Syria’s multi-purpose election

 'On 26 May, Syria held its second presidential election since the 2011 revolution. What was described by most observers as a sham yielded an unsurprising result—the re-election of Bashar Al-Assad for a fourth consecutive term with 95.1% of the vote. His obscure opponents, Mahmoud Marei and Abdullah Abdullah, managed to garner just 3.3% and 1.5%, respectively, with official voter turnout reported to be 78.6%.

 While the election was neither free nor fair, it served three important purposes: to symbolise Assad’s authority domestically, to facilitate re-engagement with Arab states and to attempt to project legitimacy abroad. Elections in authoritarian states often signal to domestic and international audiences that a ‘mandate has been renewed’ and that the establishment is united behind the president.

 Assad’s re-election is particularly important to the régime’s narrowing supporter base. The Syrian pound lost 57% of its value in the past year alone, while prices for basic commodities increased by 313%. Breadlines and kilometre-long queues for fuel have become a regular sight for those living in coastal régime strongholds like Latakia. While some Syrians have seen the régime as an anchor for stability, most are facing unparalleled levels of poverty and a decline in living standards not witnessed even at the height of the country’s civil war. The régime, incapable of effectively addressing the economic situation, opted to deploy the best available tools at its disposal: coercion and fraud.

 Government employees and university students were forced to participate in the election and attend rallies or risk being dismissed or detained. Widespread evidence of voter fraud both in Syria and in diplomatic missions abroad—as was the case in Syria’s honorary consulate in Sydney—was also a common sight. Fraudulent results help portray the régime as more popular than it actually is, thereby making revolutions seem impossible.

There were also significant inconsistencies in election results. With 95.1% percent ‘voting’ for Assad, the régime gave up the pretence of presenting ‘realistic’ numbers as it tried to do in 2014, when Assad won with ‘only’ 88.7% of the vote. Damascus has claimed that more than 14 million Syrians voted, despite the fact that the total population in régime-controlled areas is roughly 13.9 million.

 The election was also intended to send a direct message to the opposition and revolutionaries who rose up against the régime a decade ago. Assad cast his vote in Douma, a city that was under a brutal five-year-long siege and the main site of the infamous 2018 chemical attack. It signalled to opponents that resistance was futile and that the régime was here to stay. During his televised victory speech, Assad said that, through the election result, voters had ‘redefined nationalism and that also means automatically redefining treason’, a message aimed at labelling all those who continue to oppose the régime as traitors.

 Regionally, the election was aimed at encouraging Arab states to mend ties with the régime. Although members of the G7 indicated that the time was not right for ‘any form of normalization’ with Damascus, that sentiment may not resonate with Syria’s neighbours. Arab states continue to flirt with the idea of rehabilitating ties with Assad, as has been seen with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman in recent years. There are reports that Saudi Arabia is set to be next in line. Syria’s return to the Arab League after a 10-year suspension also seems to be just a matter of time. Now that the election formalities have been concluded, Gulf states have begun to lobby the US to ease its sanctions on the régime.

 On the international front, the régime used the election as a tool to demonstrate that state institutions were functioning and that the country was safe for refugees to return to—a notion directed towards European states to provide an incentive for the régime’s gradual rehabilitation in the eyes of the international community.

Contrary to Assad’s expectations, the chances of that happening remain close to zero. The foreign ministries of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and the United States issued a joint statement denouncing the election as a sham. Germany took further measures by banning the conduct of electoral procedures at the Syrian embassy in Berlin.'

Syria Revolution Filmmakers Reflect on Ongoing Crisis

 

 'Ten years after the Syrian revolution began, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, tens of thousands have disappeared — believed to have been tortured and killed in government prisons — and an estimated 13 million, more than half of Syria’s prewar population, have been forcibly displaced. Filmmakers on the front lines have played a crucial role in raising awareness beyond the din of TV news. Has it all been in vain?

 “If we look at where we are now as Syrians, nobody can ignore the pain and the suffering and the death and destruction,” says Waad Al-Kateab, co-director of “For Sama,” the 2020 Oscar-nominated civil war diary that traveled around the world. But at the same time, she says, “For me and all the people that I know, we’ve never said: ‘I wish it had never happened.’ ”

 Al-Kateab mentions a friend who is still waiting to again see her father, who was kidnapped eight years ago. So “who am I to lose hope?” she says. Every day that the Syrian tragedy continues, “the régime is getting weaker. This means that we were right. We had to stand up and fight.”



 Veteran auteur Ossama Mohammed’s poetic “Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait” screened at Cannes in 2014 and bore witness to the horrors of civil war using cellphone footage sent to him by hundreds of Syrians. “People were shouting, ‘Freedom!’ and filming the freedom,” Mohammed says. “It was a revolution in cinema, images and expression.” Ossama feels that, if nothing else, today the “consciousness of a multicultural Syria” has freed itself from the shackles of Bashar al-Assad, though the Syrian dictator remains firmly in place.

 Hasan Kattan served as cinematographer of Oscar-winning short “The White Helmets” and assistant director for Oscar-nominated documentary “Last Men in Aleppo.” “The Syrian uprising from day one led to something we had thought would be impossible: breaking silence against the dictatorship and the intelligence systems that had been ruling the country since the 1980s,” he says.

 As for longer-term prospects, Kattan hopes the uprising “will lead to something positive,” but doesn’t know what to expect because the revolution has led Syria to become a pawn in a complex game of geopolitical chess, where “each player is trying to obtain as much as possible, regardless of the Syrian people’s interests.”

 Filmmaker and journalist Layla Abyad is the director of upcoming doc “5 Seasons of Revolution,” which looks at four women in Damascus who were initially enthusiastic about the revolution’s prospects in 2011 but whose paths soon diverged amid the ensuing conflict. “It’s not the first revolution in history to turn into a war, and it’s not the first not to succeed in gaining the change it was aiming for,” at least not yet, Abyad says.

 “I feel that we can still go anywhere from here. On the one hand, the way things look is extremely bleak — in terms of the country’s economic situation, in terms of being practically occupied by a superpower [Russia] now, in terms of the régime becoming even more overtly oppressive,” she adds. On the other hand, “what the next generation is going to think and do about this will pretty much determine everything, and it’s too early to judge. People who were 10 years old when it all started, we still don’t know what they think. Whether their families were from opposition or support, this is not a generation that will copy and paste what their fathers told them, or what the régime told them.

 “Personally, I’m both curious and a bit fearful about what they will have to say, how they will see it,” Abyad says. “But what I’m more interested in knowing is what they are going to do about it.” '

'A political solution in Syria is a long way off'

Joumana Seif:

 'The result announced by Assad is an outrage. All experts and research confirm that only about 9.4 million people live in the areas controlled by the régime, and according to the statistics authority, 45 per cent of them are under 18 years old. So the maximum number of eligible voters could only be about 5.2 million people. And as for the result of allegedly 95.1 per cent for Assad, the intention is to convey that Assad is legitimised to rule the country again as harshly as his father did in the 1980s, because back then the election result was never allowed to be below 95 per cent either.

 Assad wanted to send several messages with this bad performance called elections, the result of which was a foregone conclusion. On the one hand, after his military victory thanks to Russian intervention, he wants to respond to the pressure of the democratic world by saying to the West: “I am the winner and the elected president, and like in your countries, there were even other candidates.”

 Moreover, he sends a message of power as an unrestrained ruler who is still loved by the people. For ten years he has committed crimes, killed, bombed, and displaced people, and yet he can still impose his will on everyone and does not have to bow to any pressure. Despite all these crimes, he can rely on the fear of the majority of the disenfranchised who had to go and vote in order not to get a negative endorsement that can cost them or their relatives their lives, dignity, and integrity.

 Moreover, Assad wants to use this to announce that he has become “acceptable” again, especially since some Arab states have indicated that they would like to normalise their relations with him again. The United Arab Emirates, for example, wants to reopen its embassy in Damascus. And in a speech to the people after the elections, Assad said: “Whoever stands with me is a patriot, and whoever stands against me is a traitor for whom there is no place in Syria.”



 Hafiz al-Assad, the father of the current president, seized power in a military coup in 1970, declared a state of emergency and gave the secret services the power to arrest any suspect with impunity and often make them disappear for years. He also introduced brutal torture. Moreover, he ordered massacres, such as the one in Palmyra prison in 1980 or the mass murder of Hama in 1982, when his troops were not content with destroying whole neighbourhoods but killed, tortured and arrested thousands. Women were humiliated and raped. After that, Syria was subjugated and silenced for many years.

 After his father’s death in 2000, Bashar inherited power. In his inauguration speech, he promised Syrians to introduce democracy and to respect other opinions. Therefore, many believed in him and democratic opposition members founded political associations and initiated the so-called Damascus Spring, although the emergency laws were still in force. But this soon found an end. Opposition leaders were jailed for five to ten years and their sympathisers were threatened with arrest. In the years that followed, all critical voices calling for human rights and democracy were silenced, even if they only blogged or engaged in civil society activities.

 But when the Arab countries rose up, the repression and intimidation could not prevent the Syrian people from following the example of Tunisia and Egypt – they rose up. The Syrian revolution of 2011 demanded democracy and justice, freedom and dignity. The régime responded with shootings, arrests, torture, and rape. Tens of thousands of women were affected by the brutal crackdown.

 For ten years, Bashar al-Assad killed and displaced people and destroyed cities and infrastructure, not stopping at schools and hospitals. He used outlawed weapons such as chemical warfare agents in the process, and his policy of arrests and disappearances, culminating in crimes against humanity and war crimes, continues. The “Caesar photos” prove that thousands have died in Syrian prisons since 2011 under torture, through illness, neglect, or hunger.

 Even the sanctions imposed on Assad by the West and the alliance of the “Friends of the Syrian People” could not stop him from committing further crimes, because Russia's and China's veto in the Security Council and their direct military aid protected him. The Syrians ask themselves what good is a world order that can’t do anything against a tyrant like Bashar al-Assad.



 I think that a political solution in Syria is a long way off. As long as there is no real political will internationally and no effective political pressure against the régime and its allies to force Assad to commit to a political solution based on the Geneva 1 communiqué and UN Resolution 2254 to end military violence against civilians, he will feel confident of victory. Iran and Russia are supporting him militarily, the West is holding back. Assad is bolder than ever these days and will not accept concessions or a political solution.

 It’s enough to look at what has become of the political initiatives of the past eight years. One can see that Assad only accepts political solutions under pressure. At the first Geneva Conference in 2012, hosted by Kofi Annan as special envoy for Syria, the US, China, Russia, France, Great Britain, Germany, Turkey and the Arab states agreed in principle on a transitional phase, but Russia and China did not want to touch Assad's rule in the process. So, while the opposition and most of the parties were of the opinion that a post-Assad phase had been ushered in, Moscow and Beijing insisted that Assad's fate had to be decided “by the Syrians”.

 Today, after eight rounds of negotiations and four UN special envoys to Syria – Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Ibrahimi, Staffan de Mistura and Geir Pedersen – all attempts at a solution have been sat out by the régime. The situation is no better for the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was set up by the régime after a long delay. It has not been able to present any results to date.



 We demand from the West not to give legitimacy to the Syrian régime and not to rehabilitate it. It must be held accountable for its crimes, its violations of international law and for the suffering of the Syrian people, which is considered the greatest humanitarian disaster of the 21st century.

 Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and the Assad régime's violent crackdown on peaceful protesters, European states such as Germany and France have begun structural investigations into crimes against international law in Syria, in accordance with the principle of universal jurisdiction. In Germany, this was followed by an arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan, the former head of air force intelligence, and the arrest of two former intelligence officers of the Assad régime, who are being tried in Koblenz. In this trial, the world's first on crimes committed by the Assad régime, much evidence of torture, killings and sexual violence against men, women and children in Syrian prisons was presented and testimonies heard.

 Moreover, a number of international statements were issued demanding that Assad be held accountable, including a joint statement by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, the UK, Italy and the US affirming that there must be no impunity. There are also statements by the Canadian and Dutch foreign ministers. All these statements express support for the Syrian people and emphasise the need to hold Assad accountable for his crimes.

 Here lies hope for the long-suffering Syrian people. The establishment of a special court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria – modelled on the trials on Yugoslavia and Rwanda – would be a necessary step towards peace after all the death, bombing, torture and rape Syrians have experienced, especially since there are hundreds of thousands of compelling pieces of evidence against the Syrian régime. Without justice, there can be no peace.

 Finally, the Assad régime must not be rehabilitated by admitting it to international organisations. Outrageously, the World Health Organisation admitted the Assad régime to its 34-member Executive Committee at the end of May. This comes after the régime has systematically and deliberately attacked the health sector in its own country, including hundreds of clinical facilities and hospitals, over the last decade.'

Hundreds in Idlib commemorate Abdel Basset Sarout

 'Hundreds of Syrians took to the streets of Idlib city on Tuesday to commemorate the second anniversary of the death of Abdel Basset Sarout, a famous goalkeeper from the city of Homs who became an icon of the uprising which broke out against President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian rule in 2011.

 Residents and displaced people in Idlib city, which gives it name to the surrounding province in northwestern Syria, gathered at the steps of the city's public park.

 They raised banners praising Sarout and promised to uphold the principles of the Syrian uprising, which started after similar revolutions in other Arab countries and called for freedom, dignity, and democracy after decades of authoritarian rule in Syria.



 "Today we remember the goalkeeper of the revolution who was its singer and symbol and who defended it with all dedication and faith, during its peaceful campaign and its armed struggle," said Ibrahim Abboud, a Syrian activist.

 In the early days of the Syrian uprising in 2011, Sarout sang at peaceful protests calling for freedom and the removal of Assad's régime. He became known among protesters as "the guardian of freedom" – in reference to his career as a goalkeeper.

 Following the brutal suppression of the protests by the Assad régime, Sarout took up arms along with thousands of other Syrians.



 He later starred in the 2013 documentary "Return to Homs" which chronicled his activism and the siege and destruction of large swathes of the central Syrian city by the régime.

 After Homs fell to régime forces in 2014, Sarout and other fighters were evacuated to Idlib province, which is currently the last area of Syria held by anti-Assad rebels.

 He was killed on June 8 2019 in Idlib while fighting with the Jaysh al-Izza rebel group against régime forces who were engaged in a long-running assault on the area, at the age of 27.

 Suheil Hammoud, a rebel fighter, said that the anniversary of Sarout’s death would "live on for ever as the anniversary of the loss of an icon of the Syrian revolution".'

Syria’s elections serve another purpose

 

 Elizabeth Tsurkov:

 'Bashar al-Assad and his wife cast their ballots in the May 26 presidential election in the town of Douma, a suburb of the capital city of Damascus. The location was not coincidental — Assad’s forces lost control of Douma in 2012 and regained it only after years of bombings, a starvation siege and the deployment of chemical weapons in April 2018 finally subdued the city.

 Voting in Douma sent a specific message to Syrians — one of reconquest and domination. The régime made no attempt to present the election as free and fair, further stressing its ability to lie and force others to parrot the lie. Régime loyalists documented themselves voting multiple times, and the régime’s official results show more voters for Assad than the number of residents in régime-held areas.

 In an authoritarian régime like Syria’s, when the falsification of the results takes place out in the open, elections project the régime’s ability to compel compliance. Elections serve the interests of the régime, signaling to opponents that resistance is futile, encouraging its loyalists and creating a sense that the régime enjoys greater support than it actually does.



 The Syrian lira lost 57 percent of its value in one year, prices of basic goods increased by 313 percent and Syrians faced crippling shortages of subsidized goods such as bread and fuel. This collapse in living standards further narrowed the régime’s support base. Many Syrians who once saw the régime as an anchor of stability now see the crushing poverty and growing predation of those close to the régime.

 This crisis probably prompted the régime to invest much greater efforts to mobilize voters and attendees of pro-régime rallies this time compared with the two previous elections held since the Syrian crisis began. In all of these elections, government employees and students were compelled to vote at the threat of being fired or dismissed from university.

 Government coercion has now expanded into uncharted territory. In Damascus, Aleppo and Hama indicate that the secret police forced shop owners to print and hang pro-Assad posters by threatening to seal their shops with wax. Citizens are forced to donate to the printing costs of such posters, too.

 The secret police warned residents of formerly rebel-held areas in northern Homs and Qalamoun that they may be arrested if they do not vote. Residents said the régime also has made voting a condition for distribution of subsidized bread in Homs — as well as World Food Program aid baskets to the poor in the southern districts of Damascus and the displaced in the city of Aleppo.



 What do the streets filled with Assad’s posters and long lines at polling places — along with the predetermined outcome — set out to achieve? This display of strength conveys different messages to different audiences. To Assad’s diminishing base, the display of strength is reassuring, demonstrating to them that they are backing the side that has power.

 Participants often share images of rallies and cheer on the Assad régime using pro-régime Facebook groups, for instance. This signaling is particularly needed now amid the government’s inability to provide even the most basic of services.

 For the wider Syrian public, these displays of voter support also instill the belief that anti-régime mobilization is pointless, by conveying two messages: that the régime is more popular than it actually is; and in addition, or alternatively, that the régime may be unpopular and unable to change the beliefs of the population but, through its dominance, is able to create a norm of compliance among Syrians.

 For those not supportive of the régime, elections create a sense of pluralistic ignorance, a phenomenon when individuals comply with a norm but privately reject it, while assuming that others’ compliance is reflective of their private attitudes. This type of obedience despite one’s personal preference is widespread in authoritarian countries. Political scientists call this “preference falsification” — this type of coercion of citizens creates a sense that the régime is more popular than it actually is, to make revolutions appear impossible.



 Interviews with the politically dominant Alawi sect indicate that while many privately profess opposition to the régime, they are perceived by outsiders, and also members of the sect itself, to be loyal to Assad.

 Election-related displays of loyalty also target Syrians who realize that the régime is unpopular. The goal is to exact public submission, reinforcing within régime opponents the understanding that the societal norm is obedience — and that mobilization against the régime is therefore futile. These efforts don’t appear to attempt to change the beliefs of Syrians taking part in elections or public activities that profess loyalty to Assad. Organizers notify participants that attendance is mandatory, and at times even admit privately that they themselves don’t want to attend but reinforce that all have to do so. Instead, in line with the findings of political psychologists, these displays of faux loyalty aim to inculcate beliefs about norms: People comply because the prevalent norm is fearful obedience to an all-powerful régime.

 The message of obedience is useful in discouraging possible opposition, by repeatedly proving to Syrians that almost everyone is willing to participate in government-sponsored propaganda. Thus, the Assad régime signals to its supporters that they are not alone, raising their morale. To potential opponents, the régime proves that society is obeying, forcing even those who think of not complying to participate in the charade — or at least avoid mobilizing against the régime. For Syrians, it creates an atmosphere of “sustained surrender” of the population to the dictatorship — a clear message of social control.'

US sanctions regimen against Assad régime is working

 'The refrain from foreign policy cynics and progressives on the ongoing conflict in Syria, which is now in its eleventh year, generally sounds the same: “the conflict in Syria is over,” “there is no US interest there any longer,” “Bashar al-Assad and his patrons have won the war.”

 The complexity of the conflict, Assad’s sordid history alongside that of his patrons Russia and Iran, and the bevy of state and non-state actors vying for political and military terrain make simple maxims hard to come by for Syria in 2021.

 Similarly, the subtle nuance and careful study required to recognize advances toward resolution and accountability for myriad war crimes make it easy for observers to shrug their shoulders and to quickly—and conveniently—forget Assad’s barbarism since 2011. Conflict of this magnitude is exhausting. Accountability and political resolution are even harder. It seems not everyone has the stomach for the latter.

 One maxim, though, holds true: the United States’ targeted and tailored sanctions regimen against Assad and other malign actors in Syria is accomplishing its stated objectives. These designations not only give the US and its allies leverage toward a political resolution to the conflict, but so too do said designations hold together a de facto nationwide ceasefire throughout Syria.

 When President Donald Trump announced a military drawdown in Syria in 2019 following the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), some expressed surprise and, curiously, blissful oblivion to his campaign promises to do just that. Whether the Joe Biden administration plans to follow through with that drawdown remains to be seen. President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal decision, though, signals limited interest in protracted military engagements. With the fall of ISIS accomplished, Biden will likely confront near-term decisions on a continued military footprint in Syria—a military mission that was and is about ISIS, not Assad.

 The problem emerges when conflating a military drawdown with the suggestion that the US has no interests in Syria or, worse yet, suggesting that the US is without resources to affect change—particularly political resolution, save military action. Such a notion naively overlooks military power as the final foreign policy resource and similarly disregards the devastatingly sharp power of the US financial system and exclusion from it under a targeted, tailored sanctions program.

 Enter the combination of sanctions designation authorities that the US has employed to date to limit Assad’s military advance; to deny his benefactors the spoils of a war with innumerable humanitarian atrocities; to hold accountable those responsible for said atrocities; and to compel political resolution through economic isolation of the Assad régime.

 The premise remains simple and transparent. Just as with other adversarial, malign actors, the US administers and enforces sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against state and non-state actors alike. By excluding those targeted from the US financial system, sanctions designations create trade, financial, commercial, and currency havoc for those countries, entities, and their partners.

 The stated objectives of targeting the murderous Assad régime with US sanctions are also clear: to compel political resolution to the conflict through diplomatic and economic isolation of Assad toward a new Syrian constitution and free and fair democratic elections for the Syrian people. Additionally, they seek to hold Assad and his supporters accountable for the unthinkable war crimes committed throughout the conflict.

 To this end, the US has employed a series of sanctions authorities, including the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and its related authorities, Executive Order (EO) 13894 from October 14, 2019, and the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (Caesar Act) against the Assad régime and its patrons.

 The reach of CAATSA allows the US to designate countries or individuals providing arms transfers to Syria—e.g. Iran and Russia—self-evident of continued, non-kinetic US national security levers and interests in Syria. While the passage of CAATSA became marred with suggestions of legislative overreach into the executive realm, CAATSA and its related authorities have provided the US opportunities to designate foreign entities in support of the Assad égime, including Rosoboroneksport, a state-owned Russian weapons trading company, its subsidiary Russian Financial Corporation Bank, and Russia’s National Security Advisor Nikolai Patrushev.

 In October 2019, the Trump administration issued EO 13894. An oft-overlooked provision of EO 13894, remains perhaps its most powerful: Section 2 of the order provides sanctions designation authority against those responsible for obstruction, disruption, or prevention of a ceasefire in northern Syria.

 Each renewal of the Idlib ceasefire further evinces 13894’s role in preserving the peace. Even the cynics cannot suggest that stymying Iranian and Russian military advances via sanctions-enforced ceasefires are not in the interest of the US or our allies.

 Finally, the Caesar Act goes right to the core of atrocity accountability for Assad and his régime. The enormous bipartisan support for Caesar has provided the US both specific and general deterrence to international actors supporting the barbarity of the Assad régime. The Caesar Act accomplishes two clear objectives: accountability for the régime’s atrocities and economic isolation of Assad to compel his participation in political resolution to the conflict.

 By the end of the Trump administration, the US had sanctioned 114 individuals and entities under the Caesar Act. In doing so, the US issued very specific and significant penalties to Assad’s patrons, including his inner circle, while establishing a very specific deterrent to individuals or entities mulling such support.

 More importantly, whether those sanctioned under the Caesar Act’s authority will ever face criminal consequences is irrelevant in review of its ability to help compel political resolution and hold accountable Assad’s enablers. The focus of Caesar has always been to preclude Assad’s furtherance of conflict and accountability for his enablers, not domestic or international civil or criminal liability for those targeted under the Act’s authority.

 Some well-intentioned Syria watchers and, separately, Assad backers, suggest that the Caesar Act’s enforcement harms the people of Syria. This argument fails on two counts: the designations targets under this authority are carefully tailored to those providing illicit financial support to bolster Assad and, to suggest that the designations, which help bolster the political voice of the oppressed Syrian people against Assad, instead harms Syrians relies on a woefully circular rationale. Simply put, it is Assad who has perpetrated barbarity against his people—the Caesar Act is one such mechanism to end the tyranny.

 Were those perpetuating the more-harm-than-good Caesar Act fallacy truly focused on the humanitarian plight of the long-suffering Syrian people, they might point to Assad and Russia’s efforts to block humanitarian access renewal at the United Nations. Or they would look at the régime’s efforts to complicate other international aid and assistance organizations’ access to Syria.

 To posit, though, that any sanctions designation against adversarial actors around the world had not a single unintended trickle-down consequence would be irresponsible. Nevertheless, Caesar’s tailored and targeted approach seeks to swiftly curtail support on a macro level to the ultimate cause of Syrian’s plight: the Assad régime. Non-kinetic solutions to geopolitical strife will require risk-reward evaluation in perpetuity. The Caesar Act analysis should continue to tip in favor of targeting the twenty-first century’s most villainous despot and political resolution to the conflict he begat.

 With that in mind, the US maintains an interest in Syria beyond the defeat of ISIS and can flex the might of the most powerful economy in the world in lieu of military action toward a de facto ceasefire—often with even greater efficacy. Additionally, the US has every interest in political resolution to the Syrian conflict, in ensuring a free and fair election to the people of Syria, and in curtailing adversaries’ advancement in Syria to the detriment of the US and our allies. Perhaps, most importantly, the US maintains an interest in ensuring accountability for the Assad régime and its enablers for the atrocious deaths of over five hundred thousand Syrians since the inception of the conflict in 2011.

 Political resolution and accountability take work. Sanctions authorities and enforcement are the best levers available to further US national security interests.'

Assad takes from Syrians, gives resources to Iran, Russia

 'Syria’s economic trouble is not caused by sanctions but due to the Bashar Assad régime using the country’s resources to attack its own people and giving resources over to its allies, namely Iran and Russia, Abdurrahman Mustafa, head of the Syrian Interim Government, stated.

 Mustafa said that the country has been struggling for 10 years both economically and in a humanitarian regard. He reiterated that the United Nations’ 2020 report stated 90% of the Syrian people are living below the hunger threshold.

 “Millions of people live in tents in difficult conditions at a time when unemployment has increased due to forceful displacements by régime forces and their allies,” he stated, stressing that Syria’s economy is worse than it has ever been, with the Syrian pound further losing value. The monthly income of a person has fallen to as low as $20. The reason for this awful situation is not economic sanctions as the régime and its allies claim. The real reason is that the régime uses the country’s resources to attack its own people, leaving the people hungry and in poverty while handing the resources over to the use of its allies Iran and Russia.” 



 Syria's war has devastated the country's economy since 2011, plunging around 90% of its people into poverty, according to the United Nations.

 Much of the economy in régime-held areas has been shuttered to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The World Food Programme (WFP) last year said food prices had doubled in a year to an all-time high across Syria. Over that same period, people in régime-held areas have faced fuel crises, a plummeting Syrian pound on the black market and steep price hikes. Damascus has blamed Western sanctions for its struggling economy.

 Mustafa stated that bad administering and corruption in all levels of the government also contributed to Syria’s economic downturn.

 He once again criticized the international community for not acting and giving the Syrian people the necessary support while the régime rejects a political solution, threatening the region’s peace, stability and Syrians themselves.

 “From past experiences, it is known that the régime does not promise any cease-fire or agreement but carries out massacres whenever it has the possibility. The fact that there is no international deterrent causes the régime and its allies to conduct ever more crimes against the Syrian people. We got used to the régime bombing its own people as a means to put pressure on Turkey and the international community and to make its election theater accepted.”

 Mustafa said that the opposition knows the régime will not abide by any agreement, while the opposition on the other hand has been sticking to all agreements.

 He also thanked Turkey’s efforts to reach a cease-fire with Russia, “which had been bombing the Syrian people.”

 The Idlib de-escalation zone was forged under an agreement between Turkey and Russia. The area has been the subject of multiple cease-fire understandings, which have been frequently violated by the Assad régime and its allies.

 A fragile truce was brokered between Moscow and Ankara in March 2020 in response to months of fighting by the Russia-backed régime. Almost a million people have fled the Assad régime’s offensive. The régime still frequently carries out attacks on civilians, hindering most from returning to their homes and forcing them to stay in makeshift camps.

 The elections, which the Assad régime set for May 26, will block the roads to a political solution for the Syrian conflict, Mustafa pointed out.

 Calling the elections nonsense, he highlighted that they have neither a political nor legal basis.

 “The régime lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the Syrian people and the international community long ago. The current elections are reimposed so that this dictator (Bashar Assad) and his allies can kill and displace its people without a moral deterrent.” '

‘The régime’s cruelty pushed people’

 

 'On Wednesday, Bashar. al-Assad will preside over a farce of an election, just as the Baath Party has every seven years since shortly after Hafez al-Assad took power in a 1970 coup d’état.

 In the aftermath, Mr. al-Assad will be declared the victor over his two hand-picked “rivals.” If history is any guide, the official figures will claim that more than 90 per cent of the country voted for Mr. al-Assad.

 For Mr. al-Assad and his loyalists, May 26 will mark a day of triumph. After 10 years of horrific war, their totalitarian system remains improbably intact, at least in the parts of the country under the régime’s control.

 Those who oppose the régime say Wednesday won’t mark the end of their struggle, which began 10 years ago when a group of teenagers in the southern city of Daraa spray-painted “it’s your turn doctor” on the wall of their school. It was a reference to the toppling of other dictators around the Middle East in a series of uprisings known as the Arab Spring. Zine El Abedine Ben Ali had been forced to flee Tunisia. Hosni Mubarak had been jailed in Egypt. Many Syrians believed then that Mr. al-Assad, an ophthalmologist by training, would be the next to fall.

 But the staged vote will provide a harsh reality check – a reminder of how much ground the rebels have lost since the heady days of 2013 and 2014 when change felt imminent. The process is seen as a signal to Syria’s opposition – and the international community – that Mr. al-Assad and his régime aren’t going anywhere.

 “The régime thinks that it can force the result of this election on us, and the international community will start to give up [on Syria],” said Hadi al-Bahra, who served in 2014 as the president of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella group representing a kaleidoscope of rebel groups and pro-democracy forces. Mr. al-Bahra was also a top opposition negotiator through several rounds of failed peace talks with representatives of the régime.

 The Syria that Mr. al-Assad presides over is a shattered country. Ten years of war have left more than 500,000 people dead or missing, and the ongoing violence has driven more than 12 million others – more than half the country’s prewar population – from their homes. The economy is a broken mess, needing tens of billions of dollars in investment just to return it to its prewar state, when it was already one of the poorest countries in the region.

 It’s also a country that the régime, which is backed by Russia and Iran, can only claim to govern parts of. Russia’s military intervention, which began in 2015, helped save Mr. al-Assad’s forces from defeat and aided their recapture of key cities such as Aleppo, Homs and Daraa. But the east of the country is run by the Kurdish forces allied to the U.S., while the northwest province of Idlib and much of the border zone remain are controlled by rebel groups with Turkish military posts protecting them inside Syrian territory.

 “Anybody who can claim victory in Syria should be put into a mental institution,” Mr. al-Bahra said in a telephone interview. 



 Oussama Chourbagi briefly lived in a free Syria, or a corner of it. In the first three years of the conflict, the activist – who was trained as a pharmacist in France but returned to his country at the outset of the uprising – was part of the local council in Daraya. The Damascus suburb was one of the first areas to escape Mr. al-Assad’s grasp. Unlike other parts of Syria, where the once-peaceful uprising quickly turned to violence as the régime kept shooting at its opponents, Daraya placed its armed groups under civilian control.

 “We wanted to create a small example to us and to the international community that we can manage and we can control our area, because the [narrative] of the régime was, ‘if we don’t want Bashar al-Assad, you will have Islamist groups, it will be a mess, you will have chaos.’ I can say that we reached 80 per cent of our goal in Daraya … any decisions taken were taken by the majority,” Mr. Chourbagi said in an interview in Slough, a town on the outskirts of London with a large population of refugees from Syria and other conflicts.

 By the start of 2014, the opposition felt so strong in its negotiating position that it arrived at United Nations-brokered peace talks in Geneva with a proposal to create an interim government – an offer that made no mention at all of Mr. al-Assad. He and his régime were finished, they believed.

 Mr. al-Bahra, who led the opposition delegation, says all that was lacking was a unified message from the international community telling Mr. al-Assad that it was time to go. But relations between Russia and the West were plunging in early 2014 over a separate crisis in Ukraine. Moscow broke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s call in Geneva for Mr. al-Assad to resign. Instead, the Kremlin threw its full weight behind the Syrian régime.

 “The régime’s cruelty pushed people. They wanted to defend themselves,” says Mr. Chourbagi, who remains a committed pacifist, despite being arrested and tortured for three months early in the uprising. “When the revolution transformed from pacifism to military – for me that was the beginning of the end.”

 Even before the rise of the Islamic State, U.S. President Barack Obama had made clear that his support for the Syrian rebellion had limits. He warned Mr. al-Assad in 2012 not to cross the “red line” of using banned chemical weapons in the war, but did nothing when the régime’s army used sarin gas on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August, 2013. It would be the first of many proved uses of chemical weapons, and the beginning of the end of U.S. influence over the outcome.

 Into the vacuum stepped Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in September, 2015, caught the world off-guard by deploying his military to bolster Mr. al-Assad’s régime and protect the Soviet-era naval base in the port of Lattakia. Russian air strikes quickly turned the tide of the war, forcing the anti-Assad rebels to retreat to the corners that they still control today.

 The political opposition, once unified around the goal of fighting the régime, began to fall apart. The Islamic State caliphate drew adherents from Sunni Muslim youth who came to see the struggle for Syria in sectarian terms (the al-Assad family are adherents of a strain of Shia Islam, and the régime has been supported throughout the war by fighters from Iran, the region’s main Shia power).

 There were also the separate tensions between Turkey, which cheered on the Arab Spring revolts (and the form of political Islam they swept into office in Egypt and Tunisia), and Saudi Arabia, which feared and opposed the democratic tide. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood government elected in 2011 was deposed in a military coup supported by Saudi Arabia. The regional rivalry created a rift inside the Syrian National Council as well, strengthening the Russian narrative that Syria’s only choice was between Mr. al-Assad and anarchy.

 Bahia Mardini, a Syrian Kurdish journalist who attended the Geneva peace talks in 2014, says foreign powers played the various Syrian factions “as if we were cards.” But she also blames the opposition, which started fighting amongst itself before they had achieved their shared aim of deposing Mr. al-Assad.

 “They were in a hurry to take power,” she said. “They believed change was coming, so they tried to destroy each other.”

 On Wednesday, or shortly thereafter, Mr. al-Assad will declare a sweeping victory over his two token opponents – Abdullah Salloum Abdullah, a former deputy cabinet minister whose own Socialists Unionists Party supports Mr. al-Assad, and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, who claims to represent the opposition to Mr. al-Assad but who is derided by those still fighting the régime.

 The only real question is whether the level of official support will be allowed to dip slightly, as it did in 2014, when Mr. al-Assad won “just” 92.2 per cent of the votes in what was seen as muted acknowledgement that the régime was in the middle of a war that wasn’t going very well. It was the only time he or his father gained less than 99 per cent.

 Mr. al-Assad’s campaign slogan translates awkwardly as “Hope to Work.” Slick social-media accounts show the eye-doctor-turned-dictator, dressed in a blazer and no tie, speaking to a group of construction workers. “Working in war conditions, as well as being an honour and morality, becomes a defence of the homeland,” Mr. al-Assad was quoted as saying. (Mr. al-Assad’s campaign page had slightly more than 1,500 followers on Twitter before it was “temporarily restricted” on Tuesday, and more than 147,000 on Facebook, which had taken no action as of Thursday.)

 Another photo shows Mr. al-Assad looking at military maps. In a third, he’s holding a sapling. There’s no mention on any of the accounts regarding if or how he intends to unite his shattered state.

 “After all this blood and this revolution and the people refusing the régime – saying we don’t want Assad, we don’t want the mukhabarat [secret police], we want democracy – they should make some changes. But they don’t change anything at all. It’s still about the Baath Party, even though I don’t think even they read the Baath Party texts. They just want authority and power,” Ms. Mardini said.

 Mr. Chourbagi, the pharmacist-turned-activist said he, like most Syrians outside régime-controlled areas of the country, will ignore Wednesday’s election, and the result. Instead, he and the Afaq Academy, the non-governmental organization he founded in 2012, will focus on trying to explain the concept of democracy to Syrians who have no experience with ideas like voting, paying taxes in exchange for receiving services, or equality before the law. Afaq’s focus, for now, is an educational campaign aimed at the 55 per cent of Syrians who now live either in rebel-held areas of the country or in exile.

 “The struggle for Syria isn’t between the opposition and the régime. It’s between the people and the culture of dictatorship,” Mr. Chourbagi said. But he acknowledges that the real election he’s trying to prepare for isn’t happening any time soon. “I still have hope, but for the long term.” '

Thousands of Syrians protest Assad regime election

 'Thousands of people across Syria on Friday protested against the upcoming presidential election under the Assad régime.

 Demonstrators gathered in al-Bab, Azaz and Idlib-all in northern Syria, areas outside Assad régime control-to oppose the so-called elections set to be held next week in the war-ravaged country.

 Demonstrators held banners saying "Boycott the child killer's elections," "Assad has no legitimacy," and "Régime election illegal."

 "The election violates UN resolutions. Bashar al-Assad committed massacres all over Syria," said Ridvan Atras, a demonstrator in Idlib.



 Rashid Hamdavi, another protester, said they oppose both the regime and the sham election.

 "The Syrian revolution will continue until the Assad régime is toppled," Hamdavi said.

 The régime's presidential election is set for May 26.

 Assad has been the victor in every election since he took power in 2000 as heir to his father, Hafez al-Assad.

 The decision to hold elections was made despite the ongoing military conflict, lack of any political solution in sight, failure of negotiations between the opposition and the regime, and the displacement of more than 10 million Syrians either as refugees or internally displaced persons.

 Moreover, about 40% of the country is not under régime control.'

They've Faced 10 Years of Bombs and Bullets

 

 'Mohammad Walid Jabas has been protesting for a decade. Back in March 2011, Jabas was one of the thousands of young people who took to the streets of Syria to demand the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s régime.

 For his trouble, in 2012, 80 percent of Jabas’ body was burned when he was struck by shelling from Syrian forces as he filmed clashes between government troops and opposition militants in the northwest. It took months of medical attention and rehabilitation in neighbouring Turkey for him to recover.

 Today, aged 30, he is back in his hometown of Kafr Takharim, north of Idlib, where he runs a Local Coordination Committee (LCC), one of the dozens of informal networks of dissident groups in the country that are still pushing for the removal of Assad.

 “We believed we could break that wall of fear,” Jabas said. “We thought we were entitled to have a free, democratic state, and we really thought things were about to change.” He is continuing the fight, he said, in honour of the estimated 500,000 Syrians – including several relatives and close friends – who have died, and the millions injured or internally displaced.

 At his town’s LCC branch, Jabas plans protest events and instructs teams to come up with new slogans and banners. Public anti-régime demonstrations are held every Friday, mostly in the city of Idlib. The north-western governorate and its surroundings were among the first areas nationwide to take up arms against the régime in the Arab Spring.

 Today, Assad, with the backing of his Russian and Iranian allies, has retaken most of Syria. The city of Idlib – home to almost 3 million people, mostly civilians and thousands of jihadist fighters – is the last major stronghold controlled by forces opposed to the Damascus government. Although the régime remains a threat, the main danger today is posed by Russian planes carrying out aerial strikes.

 “More than once it’s happened that we had planned a protest, then we had to cancel it because of Russian fighter jets roaring around the skies,” Jabas said. “We’ve paid a very heavy price for joining the revolution, we endured huge losses, but we’re not ready to give up. If I’m still fighting, it’s to live a better life in my country, not to go anywhere.”



 Nour Hallak, 33, from Saraqib town, in the Idlib region, has vivid memories of the early anti-Assad demonstrations in 2011. At that time, he was in the capital Damascus actively helping to coordinate groups of protesters and organise rallies.

 “We imagined a free Syria, free from Assad and his gang,” Hallak said. “Now we have war but it won’t last forever, one day this country will see civil change. I am one of those Syrians who are waiting for this transformation.”

 A few months into the revolution, he got involved as a volunteer, distributing relief aid and working as an assistant to medical staff at field hospitals in the southwestern region of Ghouta.

 After government-aligned troops invaded eastern Ghouta and destroyed the dispensaries at the beginning of 2012, the then aid worker along with his team took the remaining medication to store the supplies in a safer place in Homs city. During the journey through Damascus, he was caught in an ambush and arrested by secret services while carrying medicines and was jailed for two years.

 Following his release in late 2013, Hallak moved to the north and worked in various NGOs on capacity-building of local councils and civil society organisations. He currently lives with his family in the Turkish-Syrian border town Antakya and works for an international humanitarian organisation in northern Aleppo.

 “Once I was freed from detention, my mother was pushing me to go far away from Syria and not come back,” Hallak recalled. “But after spending two years in prison, I couldn’t leave my country. I don’t want to surrender and go.”

 Hallak helps to organise ongoing protests in the northern region, connecting with LCCs in the cities of Idlib and Aleppo. His role includes scheduling meeting, drafting media statements, and running social media campaigns.

 “We’re mainly confined to demonstrations since there’s limited space to do political activity,” he added, before explaining that because the Idlib region is partially under the control of extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied rebels, the residents are free to oppose the Syrian régime but cannot challenge HTS from within Idlib.

 Hallak still believes Assad will be pushed out someday by political means, noting that thousands of political activists who were forced to flee their homeland are waiting to return and regain their rights when the time comes. “Those like myself who started the revolution understand the importance of continuing it,” Hallak said. “We will carry the flame of the revolution forever.”

 Journalist Fareed Mahlool was only a teenager when the civil war started. Mahlool – who grew up in the town of Maaret Al Numan, in southern Idlib – was joining protests regularly after finishing work in an auto parts store.

 “We were full of optimism in those days,” Mahlool said. “I was picturing my country as a just and democratic one. I still hope to live in the future in a state that doesn’t imprison or oppress people.”

 In May 2019, shortly before he went out reporting, a rocket allegedly coming from government forces struck his house injuring his family members and killing his aunt in the attack. His family moved to a temporary home closer to the Turkish border.

 Now 26, Mahlool works as a freelance journalist and volunteers at an LCC documenting and sharing content on its social media channels. “We will continue the revolution until we achieve our demands,” Mahlool said.



 For 50-year-old Syrian artist Aziz Asmar, it was only a matter of time before he came back to his war-ravaged hometown Binnish, a few miles away from Idlib, after 20 years in Lebanon. Like many of his compatriots, he had left before the Syrian revolution began because he was struggling to find work in Syria.

 In Beirut, where he lived with his family, he was working at a publishing house when the uprising erupted. “Watching horrifying and terribly unjust things happening in Syria gave me so much pain,” the graphic artist remembered. “I wasn’t feeling okay about staying outside my country, I couldn’t do anything.”

 Growing afraid for his relatives’ safety as the bombing in Binnish intensified in July 2015, he moved back to his hometown at a time when thousands of Syrians were fleeing to find refuge abroad.

 Upon his return, he decided to participate in the struggle by recording the story of the Syrian uprising on the city’s war-torn walls. Street art soon became for Asmar a peaceful, though provocative, form of political expression, at a time when, he said, too often people perceive Idlib as a hotbed for jihadists only.



 Asmar paints across Idlib on the walls and ceilings of homes destroyed by airstrikes. “I want to send a message that behind each demolished wall there’s a human story,” he said.

 Asmar is regularly joined by groups of kids who help him with his artwork, while he often visits schools and orphanages to teach them how to paint. Among his work is a panoramic mural on the wall of a school in Idlib commemorated the 10-year-anniversary of the Syrian revolution. It illustrates the passage of the Syrian war, starting with an image of demonstrators calling for the downfall of the Assad régime.

 But Asmar’s work goes beyond focussing on the Syrian revolution to highlight injustices across the world. Last year, his painting on the ruins of a bombed-out building in Idlib depicting the face of George Floyd along with the message “No to Racism” and “I can’t breathe” went viral on social media.

 The graffiti artist has no regrets about moving back to Binnish, where he continues to live with his wife and three boys.

 “I use my artform here to lift people’s spirits and inspire them to stay,” he said. “My role is to help those around myself in my own way relieve their pain, so they won’t leave. My hope is that every Syrian gets their rights and freedom.” '

A Revolution Imprisoned by Assad

 

 Wafa Ali Mustafa:

 'My name is Wafa Ali Mustafa. I’m a Syrian journalist and activist from the city of Masyaf in western Syria. Thirty years ago my dad gave me the name of the news agency of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. With this, he marked me and shaped the entire identity I built afterwards.

 I went to my first protest with my dad at the age of ten. My dad started this journey that lasted for years that included traveling for hours every week to the capital of Damascus to participate in protests in support of different causes like solidarity with Palestine and Iraq. I still remember being at one of these protests in Damascus when I was fourteen. The régime’s forces attacked the protest. The image that is stuck in my mind is of when my father was beaten with a wooden stick and just told me to run. And I ran.

 My dad raised us, my two sisters and I, to be political, to ask questions, to always get involved, and to work very hard for our communities.

 In 2011, I was protesting in front of the Libyan embassy. Many people were there in solidarity with protesters in Libya, but we were also there for us and for Syria. People started chanting “a traitor kills his own people.” And then the security forces of the régime knew that we were there for Syria too. And so, they attacked the protest and arrested many people.

 On that day, the journey my dad began took a different turn when an officer of the Syrian intelligence slapped me and said, “You Palestinians shouldn’t be involved in internal Syrian affairs.” The reason for this slap was a necklace of a map of Palestine I had worn for ten years. After that I had to take it off.

 So when the revolution started in Syria, being a part of it wasn’t a question for me. It’s not as though I sat down and thought: “Shall I participate in this or not?” It was just a sense that it started, so I should be there. And I believe this was the case for many others.

 I was detained with my sister, my cousin, and two of my friends in September of 2011, when I was in the middle of my third year of university, studying journalism and media in Damascus. At the same time, my dad was arrested in another city, Hama.

 We were all released later. However, on the 2nd of July, 2013, my dad was forcibly disappeared by the Syrian régime again, this time in the city of Damascus. Today actually marks 2,829 days since he was taken from us. As in the case of many other Syrians, we haven’t seen him since, and we have never been told why he was taken from us or what he was charged with. Unfortunately, it is a bitter truth that the disappearance of my dad, Ali, is far from an isolated case. More than 131,000 people are still under arbitrary arrest or enforced disappearance by the Assad régime, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.



 The régime worked, and still works more than ever, to win—not just the military war but also the war over competing narratives. We’ve all seen how the story around Syria has slowly shifted. The discourses surrounding Syria now revolve around fear-mongering, presenting the narrative of the crisis both nationally and internationally as another “war on terrorism,” rather than a struggle for freedom.

 In light of this situation, many of us have been asking ourselves: How will the narrative of the revolution be remembered in the coming years? How will it be remembered by Syrians and also by the international community? How will the spirit of the revolution be kept present, in line with a history of peaceful uprisings?

 After ten years of the revolution and almost eight years of my dad’s enforced disappearance, I’ve realized why the régime—or any régime—uses detention and enforced disappearance against its own people: Because by detaining someone they not only silence and disappear those in prisons and detention centers, but they also break their loved ones, their families, and their communities.

 However, years ago I chose to resist this forgetfulness that the régime has imposed on me by disappearing my dad. I have chosen to resist it with my memory and thus contribute to shaping a counter-narrative to that of the régime and its supporters. I’ve been trying, on a daily basis, to tell the whole world what it means to wake up one day and realize you have lost your dad or a loved one. The high price that people, not just in Syria but in many other places too, are paying for only demanding basic human rights should not be normalized or denied.

 With many others we campaign for the freedom of our disappeared loved ones, in Assad’s and all other prisons in Syria, and for justice for Syria and Syrians. Everything I do today is to secure my dad’s freedom, so that one day we might have the chance to protest together again for a better Syria. There are many of us who still believe our hope is not an illusion and that change can happen. We all know freedom is difficult and slow, but it’s not impossible.'

Turkish-backed FSA soft power initiative includes libraries

 

 'The areas controlled by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the countryside of Aleppo, in northwestern Syria, recently witnessed a remarkable cultural movement, manifested in the growing number of public libraries, initiatives and various cultural activities, such as book exhibitions, plastics art showcases, theatrical performances and other exhibitions for different age groups.

 On April 23, the Syrian Rebel Youth Association inaugurated its public library at the association’s headquarters in the city of Azaz, north of Aleppo. This move aims to encourage young men, women and students to be more interested in reading and scientific research. The opening of the library took place on the sidelines of the association’s regular meeting in Azaz. It defines itself as a civil nongovernmental organization (NGO) working to reactivate and revitalize the civil status to recover the spirit of the revolution.

 Mohammed Ibrahim, head of the Syrian Rebel Youth Association, said, “The main purpose of opening the library is to encourage the youth to read and research, and to provide a space for reading. We want books to have a place in the lives of Syrians because this would help create an educated and conscious generation that can overcome the difficult stage and build a modern Syria. The library is a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions between young men and women; we believe it will contribute to spreading the culture of dialogue and accepting other people’s opinions.”

 He said, “The library currently includes 960 books on history, politics, science, civilization and archaeology, as well as some university research material and books on Arabic language and literature. The library also has a reading room that allows anyone to sit in it and read whatever they want. We are now discussing establishing a mechanism for lending books.”

 Speaking about where the books came from, Ibrahim explained, “The books were collected in cooperation with members and friends of the association. The books are entirely individual contributions since the Syrian Rebel Youth Association is financially independent and does not receive any support from internal or foreign bodies. Our expenses are covered by the monthly subscriptions of our members.”

 Bassam Rahim, deputy head of the Syrian Rebel Youth Association, said, “Building individual tools and skills for young people cannot only be achieved by reading and research. Young people need various cultural, political, social and literary activities, and others focused on beauty, creativity and art. This is what the association strives to implement by creating the appropriate environment for that through the various actions and activities that it will undertake during the coming period.”

 Rahim said, “The association was established on Oct. 10, 2016. We now have 200 members, most of whom are young men and women who support the Syrian cause and the goals and values of the revolution. The association has organized many cultural events in the presence of many influential opposition figures.”

 Mohammed Baqai, a researcher at NMA for Contemporary Research, an independent organization that provides specialized studies and consultations in the scientific field, based in the countryside of Aleppo, said, “There is a direct relationship between cultural activity and stability in opposition-held areas. As the index of stability and calm rises, cultural movement increases.”

 Speaking about the public libraries in opposition areas, Baqai said, “The library established by the Syrian Rebel Youth Association in Azaz is not the first. Many libraries have emerged over the past couple of years in major cities, such as al-Bab and Azaz. For example, NMA for Contemporary Research has a library full of books, the University of Aleppo affiliated with the opposition in Azaz has opened a library as well, and so has the International Sham University in the countryside of Azaz.

 Baqai added, “The cultural movement in the area is not limited to the libraries and encouraging the youth to read more; there is also a remarkable interest in theater, painting exhibitions, literary and poetry evenings. I believe that the cultural movement is heading in the right direction, but we hope that it will receive greater support from the authorities, such as the opposition’s interim government, for instance.”

 In late 2019, the University of Aleppo affiliated with the opposition announced the opening of the university library, which includes 7,000 books of various academic specializations, after a six-month funding campaign to secure the books. Besides, several school and university libraries were opened in the FSA-controlled areas with the support of the Turkish government.

 Abdul Aziz al-Daghim, president of the University of Aleppo, said, “The university contributes to cultural activities in the area, and backs efforts aimed at spreading public libraries to popularize the reading habit among Syrians. The university also supports [writing] books. For example, a month ago we held a book signing ceremony for author Walid al-Nayef, which was titled ‘Whiffs from Palmyra Prison.’”

 He noted, “I encourage students at the university to go to the university's library and expand their scientific and literary specializations.”

 Speaking about how the university secured the books for its library, Daghim said, “We contacted 10 study centers and universities in Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt and Qatar, and they donated a large number of books for the library, and many have promised to send more books soon.”

 On July 25, 2020, the Qeam Foundation, an independent educational NGO in the city of al-Bab in the countryside of Aleppo, announced the opening of Raqem Cultural Cafe, which has an extensive library and provides other services such as an internet connection for online research, quiet reading corners and rooms for discussions and cultural seminars.

 Mawia Shalar, manager of Raqem Cultural Cafe, said, “Raqem Cultural Cafe aims to increase cultural awareness by restoring people’s relationship with writers, and providing spaces for students, intellectuals and researchers. The cafe also provides a space for women to read, discuss and research. Our books cater to different tastes and suit all segments, as the library includes scientific, literary, Islamic and political books, novels and children's stories.”

 She added, “The cafe's turnout is excellent, especially among young people, particularly university students who want to gain more knowledge and benefit from books in their university research.”

 Speaking about the challenges the cafe faces, Shalar noted, “We had some issues in obtaining more books to enrich our library.” '

Syrians in régime-controlled areas turn to opposition

 'A growing economic crisis in the war-torn country and compulsory military service has led Syrians in areas controlled by the Bashar Assad régime to seek refuge with the opposition.

 Ali Tartusi, who fled the régime-controlled western Tartus province said that the economic crisis has reached a level where people cannot bear it anymore.

“The economic situation in the country is terrible. The people are struggling just to get a little bit of bread. The régime cannot find fuel for the people,” he said, adding that the régime also cannot pay the salaries of civil servants.

 “Most of the people live below the poverty line. Car owners wait in line at gas stations for 48 hours. The rich, on the other side, can get fuel through bribery. Poor families spend the winter trying to get warm under blankets,” Tartusi added.

 He called on the youth living under régime-controlled areas and said: “The future of the youth in the régime areas is lost because those who go to the military service cannot get their discharge papers. There are people serving in the military for 10 years.”



 Saying that this was one of the reasons why he sought refuge in an opposition-controlled area, Tartusi pointed out that he came to the northwestern Idlib province to save his future and complete his education.

 Idlib remains the last major opposition bastion yet is still frequently targeted by Russian-backed régime forces despite a March 2020 cease-fire struck between Ankara and Moscow.

 At least 75 attacks by the Bashar Assad régime and its allies have been recorded since the cease-fire, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said last month.

 Syria's war has devastated the country's economy since 2011, plunging 80% of its people into poverty, according to the United Nations.

 Much of the economy in régime-held areas shuttered to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The World Food Programme (WFP) last year said food prices had doubled in a year to an all-time high across Syria. Over that same period, people in régime-held areas have faced fuel crises, a plummeting Syrian pound on the black market and steep price hikes. Damascus has blamed Western sanctions for its struggling economy.

 Another civilian that fled the régime, Habib Yazen, stated that the harbor and sea in Tartus is controlled by Russia, while Moscow also established several observation points and controls the country’s trade.

 “Russia is using everything in Syria for its own interests. No one can accept its country being sold to another,” Yazen said, complaining about the régime.

 “Electricity comes only two hours a day. No one receives enough bread. Products are expensive and continue to get more expensive." '

Assad’s Pyrrhic victory and the arrogance of power

 

 'In early 2011, even after massive social mobilisation had overthrown two longstanding strongmen in the space of a few weeks, Assad stated that those events had no relevance for Syria. He told the Wall Street Journal that "Syria was stable". Referring to what had happened in Tunisia and Egypt, the president remarked that his country was "outside of this".

 A few weeks later, Assad was facing an uprising of his own, revealing how out of touch with reality he had been. A decade on, it is still legitimate to ask why the Syrian dictator overlooked the harbingers of his own vulnerability. Three mechanisms explain this disconnect.



 The first was that the Assad family was myopic about the fact that excessive control reduced its exposure to the true workings of Syrian society, hindering its foresight. Politics is a dynamic process that involves expression, negotiation, and conflict. By 2011, the Assad régime had imposed a tight and elaborate system of control for over four decades, with tentacles throughout society.

 In having tightened its grip on power structures, security agencies, political parties, and public space, the régime had placed nearly all visible aspects of politics under its stringent authority.

 The problem with this is that the Assads failed to realise that by placing politics in a strait jacket, they pushed it into murkier recesses, so that political opinion and contestation shifted from party politics, parliamentary debates, and media outlets into private conversations and subtle forms of dissent. Small facts speak to large issues – "winks to epistemology or sheep raids to revolution". as the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz once wrote. Under the Assads, ellipses of speech, allegorical phrases, nods of desperation, exhalations of anger, or even silence, spoke volumes about what was rankling the population.

 From his palace overlooking Damascus, Bashar al-Assad saw a different picture. Silence implied loyalty, self-censorship consent. The uprising in March 2011 showed how deeply he had misread reality.



 A second mechanism also explains why Assad failed to grasp the mood in his country. Not only had Syrians concealed their true preferences in response to political pressures, they also feigned many of their reactions and support for the régime. Economist Timur Kuran has called this "preference falsification". Privately, this may mean faking a smile or compliment in a social gathering. Under authoritarian régimes, however, the practice is more consequential.

 It is telling that for both those who supported the Assads and their critics, fear was the Syrian régime’s trademark. While critics called it a "republic of fear", the régime was fond of upholding the notion of "the prestige of the state", or haybat al-dawla, albeit blended with awe and dread. Between 1970 and 2011, the politics of terror had been institutionalised in Syria. As a consequence, people acquired a knack for survival. They would bend with the wind, withdraw into their shells, go into mental exile, or simulate devotion.

 An astute poet from the early Islamic era, Abu al-Atahiya, stated it well: "If life narrows on you, silence is wider." And so a spiral of silence pervaded Syria before 2011. Yet, silence is more often a mark of patience than a sign of fidelity. Nor, because it represents a burden for individuals, does it last eternally.

 Rather than reading between the lines of silence, the Assad régime had been busy constructing a personality cult around its leader and craving eternal rule: "Assad forever" or "Al-Assad ila al-abad" was a favourite slogan. However, it took no great insight to see that sycophancy had bred arrogance.



 Thirdly, time widens the disparity between reality and fantasy. The Assad régime suffered from its longevity, so that time had effectively caged it. Often, the longer an autocrat stays in power, the greater his propensity to rely on a small coterie of confidants who share his opinions and delusions. The leader’s inner sanctum limits his exposure, so that reality becomes "like a night in which all cows are black," as the German philosopher Hegel put it.

 By early 2011, the Assads, Hafez and Bashar, had spent 40 years in an ivory tower. A former advisor to Bashar observed that the president "lives in a cocoon". In fact, Bashar was probably never fully aware of the inner workings of his own state organs, particularly the unbridled security agencies. Becoming a family heirloom had turned Syria into a compartmentalised dictatorship in which personal fiefdoms had proliferated and public institutions had been emptied of all relevance.

The Syrian uprising took the dictator by surprise, stripped him of his aura, and demonstrated that politics could not be eliminated or buried forever.'