By Charles Onunaiju
Sooner or later, it will be apparent that toppling the former Syrian leader, Mr. Bashar Al-Assad in a whirlwind of dramatic jihadist march on Damascus is the easiest part to what is coming to resemble night of long knives for the beleaguered but pivotal Arab State.
Former and deposed President Basher Al-Assad, far less politically savvy and adroit than his father, Hafiz Al-Assad had nearly ten years to heal his fractured country by initiating an inclusive political process that would have lured back moderate oppositions, while isolating the extremists, he chose rather to ensconce himself to his narrow circle. A large swath of Syrian population displaced by the conflict were all over the region and beyond, living in exiles in some unfriendly and unwelcoming climes, yet Mr. Assad did not hold out, any meaningful olive branch that should have signaled serious effort at national reconciliation. Having managed to fend off the military siege of combined moderate opposition and hard line extremist, through the decisive Russian, Iranian and the Lebanese Hezbollah support, he did not follow the ostensible military victory with any political program of national reconciliation.
The initiative of national dialogue with opposition groups, initiated by the United Nations, appeared to be a mere political circus show by his government to wear out the oppositions and consolidate its rule. But he certainly could not rule perpetually in vacuum.
The Syrian exiles scattered across and beyond the region remained unreconciled to Damascus and were contented to live in squalid exiles, especially in Lebanon and Turkey rather than return home. And Mr. Assad and his circle continued to preside over a country hollowed out by economic bankruptcy, social tension and mounting political fragility.
Meanwhile, the hard line Al-Nusra front and former Islamic State affiliate notorious for some of the war atrocities, including decapitating bodies of their victims and tearing out their hearts, had enough time to mutate and transform to Hayat Tahrir. Al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group among others that swept through the country’s major cities, Aleppo, Homs, Hama and stormed Damascus in just one week. Contrary to several reports, Mr. Al-Assad fled to Russia where he has been granted asylum was negotiated, and made way for his Prime Minister to formally hand over the reins of governance to the victorious rebels.
Despite Syria’s current travails when it caught the political flu of the Arab spring in 2011, the country is an enigmatic and pivotal Arab State with one of the highest literacy rate at over 90% in the region and equally famous for one of the strongest militaries in the region. And for effect, Syria is about the only country in the region that achieved 100% enrolment of girls in high school. In fact, parents who did not send their daughters to school risk punishment.
The birthplace of the Pan Arab Baath party, one of the most progressive political parties in the region, Syria may have been about the Al-Assads in the past 50 years or so but have never been for the Al-Assads.
Despite the obvious political naivety of the younger Al-Assad and confluence of other factors that twisted the fate of Syria, especially with its current travails, the country is no backwater and its people were among the most urbane in the region.
Syria’s nationalism and pro-independence agitation was largely powered by the secularist Baath Party founded by the trio of Michael Alaaq, a Damascus born Christian, Salah al Din Bita, a Sunni Muslim and Zaki Al-Arsuzi in 1947 whose creed of “Unity, Freedom and Socialism” resonated across all nationalist and pan-Arabist circles in the region.
Hafiz-Assad, a minority Alawi born in the mountainous western region became a militant party activist in high school before joining the pioneer air force school in Aleppo.
The background to the emergence of modern Syria and its trajectories has become necessary because of the recent event and how the Western media and political establishment has twisted facts and demonized the rule of the Al-Assads as if it were only about dungeons, prisoner abuses, rights violations and corruption of the previous ruling elites. Syria actually under the rule of the Arab Baath party was about the most militant anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist and famous as a melting point of religious tolerance, ethnic and gender inclusivity. While the events starting in 2011, following the Arab spring should have instilled new thinking in Damascus and opened the way for renewed inclusive political process, the reclusive elite around the deposed leader, Mr. Al-Assad inoculated itself against the sweeping currents that would after more than a decade of flowing under, busted and swept them out of office.
With the reformed hard line Jihadist now calling the shots in Damascus and the Western media canonizing them as the latest Messiah in town, how would the Syria’s future unfold?
For a start, the now HTS is not the only political force who sought or fought for the ouster of Mr. Bashar Al-Assad and now that what appears to unite them is out of the way, their respective naked ambitions would burst to the front burner. The mostly secular Free Syrian Army (FSA) allied to Turkey, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic front close to the Americans are likely to bid for preeminence place in who calls the shot from Damascus. The Hayat Tahir Al-Sham (HTS) largely credited with the final push that removed Mr. Al-Assad from office, would certainly lay claim to a princely role in the new political forces in Damascus. Nothing so far is heard or been said about the rump of the former national army, who either melted away or simply stood akimbo while the conquering opposition fighters march on, to Damascus.
According to the eminent American scholar, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at University of Chicago, Syria is in for a prolonged period of chaos, expressing doubt that “a coherent government” that would be capable of controlling the entire country would be formed soon. Mr. Mearsheimer accused the U.S and other Western governments of basically throwing in “our lot with a number of Al-Qaeda and ISIS operatives and they won and added that
Washington and other Western political establishment, along with the media were now doing everything they can to clean up” HTS leader, Mr. Mohammed Al-Jolani, who is still an internationally wanted terrorist and has a U.S issued 10 million U.S dollars’ bounty on his head.
The spin of the Western media, notwithstanding the ousting of President Al-Assad and taking control of the capital is the least of the challenge that the insurgents-turned rulers will face. It was instructive that entering Damascus, the HTS leader chose 15th century Sunni Mosque to issue his first statement. Though considerably conciliatory in tone, it is too early to suggest that one who recently fought along the ISIS leader, Abubakar Al-Baghadadi, would rule over a largely secular and urbane Syria, with guarantees for women and minority rights. When the Americans helped the Talibans to overthrow the secular pro-soviet regime of Mr. Najibullah in Afghanistan in the1990’s, the former Koranic student trained in Afghan and Pakistan Madrasas, also gave hint of political inclusion and gender tolerance but hardly did they settle down in Kabul than they bared their fangs. Even now, after their long march to recapture power in Kabul, they are hard bent on implementing the maximum of their hard line program, forcing many Afghans on the road again to exile to anywhere but their homeland.
Traditionally, chaos, disorder and mayhem are the essential tools, the West uses in undermining and overwhelming its third world adversaries while using the cover language of democracy, freedom and human rights. Iraq and Libya before Syria are now, no democracies and even too chaotic to speak of freedom and human rights, while life at its very subsistence is the existential realities of these countries, earlier far better organized with arguably first class infrastructures and advanced education under their former “dictators”.
Syria’s new leaders can avoid the fate of chaos but having chosen their first symbolic act of vandalizing the tomb of the late president Hafiz Al-Assad, instead of making true, their gestures of national reconciliation and political inclusion, it seemed Syria may just at its calmest best before the storms ahead. It is only hoped that Syrians historic gains and crucial mileage reached in national construction should not be recklessly thrown away at the altar of new political correctness and grandstanding.
• Onunaiju contributed this from the FCT, Abuja