The people in Syria, when they looked around at one point and saw what happened in Tunisia and what was happening in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, in Libya, in Yemen, they really became inspired [Mr. Abdulhamid refers to the Arab Spring uprisings]. And after years of quiet internal questioning in small sort of settings in each other´s houses and in– sometimes some intellectual salons that operated clandestinely or in their family chats, they always talked about a better life.
They pinned a lot of hopes on Bashar Assad [President of Syria] to deliver on promises. They wanted the possibility to have jobs and to actually to see that when they work hard, that they can actually improve their lot in life, not just working hard to stay in the same place or even to fall even lower than they expected. It was a process of internal stock taking and that came to a head after watching the developments in Tunisia and Egypt and realizing, “You know what? We cannot remain quiet. We also have to do our part. It can happen. Change can happen. We can challenge the system.” “And the world will be with us. The world will stand by us because we are fighting for our basic rights, for democracy, for human rights. And this is a time to do it.”
And this is why I think people went down to the streets. So it was and they called it the dignity revolution. And they were right. I mean, yes, they were motivated by the living conditions, by the poverty, by anti-corruption sentiments. But all of this, when you actually analyze them, they are about dignity. Corruption impacts your dignity. Unemployment impacts your sense of dignity and your sense of worth.
So the reality is people wanted to have a more dignified existence. And this is why they decided that the only way to do it is actually to begin agitating, to tell the government, “Listen to us and fulfill your promises.” Unfortunately, what happened is that Assad really showed his true colors to the people very early on by ordering a crackdown, by sanctioning the violent crackdown that took place in different parts of Syria, especially in the south, where the revolution began. And as a result of that, people immediately lost faith in him.
And they have been waiting for him for 10 years, 11 years in fact, to fulfill his promises. And now, when they thought they gave him a chance by taking it to the street to actually say, “Yes, I am a real reformer. And I´m going to use your public outcry to crack down on corruption in my circles. And I will impose my reforms,” instead, he showed that he is indeed part of the system, as so many of us had suspected.
And people now can see it with their own eyes. And as such, their cries for reform immediately turned into a cry for toppling the regime, into a cry for toppling Assad himself. And the more they became blunt in their demands, the larger and more violent the crackdown championed by Assad and his supporters.
Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist who in 2003 founded the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization that enlists local activists and citizen journalists to document conditions in Syria. In response to his activities, the Syrian government subjected Abdulhamid to repeat interrogation and threats. In September 2005, he and his family were forced into exile in the United States. From his home in Maryland, Abdulhamid remains one of the leading bloggers and commentators on events in Syria through the Syrian Revolution Digest.
Follow Ammar Ahbdulhamid on Twitter @Tharwacolamus and on his blog, Syrian Revolution Digest.
The Syrian Arab Republic originated as a secular, socialist state dominated by the Ba’ath party, an Arab nationalist movement. The state has since evolved into an autocracy headed by a single family and dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, a branch of Shia Islam.
The Ba’ath Party took power in Syria in a series of coups d’état in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the leaders of those coups, Hafez al-Assad, became president in 1971 and led the country until his death in 2000. Under Assad, Alawites assumed control over the state security forces. In 1982, Assad’s forces stormed the city of Hama to brutally suppress a Sunni rebellion, killing thousands of civilians.
Following the death of Hafez al-Assad, his son, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president by a referendum in which he ran unopposed, officially garnering 97 percent of the vote. He was reelected in 2007, again with 97 percent of the vote.
The Syrian government is one of the world’s most brutal and restrictive. From 1963 to 2011, the government operated under an “Emergency Law,” which suspended many constitutional protections of civil liberties. The government continues to use arbitrary detention and torture against political opponents, and operates through an extensive internal security apparatus, including secret police. The government controls most of the country’s media outlets, and access to the Internet is permitted only through state-operated servers. The minority Kurdish population has been continually discriminated against and repressed.
Influenced by movements in Egypt and Tunisia, large opposition protests took place across Syria in 2011. The government responded with a harsh crackdown. Security forces fired on protestors, killing thousands. The crackdown led the Arab League to suspend Syria’s membership. The Assad regime attempted to appease dissenters through a series of low-level and largely inconsequential reforms in 2011 and 2012. However, the conflict has escalated into full-fledged civil war with both liberal and Islamic militias being formed to fight against the Assad regime. The Assad regime has continued to attempt to defeat the opposition using air strikes and heavy artillery to attack rebel-held neighborhoods. Freedoms of association, assembly, and the press were restricted even further as the government attempted to quell the uprising. Over a million people have been either internally displaced or fled the country as refugees.
In the summer of 2013, it was confirmed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons to attack civilians. Over 600 people were killed in one such attack in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus using a nerve agent confirmed to be sarin. The Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons drew international attention and resulted in a renewed international focus on the nation and its civil conflict.
Freedom House rates Syria as “not free” noting that conditions even prior to the 2011 uprising and subsequent civil war were, at best, abysmal. It earned the worst possible ratings of seven in both the political rights and civil liberties categories. Conditions since the 2011 uprising have only deteriorated, and civil freedoms are restricted under the fear of violence. Freedom House has also expressed concern over rising sectarian tensions and massive displacement.