all the fervor and enthusiasm I started as supporter of the Syrian Revolution and friend of the Syrian people I had to come to the insight that certain levels of power and collaboration are preventing whole systems from becoming undermined by idealistic ideals - even if they are justified in the name of humanness. But that is only valid for the short-term thinking. On the long hand the chances are high that a new, young generation will change the actual global inhuman conditions and turn toward a future where parents can live with their children without having fear, without risking their lives while walking down the streets, without facing hate or injustice.
Even in Syria.
