An analysis very relevant (I think it but I expect confirmation o)) of the Syrian situation appeared here ...
[GALLERY] Why does Syria does not (again. ..) changed?
Leverrier Ignatius, a former diplomat and Arabist scholar, examines the state of the country.
Like their Syrian friends, those who know Syria having lived there remain appalled by the explanations provided by some academics and politicians at the French new proof of the "Syrian exception. According to them, Tunisians, Egyptians et Libyens ... avaient toutes les raisons du monde de se rebeller contre leurs dirigeants, autoritaires et corrompus. En revanche, en Syrie , la population ne bouge pas car, si des reproches peuvent être formulés à la gouvernance de Bachar Al Assad , les Syriens adhèrent à sa politique nationaliste de "résistance et obstruction" aux projets impérialistes.
Il est exact que les Syriens et leur président s'accordent sur ces thèmes. Mais ils sont loin d'y mettre le même contenu. La défense de la Syrie et l'unité de la nation arabe sont pour les premiers des objectifs. Ils ne sont chez Bachar Al Assad qu'une posture. Certains disent a sham. What matters to him, indeed, before the stability and development of his country and a fortiori of the Arab nation is its hold on power and timely transmission of his office to his son, Hafez, which in turn bequeathed to his son Bashar, and so on ... "The resistance and obstruction" are only one means of perpetuating his authority.
The Syrians are not fooled by their president's speech. They note that "resistance and obstruction" of Bashar Al Assad
do not drive more now that his father yesterday in retaliation for exposing himself directly to his neighbors Israelis. since the disengagement agreement on the Golan in 1974 and the revolt of the Syrian society against its leaders in the early 1980s, it is obvious to anyone who will look at the reality that the first danger for the Syrian regime is derived more from the outside but from within. It is more Israel, but the Syrian population.
Should remind those who believe that Bashar Al Assad and his people are on the same wavelength because they sing the same song, the Syrians have no freedom of speech? Should we remind them that Syrians who want to contribute to the "resistance" by taking some initiative on the Golan Heights, were arrested, tortured and severely condemned by the Syrian military justice? Should we remind them that despite its threats to respond "timely and appropriate means" to the many provocations, attacks and attacks attributed to the Israelis to Syria, the "resistant" Bashar Al Assad has shown since his came to power in June 2000 of a restraint that borders on paralysis and powerlessness translates?
It is also true that when they turn to most other Arab countries, the Syrians welcome to have as president and first lady for the pair consisting of Bashar Al Assad and Al Asma Akhras . They are young and stylish. They go for modern because they have a higher education, lived abroad, speak different languages and use the Internet. They do not lack skill or charm in the handling of the speech. It is true that the Syrians are still happy to have seen their country escape, during the past decade, disorders of the Iraq and the instability of Lebanon . But those who imagine that between the president and the Syrian people so all is for the better dans le meilleur des mondes et que la population syrienne est majoritairement unie derrière son nouveau "chef pour l'éternité", prennent des vessies pour des lanternes. La longue série des mesures sécuritaires, sociales et économiques prises en Syrie au cours des dernières semaines, pour garantir et acheter le calme de la population, témoigne d'une défiance certaine.
Depuis l'arrivée de Bachar Al Assad au pouvoir, les conditions économiques et sociales se sont dégradées pour une majorité de Syriens. Certes, le train des réformes économiques a démarré. Mais la locomotive n'a entraîné derrière elle que le wagon de tête, réservé businessmen from the traditional bourgeoisie, the new bourgeoisie enriched through the public sector, army officers and security services, and those who, from all sides have agreed to make the trailer the presidential family, for better or for worse. As for other cars, those of workers, peasants, artisans, shopkeepers, independent businesses and officials, entrepreneurs and even attached to their independence and compliance with certain ethical standards in business, they stayed at the station. Beneficial for some, the economic opening has led to the majority by increased unemployment, widespread impoverishment, displacement of population, development of crime, a growing desire to emigrate.
Since the arrival of President Bashar Al Assad in power, corruption , which lies primarily on the mass of the population, subjected to extortion Daily officials and police, grew exponentially. Through what was a civilian administration, military and business under Hafez al-Assad became, under his heir, a real system. Pyramidal structure that is not remedied this phenomenon without addressing members of the presidential family who are the organizers and the first beneficiaries.
Since the arrival of President Bashar Al Assad in power, political life has been no openings that the disappearance of his father had hoped. The expectations placed in the new president were quick to be disappointed. Outstretched hands in his direction, to offer their support to the start of construction of political, economic and social progressive, have all been ignored. The "Damascus Spring" was interrupted before they bore fruit. The "Committees Revival of Civil Society" has been dissolved. Forums citizen debate opened in late 2000 have been closed. MPs, academics, journalists, trade unionists, doctors, lawyers and businessmen behind these initiatives have been imprisoned. Launched in October 2005, a "Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change in Syria" has experienced a similar fate.
Since the arrival of President Bashar Al Assad to power, Human Rights in Syria has been a cosmetic improvement. Less savage than the time of his father, torture remains a common practice and the cases of custodial deaths are not uncommon. Activists démocrates, les seuls dont les Etats occidentaux se préoccupent, sont traités avec une certaine retenue. Mais les "islamistes" , jihadistes ou salafistes, tous assimilés à des terroristes, subissent aujourd'hui, dans l'indifférence générale de ces mêmes Etats, les traitements inhumains et dégradants qui étaient jadis l'apanage des Frères Musulmans. Les Kurdes, surtout lorsqu'ils sont convaincus de sympathie avec le Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK) d'Abdallah Ocalan, sont victimes des mêmes agissements. Les uns et les autres continuent d'être arrêtés hors de tout cadre juridique, par des services de renseignements qui estiment n'avoir need to order anyone to intervene. Instead of restricting these behaviors, Bashar Al Assad encouraged by enacting, September 30, 2008, a legislative decree which provides immunity to court in an increased number of officers of these services, which would, under torture , killed their victims.
Since the arrival of President Bashar Al Assad in power, the humiliations forced upon people by the Baathist regime did not decrease. For the young head of state, like his father, the Syrians are not citizens but subjects simple. They are not invited to give their views on developments decided in high places, but to implement them without comment. They are subject to the approval of the local branches of the security services for a thousand and one trivial details of their daily lives. They are not considered mature enough to have access to all media from abroad. Telephone communications continue to be monitored. Eternals minors, they are not allowed to use the Internet at their convenience. Hundreds of sites are banned in Syria. The final humiliation dated within a month. Responding, January 31, questions of "Wall Street Journal, Bashar Al Assad said he wanted to reform, but that "his people were not ready for democracy"! This contempt has boosted many Syrians wondered how a young man placed at the head of state after a process unrelated to democracy could afford to wear such a trial. Democracy existed in Syria long before Bashar was designed. If it had been damaged, the primary responsibility rested with the confiscation of power by the Baath Party, whose leadership in itself was powered at once, in June 2000, without ever having been baathiste et sans jamais avoir assumé la moindre responsabilité au sein de ce parti.
Pour ceux qui préfèrent voir dans le régime de Bachar Al Assad un régime laïc, protecteur des minorités confessionnelles et allié de l'occident dans la lutte contre le " terrorisme islamique", quelques rappels s'imposent :
== Le régime syrien n'est laïc que pour autant que la laïcité sert ses intérêts ==. Lorsque ceux-ci lui dictent de pactiser avec des "islamistes", pour contrecarrer les projets des Américains dans la région, entretenir l'instabilité au Liban ou démontrer à l'Occident que la Syrie est, elle aussi, la cible of terrorism, he never hesitates to do so. Then left to return against his occasional allies, condemned to harsh sentences for young Syrians committed to fight in Iraq, or engaging in the Western intelligence services recruited young Islamists at home and trained in Syria to fight against the invaders U.S.. As
== "resistance and obstruction," the secular for the Syrian regime is a means and not an objective or purpose ==. It's a selling point used by Bashar Al Assad to try to get co-opted by Western states, which, if not democracy, would be willing to be satisfied with this substitute. This trade does not support competition, Bashar Al Assad has refused to authorize the creation of civil society organizations showing ambition, too, to "defend and promote secularism in Syria."
== Bashar Al-Assad underlines happy with their visitors enjoyed the privileged position in Syria Christians and other religious minorities ==. Alone would ensure peaceful coexistence and dialogue between the Sunni majority in his country, and other religions. But neither the Christians nor the Druze, Ismailis do not have any illusions. Reduced à la portion congrue dans la répartition des postes de décision à la tête du régime, très largement monopolisés par des sunnites ayant fait allégeance, pour le "pouvoir apparent", et par des alaouites appartenant au clan présidentiel, pour le "pouvoir réel ", ils savent depuis longtemps que ce n'est pas pour les protéger, mais pour se protéger, que Bachar Al Assad s'efforce de les regrouper autour de lui.l
Pourquoi, dans ces conditions, les Syriens n'ont-ils pas (encore) bougé ?
== D'abord parce qu'ils ont peur==. Comment pourraient-ils oublier la barbarie manifestée de sang froid par le régime lors de la répression the uprising of the early 1980s? His victims numbered in the tens of thousands, plus some 17 000 to 18 000 men and boys , abducted from their homes by the Mukhabarat, whose families remain without news until today. Since these events, hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled abroad were not allowed to return to their country, and calls for national reconciliation have been met with silence as absolute as contemptuous of the regime of Hafez, then Bashar Al Assad. Closer to home, how the Syrians would not they worried when, two and a half years after the mutiny of the military prison Sadnaya repressed in blood in the middle of July 2008 as Bashar Al Assad was received in Paris, no assessment of the takeover has yet been given and that hundreds of families continue to ignore all of those they await news or release?
== There is no political force in Syria or association may initiate and supervise a protest movement ==. The few left-wing nationalist political parties were discredited tolerated by agreeing to place themselves under the thumb of the Baath Party in a National Progressive Front supposed to demonstrate that the système était pluraliste, à défaut d'être démocratique. Depuis 1980, les syndicats et unions professionnelles ont été satellisés par le Parti Baath. Ils ne disposent d'aucune marge d'autonomie. Personne ne compte sur eux pour organiser une protestation contre la politique du régime, dont ils sont eux-mêmes en partie victimes. La situation des partis d'opposition est plus déplorable encore. Leurs membres ont été pourchassés, emprisonnés, torturés, souvent liquidés en prison. Tout est fait par le régime pour empêcher ces partis de renaître de leurs cendres et, surtout, de recruter dans la jeune génération. Dernière initiative en date, la "Déclaration de Damas", une plate-forme destinée à rassembler les partisans d'une "réforme progressive pacifique" au-delà des courants idéologiques, a à son tour été décimée par l'arrestation d'une douzaine de ses responsables. Menacés, parfois physiquement, les autres sont rentrés dans l'ombre ou ont renoncé à tout engagement politique.
== L'immobilisme de la Syrie s'explique aussi par la division de sa population en une multitude de communautés ethniques et confessionnelles ==. Leur entente et leur compréhension mutuelle ne sont que de façade. En réalité, les chrétiens ont peur des sunnites. Les sunnites détestent les Alawi. The Alawi are suspicious of Sunni and Druze and despise the Ismaili ... Level ethnicity, the situation is identical. Arabs suspect the Kurds of being all-minded separatists. The Kurds believe that the Arab nationalist sentiment by, do not take their place alongside them. Everyone is thus observed, and no one is willing to expose themselves in the first bearing the head of any movement that would allow others to pull the chestnuts out of fire.
== Reserving visas to journalists 'friends', Syria remains a black hole of our information ==. The Syrian government, which likes nothing better than the dark conducive to the maneuvers, it is very good. But the Syrians, who rely only on themselves to make things happen, are concerned in these conditions to be victims, as in Libya , repression "sold." They remember that westerners s 'were made discrete surprise in 1982 when they were convinced by Hafez Al Assad that all victims of the repression of Hama, even kids in bed, were "Muslim Brotherhood". They fear that leaving is a new Once fooled by Bashar Al Assad, who is an enemy while protesting, and every enemy a brother Muslim, Westerners do evidence of the complicity with a regime that agreed to consider both dangerous ... and useful, since, as acknowledged by the Israelis, it guarantees to Israel for over 35 years, the border Arab safest.
The Syrians are not able to mobilize, and President Bashar Al Assad did not intend to implement political reforms that his entourage and the profiteers of the status quo will also refuse to consider, how the situation could evolve?
A news item in Damascus, Feb. 17, could foreshadow. Following the beatings by officers traffic, a young man holding shop in the Old City, hundreds of traders stepped in to take part in the police to have fled. They then occupied the whole district, claiming that the police are brought to justice and demanding, the cry of "the Syrian people will not let shame", the presence of Interior Minister.
is an event of this type, a spontaneous explosion of anger provoked by "humiliation" too, which could, as in Tunisia , set fire to the powder. Given the extent of discontent and desire for revenge of the population, and terror of the head of the regime to lose their lives with the control of the situation, a social explosion is likely to take in Syria, a dramatic turn in Libya.
We would be able to expect a failed attempt to regain control bloody currently conducted Tripoli and Benghazi finally open the eyes of Bashar Al Assad and his relatives, and they will come to consider that, on balance, better begin without delay a real political opening. Eventually, it will limit their power and limit their grip on the country's resources, but at least partially preserve their interests economic and spare them the shame of flight, a passage to trial and perhaps life.
Leverrier by Ignatius, a former diplomat and Arabist scholar - Nouvelobs.com
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