Veterans of Arab uprisings warn Syrians of perils forward

As jubilant Syrians celebrated the autumn of dictator Bashar al-Assad this week, dire warnings proliferated throughout Arabic social media: that this joyful second may result in a bleak future.

That the tip of the Assad dynasty got here by the hands of an armed Islamist group with former hyperlinks to al-Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, deepened alarm even amongst Arabs effectively conscious of the blood-soaked document of Assad’s regime.

“The people who find themselves optimistic for the way forward for Syria, have they not been with us throughout the previous 14 years?” Ezzedine Fishere, an Egyptian political science professor at Dartmouth College within the US, wrote on Fb.

One other Egyptian social media person posted: “Isn’t what occurred in Iraq, and after that the Arab uprisings [of 2011] sufficient to be frightened of what’s coming?”

In 2011 a wave of well-liked uprisings swept throughout the Arab world, toppling despots in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and igniting hopes of democratic authorities and financial prosperity — hopes that have been subsequently shattered by new autocracies or civil wars. Syria’s rebellion started on the identical time, however its authorities has solely fallen 13 years later.

Zaina Erhaim, a Syrian journalist who moved to London in 2017, mentioned warnings she obtained from Tunisian and Egyptian mates have been “simplistic and didn’t take the Syrian context into consideration. It’s as if they’re saying: ‘These poor persons are joyful however they don’t know what awaits them’.”

“I’m a bit hopeful,” she mentioned. “We Syrians are conscious of our personal failures much more than we’re conscious of these of others. I hope we are going to study not simply from the teachings of others, but in addition from our personal experiences.”

For Syrians, this can be a second of intense hope, even when that’s tinged with apprehension. Many Syrians are experiencing the identical elation others within the area felt after they shook off their oppressors in 2011.

When Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat who dominated Egypt for 30 years, stepped down in 2011 after 18 days of peaceable protests, ecstatic crowds poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Sq., chanting: “Maintain your head up excessive, you might be Egyptian.”

The Muslim Brotherhood subsequently gained parliamentary elections, and in 2012 Mohamed Morsi, one of many group’s leaders, was elected president with a slim majority. His temporary rule alienated many, together with pro-revolution teams. Secular events, elites from the Mubarak period and a variety of Egyptians alarmed by the rise of the Islamists agitated towards his rule.

That gave Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then defence minister and now president, alternative to oust Morsi in a 2013 coup with broad well-liked assist. Since then, Egypt’s democratic experiment has been curtailed, demonstrations are banned and there’s little area for dissent.

Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian writer and critic of the Sisi regime, mentioned the transition failed as a result of the Islamists “had been attempting to hog the scenario, and the financial system was not taken significantly”.

“The navy had been standing on the sidelines and have been not likely ready to surrender energy, however failure was largely because of the unhealthy efficiency of the nation’s political forces,” he mentioned.

After its personal rebellion, Tunisia’s fledgling democracy survived for a decade, however collapsed when Kais Saied, a democratically elected populist president, in 2021 shuttered parliament, rewrote the structure to pay attention energy in his arms and commenced jailing critics.

The autocratic shift was welcomed by Tunisians fed up with chaotic politics, falling dwelling requirements and ineffective authorities. In October Saied gained the newest presidential elections with 90 per cent of the vote after jailing the extra credible of two candidates allowed to run towards him.

The lesson from Tunisia, mentioned Olfa Lamloum, a political scientist in Tunis, is that “democratic freedoms can not survive with out the fundamentals of a dignified life.

“Protests prior to now 10 years by the unemployed and others have been about social and financial rights,” she mentioned. “Individuals must see that their lives are altering for the higher.”

After an rebellion in Libya ousted Muammer Gaddafi in 2011, the nation break up underneath two rival governments. They fought a civil struggle in 2019, through which Russia and regional powers armed and backed totally different sides.

Rival ruling elites have since settled into dysfunctional coexistence, funding themselves by siphoning off Libya’s oil revenues.

Syria’s trajectory appears unlikely to retrace the steps of different so-called “Arab Spring” international locations, analysts mentioned. Its fragmentation underneath totally different armed insurgent teams, coupled with a mosaic of minorities, means the challenges shall be totally different.

Additionally the collapse of the Assad regime adopted a 13-year civil struggle through which half 1,000,000 folks have been killed, principally by the regime, and thousands and thousands grew to become refugees.

Assad’s ferocious repression of peaceable demonstrations in 2011 remodeled the Syrian revolution into an armed rebellion through which Islamist factions in the end grew to become the strongest teams. Assad invited in international allies: initially Iran and Iranian-backed militants together with Hizbollah, then Russia, whose air power bombed rebel-held areas.

Following Assad’s fall, Isis nonetheless has energetic cells in components of Syria; US-backed Kurds have arrange an autonomous enclave within the north east; and Turkey, which controls pockets of northern Syria, backs different rebels to maintain Kurdish militants in verify. Ankara views Syrian Kurdish militants as an extension of its separatist Kurdistan Staff’ occasion, PKK, which has fought the Turkish state for 4 a long time.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, chief of the Sunni HTS, has sought to rebrand himself as a average Islamist who is not going to trample on the rights of Syria’s minorities, together with Christians, and the Alawites who shaped the bedrock of the Assad regime. The Assad household have been themselves Alawite, an offshoot of Shia Islam.

However he has not promised a democracy or outlined a imaginative and prescient of the long run, whereas the US designates each him and his group as terrorists.

Yassin Haj Saleh, a Syrian author and political dissident who spent 16 years in jail, wrote on Fb that the “new Syria” couldn’t be a state “dominated by an Islamist Sunni Assad . . . through which folks stay followers with out political rights and public freedoms together with the liberty of non secular perception”.

There are additionally fears that Jolani may fail to unite the nation, leaving insurgent teams combating over the spoils of Assad’s wrecked state, reigniting battle and drawing in international interference.

Paul Salem, vice-president of the Center East Institute in Washington, mentioned that whereas Syria’s future was prone to be “bumpy”, it was a constructive signal that the Syrian state has not melted away, not like the Libyan state after Gaddafi’s fall.

“Discover additionally that opposition forces are defending all authorities workplaces, all public establishments. They don’t seem to be attacking any of them,” he mentioned.

Salem mentioned Syria’s neighbours together with Turkey “have no real interest in a failed state” on their doorstep. Whereas the presence of US-backed Kurdish militants and a self-governing Kurdish enclave may turn out to be a problem, it could possibly be managed by “good diplomacy between Washington and Ankara”, he mentioned.

“It’s positively the case that eradicating a tyrant, whereas welcomed and celebrated, that’s very totally different from really having a transition to one thing higher,” mentioned Salem.

“However within the Syrian case [because of] the acute evil of the Assad regime, you may’t blame Syrians. He needed to go.”