We received this short account from a Syrian left activist who recently visited the country. It provides an interesting insight into the situation in the country. The opinions are of the author and are not all shared by Marxist.com. We do not believe dialogue between the regime and the revolution is possible.
This week marks ten month of the Syrian revolution. No one can calculate the amount of difficulties facing the Syrian people in reaching their goal which mainly is to oust President Assad and his regime.
The revolution in Syria is the great event of the day of the Arab spring. For many reasons, Syria is a cornerstone of many issues in the Middle East. So, the neighbouring intervention in Syria is understood as everyone wanting their agenda to be achieved by the Syrian revolution.
On December 1st, I arrived in Damascus International Airport. The first impression was: revolution had never passed here!! Worse, the last time I left Syria, one year earlier, exactly three months before the uprising took place, there was only one big portrait of president Assad and now the airport was full of portraits everywhere, even in the small cabinets where policemen sit to stamp passports.
Damascus, the capital, is considered one of the major bases of the regime. Tradesmen and clergy control the masses, plus the nature of this city where multiethnic and religious groups live together and the ghost of civil war is walking side-by-side with the hope of people for change.
Travelling across Syria
The next day, I headed to Salamiyeh city which is located near Homs and Hamah, two major cities that have risen against the regime. To reach my city, I had to go through Homs, but first I had to pass through military checkpoints. Now there are four checkpoints between Homs and Salamiyeh, fully equipped with heavy arms and tanks; it seems like a battlefield. Soldiers checked the bus that I was in, but not for terrorists or dissidents; they were searching just for male youth born in 1992 to take them immediately away for compulsory military service. It is clear that the new generation of youth born in 1992 are refusing to do compulsory military service because they do not want to fire on and kill their people, especially the youths from the hotspots of the uprising like Homs , Hama, Deir el Zour and Idleb, or do not want to be killed by the armed people in the uprising.
In Salamiyeh, my home town, I felt freedom for the first time in my life, because people who I had not seen for almost a year were not the same any more. In the past, the opposition camp was barely made up of 40 educated men and women, but now the freedom which has been brought by the uprising has filled out the opposition movement with activists. About 15,000 activists went on a protest against the regime during one day in August.
Strikes and protests against the regime have been on a low level since the beginning of September, when the police, the security forces and the so-called Shabbeha combined to launch an operation to uproot the protest movement from Salamiyeh. House-to-house arrests continued for about three days.
This operation against protesters in Salamiyeh was successful because of the Shabbeha who helped the regime in the crackdown. Shabbeha are groups of mercenaries, whose loyalty is to the regime in return turn for money and weapons they keep it in their homes to patrol the city at night. I also noticed that Shabbeha are also in charge of oil distribution, because in Syria people use oil during winter for warming their houses.
Most of the opposition activists come from a relatively good income bracket; there are a huge numbers of regime-controlled public sector employees who are involved in the protest. “We are not hungry, but we need our dignity back, they – the regime's prominent figures and families – have been oppressing us for 50 years and they want to continue with this situation”, one shop owner said.
Meeting of left activists
On December 15th, a meeting of a group of left activists was held in Salamiyeh city where they received a number of refugees from Homs. All issues were discussed freely, especially the issue of outside intervention in Syria. I and two other activists condemned and disapprove of any form of international intervention: “We want to oust the dictatorial regime and to live in democracy and welfare, not to make of Syria bones between the jaws and claws of regional and international powers,” one leftist said.
In Syria now, especially in the hotspots of the revolution, people are becoming more and more interested in the idea of outside intervention.
It is regrettable to say that the two factions of the Syrian Communist Party are supporting the regime, even when the death toll has risen to 6000!
The Syrian Communist Party believes that what is going on in Syria now is a total conspiracy. This position of the party has resulted in large numbers of communists withdrawing their membership from the party.
On the eve of Christmas day I met some supporters of the regime. They told me frankly that they support the regime because they fear Islamic fundamentalists: “We want to be part of the modern world, not part of the medieval,” one girl said.
Short dialogue with an Assad Supporter (AS)
Also one Assad Supporters asked me: “If you are a leftist, then why do you support Chavez who is an ally of President Assad in the face of the imperialists and why are you not supporting Assad?
I replied: “In the revolution against the regime in Syria, I am with it, with the people. I am against the imperialists, and I know their agenda. So to be with the revolution does not means that I am with the imperialists. As a leftist, I want President Assad to dialogue with the opposition and the angry masses to prevent any outside intervention.
AS: but how can one dialogue with the opposition which helps the imperialists, especially America, Europe and Turkey?
I replied: “The opposition is not only the National Council (established in Istanbul last October under the patronage of the EU, USA and Arab states). I am an opposition activist, and if President Assad wants me to be with him he should stop killing, then allow me and the people to decide who will rule us. Assad is playing with the idea of outside intervention in order to win the leftists to his position.
“The future of Syria is unknown, especially when you see arms in the hands of people. The regime is arming its supporters with Kalashnikov rifles and sections of the opposition which are under the patronage of some neighbouring states are doing the same!
“The Syrian regime should understand that the ruling mechanisms of the cold war period are over. So, if the regime is serious in wanting to avoid outside intervene it should change itself.”