SYRIA and ensuing CIVIL war in the country

Basic facts:

Population:  18,389,000

Capital:         Damascus

Area:            185,180 square kilometers (71,498 square miles)

Language:    Arabic, Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian, French, English

Religion:      Sunni, Alawite, Druze and other Muslim sects, Christian

Currency:     Syrian pound

Life Expectancy: 70

GDP per Capita: U.S. $3,700

Literacy Percent: 77

Location and demography:

In English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant (known in Arabic as al-Sham) while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC.

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest. A country of fertile plains, high mountains and deserts, it is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups. It is basically a muslim / Arab country with 90 percent Muslim population and several ethnic groups. The ethnic groups include kurds [constituting 9%, living mostly in the north-east corner of the country, bordering Iraq] Armenians, Assyrians, Turks, Christians, Druze etc. The Muslim population of country is mostly made up mostly Sunnis (64% of the country population), but the Shiite Alawite minority (12 percent of Syrians) is politically dominant. The Alawite-controlled Baath (Renaissance) Party has been ruling country since 1963.

        Its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world,  was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.

Brief History:

Ancient Syria:

Civilization of Syria is one of the most ancient on the earth. It was one of the centers of Neolithic culture (known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) dated back to 10000BC,   where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. During this age, people used vessels made of stone, gyps and burnt lime. Finings of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. The following Neolithic period (PPNB) is represented by rectangular houses of Mureybet culture. Around the excavated city of Ebla near Idlib in northern Syria, A great Semitic empire spread from the Red Sea north to Anatolia and east to Iraq from 2500 to 2400 BC was flourished with Ebla in northern Syria as its main centre. Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt.

Modern Syria:

It was part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries. The modern Syrian State was established after the First World War as a French mandate, and represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab Levant. Dreams of a "Greater Syria" were dashed when the smaller states of Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan were created by Britain and France in the 1920s. It gained independence in April 1946, as a parliamentary republic. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949–1971. Between 1958 and 1961, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt, which was terminated by a military coup. Syria has fought four wars with Israel—losing the Golan Heights in 1967. Recovering the Golan has been a matter of fierce national pride for Syrians. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered to be non-democratic. Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. The 30-year rule of Hafez al-Assad was marked by authoritarian government, an anti-Israeli policy, and military intervention in Lebanon. Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as president in 2000 and continues his father's harsh policies. He has introduced certain market reforms, but not enough to satisfy the aspirations of the people.

Syria is a member of United Nations international organizations- [UN] and Non-Aligned Movement [NAM]. It is the member of local groupings such as Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Co-operation [OIC], and the Union for the Mediterranean.

The mass movement of revolutions and protests in the Arab world against the un-popular governments across the Middle East, which is described as “Arab Spring”, by the western Media, has not spared Syria too. The neo-Ba'athist government has tried to contain the uprising with iron hand. Part of the government forces are defected into the rebel camps. The various factions and groups are leading the fight against the government. This resulted in a civil war in the country. The main rebel groups are “Free Syrian Army” and Al-Nusra Front. These groups, along with some other factions had formed an umbrella group called “the Syrian National Coalition” in March 2012. In the wake of government’s strong reaction to the uprising and the killing of people, the Arab League, a group of Muslim Countries, has suspended Syria as its member and allowed the said membership to the Syrian National Coalition. The latter has been recognized as the "sole representative of the Syrian people" by several nations including the United States, United Kingdom and France.

REASONS FOR CIVIL WAR IN SYRIA

The Syrian civil war is an ongoing armed conflict in Syria between forces loyal to the Syrian Ba'ath Party government and those seeking to oust it. The conflict began on 15 March 2011, with popular demonstrations that grew nationwide by April 2011. These demonstrations were part of the wider Middle Eastern protest movement known as the Arab Spring. Protesters demanded the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has held the presidency in Syria since 1971, as well as the end of Ba'ath Party rule. The chief reasons for the civil war in the Syria are as follows.

1. Political repression:

President Bashar al-Assad assumed power in 2000, after the death of his father Hafez who had ruled Syria since 1970. The power continuous to be concentrated in the ruling family and single party system has left no channel to vent out political dissent in the country.  Given the history of military takeovers over the period of time in the country, the popular opinion is that transfer of power happen only through a military coup or a popular uprising.

2. Discredited ideology:

       Syrian Baath party is regarded as the founder of "Arab socialism", an ideological current that merged State-led economy with Pan-Arab nationalism.  But, this ideology has proved disastrous and lost steam in losing wars to Israel and a crippled economy. Upon taking power, Assad tried to modernize the regime invoking the Chinese model of economic reform, but time was running against him.

3. Uneven economy

The reforms started by the Assad regime have opened doors to the private investment in the country, which created an explosion of consumerism among the urban upper-middle classes. Further, privatization has favored families with personal links to Assad, but the provincial Syria suffered raising living costs and severe un-employment. The lack of employment opportunities, coupled with raise in living costs has pushed the people to the extreme step of uprising. It is to be noted that the provinces are the hotbed of uprising, where people suffered the maximum. 

4. Drought

To make matters worse, a persistent drought has devastated farming communities in north-eastern Syria, affecting more than a million people since 2008. Tens of thousands of impoverished farmer families were pushed to rapidly expanding urban slums and their anger doubled due to government apathy, fueled by the display of wealth of handful of urban elite in the cities.

5. Population growth

The unproductive public sector and struggling private firms unable to provide employment to the rapidly growing youth of the country and the disgruntled youth has proved to be a demographic time bomb waiting to explode. Having got to chance to express their anger and discontent, majority of them has been participating in the uprising. It is kind of their response to their un-employment and growing inequalities in the society.

6. New media

Although the state media is tightly controlled, the proliferation of satellite TV, mobile phones and the internet after 2000 has allowed the youth to know the outside world and started comparing their state of affairs with that of others. The use of the new media is critical to the activist networks that underpin the uprising in Syria.

7. Corruption

The rampant corruption in all walks of life is another reason for popular uprising against the State.  The have not’s have developed a powerful grievance against the State. It is told that the system is corrupt to the extent that anti-Assad rebels buy weapons from the government forces, and families bribe the authorities to release relatives that have been detained during the uprising. This mirrors the hard realities of the country’s deteriorated public services.

8. State violence

Syria's vast intelligence services, the infamous mukhabarat, penetrate all spheres of society. The fear of the state is one of the reasons why so many Syrians simply take the regime as a fact of life. But the outrage over the brutal response of the security forces to the outbreak of peaceful protest in spring 2011, documented on social media, helped generate the snowball effect as thousands across Syria joined the uprising. It is told that around 80,000 to 1 lakh people are killed in the civil war and killings had led to more protests.

9. Sectarian underpinnings:

Syria is a majority Sunni Muslim country but the top positions in the security apparatus are in the hands of the Alawis, a Shiite religious minority to which the Assad family belongs. Most Syrians pride themselves on their tradition of religious tolerance, but many Sunnis still resent the fact that so much power is monopolized by a handful of Alawite families. While not a driving force of the Syrian uprising, the combination of a majority Sunni protest movement and an Alawi-dominated military has added to the tension in religiously mixed areas, such as the city of Homs.

10. Tunisia effect:

The self immolation of a Tunisian street vendor triggered a wave of anti government protests across the Middle East, including Syria in late 2010. The fall of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt to these protests in early 2011, had emboldened people in Syria too, on the hope that change is possible now, first time in the decades.  The live broadcast of events and analysis on issues on the Al Jazeera TV had also its salutary effect on the Syrian uprising.

Next issue which is going to be covered is

Why the Middle East countries are called so? Which countries constitute Middle East?

What is Arab Spring and its effect on the socio-political environment of the Middle East?

Disclaimer:

The views expressed are that of the author and not that of the Government.