On December 8, after a fast offensive that lasted lower than two weeks, Syrian opposition forces entered Damascus and declared the tip of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The Syrian president and his household are believed to have flown out in an unknown route simply earlier than the rebels entered the capital.
The rebellion towards the Syrian authorities that ended the half-century of al-Assad household rule ought to be seen as among the many most necessary political turning factors within the trendy Arab area for the reason that finish of World Warfare II and the creation of Israel in 1948. It marks a definitive break with the legacy for the reason that Nineteen Fifties of military-anchored Arab autocrats who’ve lengthy dominated and ravaged Arab societies.
Many rightly have fun the overthrow of al-Assad, and plenty of others marvel what’s going to occur subsequent given the involvement of varied native and exterior powers in Syria. The Syrian individuals know they need an honest life, to be handled with respect and to be heard. We should always humbly watch them carry a brand new and secure order to their nation and cease the Western silliness of analysing what the size of a beard means or entertaining conspiracy theories.
It’s crucial now to replicate on what the devastating story of Syrian governance and civil conflict imply. Syria below the Assads was neither distinctive nor the work of only a few native brutes. Moderately, it’s an instance of the widespread legacy of heavy-handed, typically vicious, Arab state energy that has ravaged the area and demeaned its individuals for half a century, with the assistance of regional and nice powers and diverse nongovernmental teams.
The al-Assad regime was the longest-lasting military-based, foreign-backed, and family-anchored autocratic authorities to dominate the Arab area, which devastated its individuals, economic system, and nationwide integrity.
The Syrian expertise reveals all of the debilitating hallmarks of shared Arab autocracy, which persist broadly and have to be systematically rooted out of our societies. These embrace an absence of real pluralism and accountability via credible participatory establishments; top-heavy rule anchored in army and police brutality, mass imprisonment, torture, and dying; centralised financial planning that breeds corruption among the many elite and deep quality-of-life disparities throughout the land; and no structural connections between the residents and the state that would generate insurance policies that replicate the consent and can of the ruled.
The 1952 Egyptian revolution of Gamal Abdel Nasser initiated the damaging legacy of military-run Arab governance, which expanded extra rapidly after Israel’s 1967 defeat of Arab armies. Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, was amongst a cohort of Arab officers who seized energy within the following twenty years in numerous Arab nations and proceeded to drive them into the bottom.
These self-imposed officers may neither wage conflict nor govern successfully throughout their a long time of rule. Because of this, for the reason that Nineties, most Arabs exterior the few rich oil producers have suffered regular declines of their alternatives for first rate training and healthcare, jobs, entry to enough meals, water, and electrical energy, and different primary requirements.
Regional surveys reveal time and again {that a} small proportion of Arabs (largely within the oil-producing states and amongst small elites elsewhere) stay snug lives, whereas the bulk get pleasure from neither political rights nor an honest materials life. Inequality and poverty inside Arab societies proceed to rise.
Via repression, Arab governments have reworked their residents into passive, unvoiced, impotent shoppers, lots of whom search to or do to migrate. Repression has generated intense anger, concern, and desperation amongst their residents. They’ve responded by difficult the state, becoming a member of its corrupt system, or retreating from it into smaller tribal, non secular, or ideological teams they type to guard themselves and survive within the face of risks from their very own state, Israel, or overseas powers.
Probably the most potent Arab actions that challenged the militarised energy mannequin have been Islamist – each armed and peaceable. In Syria, when a peaceable protest motion was met with brutal army pressure, the rebellion rapidly reworked right into a civil battle, which undermined nationwide cohesion, allowed the proliferation of armed teams and ushered in interference from overseas powers.
What has occurred in Syria ought to be a wake-up name for all Arab autocrats. The area can’t endure lengthy the truth that not a single Arab state has been credibly validated by its personal individuals via constitutional or electoral means.
I’ve skilled and journalistically chronicled the circumstances of Arab societies and residents for over half a century, and I conclude that not a single Arab nation has handed the 4 cardinal checks of secure statehood, real sovereignty, citizenship, and sustained and equitable human improvement.
We might be fools to overlook the indicators that Syria sends the world about each extraordinary citizen’s indomitable will to stay in freedom and dignity. And we might be complicit in denying these to Arabs if we proceed enterprise as regular with the prevailing state and financial methods which have largely failed their individuals.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
