No one expected to see demonstrations filling the streets of Syria again. Since 2011, when the revolution began, the war has killed more than half a million people and displaced 12 million Syrians after peaceful protests against Bashar al-Assad were suppressed. For many, after these massacres, it was impossible for the Syrians to demonstrate again.
But the state’s cancellation of the fuel subsidy, which increased their price by 300%, was the spark. A dollar is now worth 14,000 Syrian pounds, against 8,000 before this decision, while the salary of a civil servant does not exceed 30 dollars. The price of food products has experienced strong inflation. In Syria, the temperature is over 40 degrees in the summer, the electricity only works for an hour a day, the start of the school year is approaching and parents need to buy supplies for their children, while they are struggling to buy the bread.
Soueïda, the city of fighters
It is the tenth anniversary of the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad. On August 21, 2013, the regime bombed several towns in the suburbs of Damascus with dozens of missiles containing sarin gas. Result: 1,450 victims and 6,000 injured. After years of investigation, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed the regime’s responsibility for the attacks, but Russia blocked its condemnation at the UN. Bashar el-Assad earned a nickname there: “the alchemist”.
Ten years later, it was in Soueïda that the first demonstration took place on August 16th. This city has always scared the regime. Its inhabitants belong to the Druze community, their belief is based on initiation into the esoteric part of the Muslim religion. They believe in reincarnation. For them, heaven and hell do not exist, and they do not practice traditional Muslim rites: prayer or Ramadan. The Druze have other beliefs unknown to other Muslims. Their monks are sacred, and their orders followed with great respect. But what distinguishes them the most from other communities is their unity: They do not marry outside their group, and they are ready to take up arms if one of them is attacked.
Historically, the Druze of Syria lived in an eponymous mountain, of which Soueïda is a part. During the Syrian revolution, the regime, prudent, avoided attacking this community of two million people, in order not to engage in an armed conflict with it. Several demonstrations took place in Soueïda, where the intelligence services often turned a blind eye, unlike the majority Sunni population, which was much more targeted because it was considered to be the main danger for the regime.
Today, a general strike engulfs Soueïda and dozens of villages in the region. The roads leading to the city are cut off by the demonstrators, the inhabitants know that the regime will not have the courage to eliminate them. Slogans such as “This is a pure country run by a whore”, “long live Syria, down with Assad”, “we are on strike until tyranny falls” are circulating among the demonstrators. But what makes the difference between this movement and the previous ones is the much higher number of participants, bringing together several social classes. Above all, for the first time, other Syrian cities have followed the example of Sueïda. In Deraa, the first city of the Syrian revolution in 2011, several demonstrations have been organized in recent days. In Idlib, rallies in support of Soueïda took up the same slogans.
Alawite voices
“I’m not afraid of you or your entourage,” said Majeed Hafez Dwai, an Alawite Syrian from Latakia, in a video posted on YouTube shortly after the first protest in Sueida. “The country is on its feet again. Today you can no longer manipulate public opinion or accuse the demonstrators of being Islamists. You no longer have a community that protects you, you only have the intelligence services . I dare you to use them to kill us. The people are armed. If you still have a little conscience, resign and thus avoid a bloodbath”, he adds.
This video, seen by millions of people and shared thousands of times in the Middle East, sparked a lively controversy. The Alawites have always been the community taken hostage by Assad, himself an Alawite. His blackmail has always consisted in telling them: either you fight for me or you will be assassinated by the Sunni majority. In 2011, thousands of young Alawites were armed and paid to attack protests. Alawites have a memory that goes back to the Ottoman Empire, where they were badly treated by the Sunni Caliph. They don’t want those days to come back. Assad plays on this trauma which is no more than an illusion, since the fall of the caliphate, the Alawites have never again been oppressed by other Syrians.
Despite this blackmail, the economic crisis prompted Majeed and other Alawites to speak out. Aimane Al Fares, an Alawite activist from the coastal town of Banias, said in a video addressing Assad: “I dare you to arrest me alive”, indicating that he would commit suicide the moment intelligence services would come looking for him. Fares was writing on social media about the regime’s corruption, and he was threatened several times by the police.
The end of the regime?
Khaled El Aboud, an analyst supporting Bashar el-Assad, sees in these demonstrations a new plot developed by intelligence services abroad to bring chaos to Syria. According to him, the regime’s resistance to Israel makes him the number one enemy of Westerners. This speech is the same as in 2011, when the regime accused the demonstrators of being traitors to the country. “Assad does not protect us from chaos. It is us Alawites who have protected him all these years, if he leaves, no chaos will ensue. This is just propaganda to scare us , but today the barrier of fear is broken. If Assad leaves, we have a lot of people capable of leading Syria, they have the experience and they are responsible,” replied Majeed Hafez Dwai.
Like other activists, he belongs to a new generation that has lived through the first revolution, the war, the manipulations of the regime, and the current economic crisis. This generation no longer has any hope of change and reconstruction of the country without the regime falling. This is their moment, their own revolution. The current conditions in Syria show that the regime may be nearing its end. Despite his diplomatic return to the Arab world, he has not come out of his isolation. The American economic sanctions, effective since December 2019 and known as the Caesar law (pseudonym of the prison guard in Syria who leaked tens of thousands of photos of prisoners who died under torture), are still valid. The war in Ukraine gives many Syrians the courage to go further: the regime is no longer protected by the Russians, especially if the latter find a replacement for Assad who will preserve their interests in the country. The demonstrations will continue until the economic and political situation changes in this country ruled with an iron fist by a bloodthirsty dictator.
* Writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleiman took part in the demonstrations against the regime of Bashar el-Assad, but, tracked down by the secret services, had to flee Syria in 2012. A refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian And A room in exile. He publishes in the fall Being French.