Just a couple of points:
Twelve and a half years on, days after the tenth anniversary of the sarin slaughter in the Ghouta, that is a decade after Syrians lost all reason to hope…
As in the first years of the Syrian Revolution, people of all sects and social backgrounds are coming together to demand freedom and dignity. Over a decade of fierce sectarian counter-revolutionary violence hasn’t changed the basic demands of the Syrian people.
Protests are rising throughout southern Syria, in Daraa and Sweida provinces. As if this were 2011 reborn, there are massive popular demonstrations in regime-controlled territory. They’ve been met by solidarity demonstrations in eastern Syria: in Deir ez-Zor, and in Raqqa in PKK/PYD/SDF territory; as well as in the liberated areas of the north. The chants and lyrics of greeting and solidarity exchanged between the various regions of the country feel like a fresh breeze after the years of engineered sectarian and ethnic breakdown.
Syrians have been disappointed so many times before that it seems foolish to continue hoping. And yet, there are two new elements to the situation today. First, the entire Druze community – centred on Sweida – appears to be rejecting Assad entirely.
Individuals from minority communities have opposed Assad previously, but not a minority community en masse. The Druze of Sweida tolerated Assad so long as his forces kept their distance, and so long as young Druze conscripts served in the province rather than went to fight other Syrians. And the community sheltered defectors and others on the run from Assad’s killers. But it didn’t stage mass protests, nor an armed uprising, even as the Sunnis in neighbouring Deraa province were tortured, shot, and bombed. Assad’s main strategy has been to slaughter, rape, torture and expel Sunnis in particular, and to scare minority groups to sell them the lie that only Assad can protect them from the Sunnis. So mass protests of Druze are particularly difficult for Assad to deal with.
It looks like these protests won’t be stopped without massive violence. But massive violence against a minority sect ruins the pretext of the regime being a ‘protector of minorities’. It emphasises the unity of the Syrian people. Assad can’t survive a meeting with a unified Syrian people. Hence the slogan once again rising: One, One, One, the Syrian People are One.
Second,
Second, the economy has totally collapsed to the point that there will either be revolution or mass starvation – and this is the fault not of sanctions on the regime but of Assad, Russia and Iran’s utter destruction and looting of the country. Syrians know this – this includes Alawi Syrians from the Baathist heartland, who are increasingly speaking against Assad. The inner regime elite is rich on narcotics money, but everyone else is hungry.
So the regime can no longer bribe loyalists. Neither are ISIS or similar jihadi groups now in a position to scare minorities into obedience – but this points to a potential Assad tactic with regard to Sweida. Once before the regime has eased the passage of ISIS through the desert to perpetrate a killing spree in Sweida. It was a ‘lesson’ to the Druze who were refusing to send their sons to fight beyond the province. Assad wanted to show them ‘Only I stand between you and them’. So if we see a sudden and unexpected ISIS attack on Sweida, you’ll know why… Otherwise, how does Assad deal with this?
The regime tried to organise a pro-regime rally in Alawi-majority Tartus, but it didn’t work out. There were almost no volunteers, only a few rich kids in nice cars. Usually the regime would compensate by bussing in school children and government workers – but this time there was no fuel for the buses.
