Syria Is In Trouble

By John Ballard

Josh Landis is a card-carrying Syria expert. And I sense from reading his blog for several years that he also loves the country despite all its problems and has nothing but the most optimistic expectations for the future. But when Josh Landis says "Syria is slipping toward civil war" it carries the same ominous implications that were apparent years ago when the task of declaring that the US was at war in Vietnam was left to Walter Cronkite. No one else wants to speak those words out loud.

Syria is slipping toward civil war. The announcement today that 120 Syrian officers have been killed in Jisr al-Shughour indicates how dire the contest between the opposition and government forces has become. This weekend over 100 Syrians were killed by government troops.

Readers who want more information are urged to go to this post and get to work. Follow the links and pay attention to the comments. Landis often includes opinions and remarks from the comments threads in his own commentary.

He published another excellent reading last week by an unnamed American who has been living in Syria and making contact with its many different ethnic and confessional groups. It is the most comprehensive report about Syria I have read to date and illustrates the extreme, even delusional opinions and impressions that are the ingredients to civil conflict. The reading is fairly long and filled with maps and charts but worth close scrutiny. Here is a couple of snips.

Dera�a is becoming a unit�I hesitate to say almost separate from Syria�not only in how people there are beginning to view themselves as separate from the state (an understandable effect after feeling attacked by the state), but in the way many other Syrians are reacting to Dera�ans. Adham tells me that in the hospital where he works in Damascus, he is experiencing a new, unmistakable resentment and coldness from his coworkers. �They say nothing, but I can see in their faces that they blame us for the current situation in Syria.� He says that he doesn�t feel safe responding to the opinions voiced by people in his workplace. He believes that people�s opinions are misled and mistaken, but if he defends �his own� Dera�ans, he fears reprisal.

�One Alawi girl who works in the hospital was very happy about the army entering the city. She said, �They must destroy the entire city and should kill everyone demonstrating.�� Her comments reflect the result of the government�s successful campaign to demonize the protesters; many people simply believe that there is an insidious cancer of extremism growing inside Syria, that threatens all life, security, and humane values, and that drastic measures are needed to thoroughly wipe it out.

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I am also learning that such conflicts can divide even the closest friends. Nisreen is one of my closer friends here, but as close as we have been, and as much faith as I put in the human commitment to friendship and the ability to reach across boundaries, I have experienced a rude awakening regarding the strain that times of conflict and conspiracy can create between people. On the one hand, only 5 minutes of conversation with Nisreen can now drive me almost insane as she presents the regime as an angelic victim of every manner of conspiracies and lies.

On the other hand, I become incensed at Na�ima�s inability to sympathize with the minorities and understand their fears. Her zealous anti-regime sentiments seem to drown out her ability to see the nuance of complexity in the situation or to listen to the variety of perspectives along the spectrum of opinion. Spending time with either Nisreen or Na�ima has become unpleasant, as I can�t bear to listen to their comments of judgment and lack of understanding for the other. When I open my mouth in defense of those they blame, I can almost feel a rift growing between us, because in their minds, so much is at stake. I am still somewhat neutral; this dynamic has greater effects on the relationships between Syrians.

Amidst the new voicing of patriotism and all this rhetoric about unity, Syrians are terribly divided. People like Nisreen are not trying to empathize with those who are protesting, to understand their difficulties and motivations, but instead cling to easy explanations that vilify them. And people like Na�ima are writing off the sectarian fears being experienced by many, without trying to understand their experience. These fears may or may not be justified, but they are certainly not absurd. The real tragedy that I observe is that different groups are not working to understand each other. This is the main problem of Syria today: Syrians do not understand each other. If only they could reach across the divide a little and consider the fears and concerns of the other side.

There is nothing simple or straightforward about events in Syria.

One development seems clear, however. What began in Tunisia and Egypt as an emphatically non-violent movement is now morphing into violent expressions of civil unrest, beginning with Libya, then Yemen and now Syria. Authorities in Bahrain, Jordan and other places have met non-violent protests with violent responses, but thus far have not driven activists to respond in kind. Such developments don't happen all at once. But expressions of violence and force, once triggered, are destined to end either in defeating the movements or open civil war.