[p5]
'A ray of hope appeared. Weirdly, unexpectedly, something changed in Damascus. By late afternoon on Friday, 13 April [2012], the entire mood of the city had lifted. In the morning the news had carried footage from the régime's TV station claiming there had been an explosion at the ruling Ba'ath Party Headquarters, but when we went to look there was nothing to be seen. Sound bombs became a common scare tactic, or bombs without a detonator, like the one the régime sent through the walls of the Sydnaya Monastery to frighten the nuns. When nothing exploded this time in Damascus or Aleppo, we all hoped there might be a sea change. Where were all these armed groups, the jihadis and al-Qaeda elements the media loved to talk about? At that stage my friends dismissed their existence in any serious numbers. This had been true, back in April 2012.
But it was just a pause, tragically brief, and the opportunity was squandered. The régime broke off from its killing spree, looked up to take stock of the world's reaction, realised there was no unified voice, and continued in its single-minded aim - to crush the opposition. It was on the way to self-destruction. Addicted to power, oblivious to all pleas to change course, in denial about the size and nature of the problem, it would almost certainly have to reach its own personal rock-bottom, like all addicts, before things could improve.'
[pp11-13]
[p16]
'Before giving Quneitra back in a UN-brokered disengagement agreement in 1974, the Israelis razed the place to the ground. Since then it has been kept exactly as it was. Hafez al-Assad, father of the current president Bashar and creator of the Assad régime and Syria as it is today, took the decision not to rebuild Quneitra, as an example of what the Israelis were capable of. How ironic that towns all across Syria would, in the course of the uprising against him and his régime, be similarly flattened, this time by his own armed forces.'
[p17]
‘Homs was 30 per cent Christian, though most of them were not just in this quarter, but fully integrated throughout the districts of the city. In the revolution, during the famous fight for Baba Amr where the Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin was killed, Christians fought alongside Muslims, Tariq later told me, united in their struggle against the régime. In the souk, both Christians and Muslims owned shops side by side and had done for centuries. This social cohesion is the main reason why Homs, Syria’s third city, rose up as one against the régime early on, unlike Damascus and Aleppo.’
[p114]
[p114]
'After two and a half centuries of Mamluk rule, internal order collapsed. When the Ottomans defeated them in 1516, the populations of Syria (and Egypt) welcomed their new Turkish masters. Will a similar point be reached eventually in the current revolution, when the weary protagonists fighting a seemingly endless war of attrition against each other have finally had enough and submit to a new rule of law imposed from the outside? Or is there any chance they could find an internal solution - for Syrians by Syrians?'
[p203]
'Maybe Bashar has no strategy except a misguided attempt to return to the corrupt old Syria his father created, so that the régime will have to disintegrate internally, dragging the country down with it, and Bashar will end up being slaughtered in the sewer Gadhafi-style, before conditions are right for a total change. No one knows how long any of that will take, while thousands more lose their lives and millions flee as refugees to avoid a similar fate.'
[p204]
'Today, elders from the Sunni Muslim community of Homs hold meetings to discuss how to deal with the pregnancies that resulted from the rape of 1,200 girls by Alawi shabiha thugs after the district of Baba Amr fell.'
[p207]
'The bottom line was that the régime had brought the trouble on itself through its zulm, its "oppression" of the people. Abu Ashraf was eloquent on the subject: Kul muwatin ya'raf Maher yaksur al-balad, wa Makhlouf yastaghil al-balad: "Every citizen knows that Maher [al-Assad, Bashar's brother] is breaking the country, and [Rami] Makhlouf [Bashar's cousin] is exploiting the country.'
[p219]
'I stepped into the coutyard with its riot of colour - the wisteria, the bougainvillea, the myrtle, the lemon tree, the vine ascending to the roof terrace - it was always magnificent.'
[p220]
'At any one time, 80 per cent of Assad's army is confined to barracks. Without its army, this régime would be finished, and they know it. Most of them - at least 70 per cent - are Sunni conscripts, and they are not allowed out because the régime knows most of them would not return. So their commanding officers - who are mainly Alawis - keep them locked up in their military camps, with no mobile phones, no land lines, no access to anything other than the Syrian state TV Channels. So lots of them still believe the régime mantra that they are fighting armed terrorist gangs who threaten the security of the Syrian nation.'
[pp229-230]
‘Marwan told me how he no longer carries a medical kit with bandages in his car. “If they stop you and find medical kit and bandages in your car,” he said, “they will accuse you of helping demonstrators and arrest you. We have to be very careful.” Most shocking of all was what he went on to tell me about the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). He had applied for and got a job as project manager, after many stages of testing and interviews. When he started work, he was horrified to discover his work colleagues were useless, all of them at their desks purely on the strength of their connections – wasta again. He was even more horrified when he was put in charge of a project that turned out to be selling blod and organs to unnamed third parties. He complained to his boss, saying he could not sign papers agreeing to this. “But you must,” said his boss, “You are the only one here who knows how to run these projects. None of the others know anything.” Marwan refused, and quit, though his boss continued to phone him for weeks after, offering him more money and bribes.’
[pp251-252]
‘Drastic action is needed in Syria. It was needed three years ago when only Turkey had the appetite, calling for international intervention to create a no-fly zone and safe haven on Syrian soil along the border. But the West, bruised by failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, had no interest in involvement. Let them kill each other; it’s so far away and nothing to do with us.’
[p259]
[p203]
'Maybe Bashar has no strategy except a misguided attempt to return to the corrupt old Syria his father created, so that the régime will have to disintegrate internally, dragging the country down with it, and Bashar will end up being slaughtered in the sewer Gadhafi-style, before conditions are right for a total change. No one knows how long any of that will take, while thousands more lose their lives and millions flee as refugees to avoid a similar fate.'
[p204]
'Today, elders from the Sunni Muslim community of Homs hold meetings to discuss how to deal with the pregnancies that resulted from the rape of 1,200 girls by Alawi shabiha thugs after the district of Baba Amr fell.'
[p207]
'The bottom line was that the régime had brought the trouble on itself through its zulm, its "oppression" of the people. Abu Ashraf was eloquent on the subject: Kul muwatin ya'raf Maher yaksur al-balad, wa Makhlouf yastaghil al-balad: "Every citizen knows that Maher [al-Assad, Bashar's brother] is breaking the country, and [Rami] Makhlouf [Bashar's cousin] is exploiting the country.'
[p219]
'I stepped into the coutyard with its riot of colour - the wisteria, the bougainvillea, the myrtle, the lemon tree, the vine ascending to the roof terrace - it was always magnificent.'
[p220]
'At any one time, 80 per cent of Assad's army is confined to barracks. Without its army, this régime would be finished, and they know it. Most of them - at least 70 per cent - are Sunni conscripts, and they are not allowed out because the régime knows most of them would not return. So their commanding officers - who are mainly Alawis - keep them locked up in their military camps, with no mobile phones, no land lines, no access to anything other than the Syrian state TV Channels. So lots of them still believe the régime mantra that they are fighting armed terrorist gangs who threaten the security of the Syrian nation.'
[pp229-230]
‘Marwan told me how he no longer carries a medical kit with bandages in his car. “If they stop you and find medical kit and bandages in your car,” he said, “they will accuse you of helping demonstrators and arrest you. We have to be very careful.” Most shocking of all was what he went on to tell me about the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). He had applied for and got a job as project manager, after many stages of testing and interviews. When he started work, he was horrified to discover his work colleagues were useless, all of them at their desks purely on the strength of their connections – wasta again. He was even more horrified when he was put in charge of a project that turned out to be selling blod and organs to unnamed third parties. He complained to his boss, saying he could not sign papers agreeing to this. “But you must,” said his boss, “You are the only one here who knows how to run these projects. None of the others know anything.” Marwan refused, and quit, though his boss continued to phone him for weeks after, offering him more money and bribes.’
[pp251-252]
‘Drastic action is needed in Syria. It was needed three years ago when only Turkey had the appetite, calling for international intervention to create a no-fly zone and safe haven on Syrian soil along the border. But the West, bruised by failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, had no interest in involvement. Let them kill each other; it’s so far away and nothing to do with us.’
[p259]
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