It was 3 years ago. We shared the taxi from Beirut to Damas with a Franciscan scholar from Vatican, who was in the region to give a couple of conferences. After a very interesting exchange, he expressed his discomfort to travel to Syria with his “working costume”, that of a Christian priest. I responded to him that Syria was maybe the safest country in the region for Christians. At the moment I did not have a great awareness on the subject; it was mostly a feeling, an opinion which was going to be validated later on, when I saw this impressive country with my own eyes.
I tried for a moment to imagine him in Turkey, the “exemplary” country for all Muslim countries with its democracy and secularism. The scene was just unimaginable since a conference on theological discussions within Christianity would not take place! And not without reason: First, there are very few Christians and churches left in Turkey who would have been interested in organizing such conferences. Second, those who are still in place, prefer to be as discreet as possible, as invisible as possible as Christians, since decades of experience thought them that, it is the only possible way for them to survive in dreadfully democratic and deeply secular Turkey. 1915 and 1922 were the two big steps of Turkey’s cleaning its non-Muslim populations out but it did not stop there: 1942 Wealth Task, 6-7 September 1955 attacks and the hostilities over Cyprus affair in 1960s have each of them seen big masses of Christians leave the country definitely. Today it is very well documented that every one of these affairs included a good portion of state provocation. On the other hand, a popular racism and skepticism towards Christian minorities shared by almost all sections of the society has been installed by means of the state’s ideological apparatuses. In 2007, for the most recent example, one German and two Turkish Christians who were working for a Bible publisher were killed after being tortured by a number of individuals. The event, which happened in the eastern town of Malatya, did not engender mass protestations in the country. The reactions which began with “it is terrible but…” and goes on to claim that Christian missionaries are not innocent at all were depressingly frequent, and not only in fundamentalist Islamic circles.
So, at one side, there’s the exemplary secular democracy which persecuted its Christian minorities all along its history, and at the other, that bloody, brutal dictatorship in which, the Christian minority who make up of the 10 % of the population continue to live and practice their religion without much obstacle. That’s the first fact about Syria.
Now let’s move to the South of Syria, to the other great democracy of the region, who occupies Syrian land since 1967, with no apparent intention of rendering it (just imagine the inverse, that it is Syria who is occupying a portion of Israeli territory. It is not conceivable, is it?). The occupation and the colonization of Golan Heights is not the only sin of Israel, of course. 800.000 Palestinian Arabs were chased from their lands at the very aftermath of the foundation of Israel as a Jewish state. And that was only the beginning. Since then, Palestinians (and Arabs in all neighboring countries) have been constantly persecuted, discriminated, robbed, humiliated and murdered by Israel. Syria is the only country of the region which steadily defended the rights of Palestinians and which never played the peace games with Israel. That’s the second fact about Syria.
A last fact about Syria is that, before this violent and intransigent contestation broke out, Syria was a functioning country, with a welfare state which, despite its very weak resources, assured the fundamental public services to its citizens and which had a rich cultural life in its big cities. Difficult to believe in that, isn’t it? Unfortunately you do not have to chance to go to see that with in your own eyes anymore.
Yet, it is the Syrian regime that is considered as the Evil. It is the one that should be removed, not the Turkish or Israeli ones. Or, I claim that, if these two countries were confronted to the same challenge as the Syrian security forces today, their response would have been much tougher. Just looking at their last few years’ record and comparing it to what has been happening in Syria is sufficient to come to that conclusion.
But this article is not a eulogy, a love letter to the Baath regime in Syria. It is clear that I cannot totally adhere to any authoritarian rule which has an enormous security apparatus widely practicing torture; which uses nothing but that infamous “we are fighting with terrorists” discourse to be able justify its repression and which refuses to cede power even if it knows that the country will be in a bloodshed since its opponents, backed by Western powers, will not give up until they take what they want, no matter what the price Syrians will pay for that.
However, there is a difference between criticizing a regime and desiring to overthrow it with all the consequences that this process necessitates. That is my problem with Syrian “revolutionaries” whoever they are. There are two things unacceptable with this opponent movement: first of all, its call for foreign intervention (that is of Western powers) with the motive that it is so brutally repressed that it has no other chance. Decades of interventions should have made it clear to everyone in the region that if NATO wants to intervene in a country, it is NEVER for the good of its people. Second, the movement has one unique goal: to overthrow (and of course, to replace) the regime. The meaning of this intransigency is clear since the beginning: launching a civil war.
This is particularly a criticism of the hypocrisy of Western governments and their allies who take part in an inner conflict, who arm, train and finance the opponents of a government and who claim that it is because the regime is too brutal. As if they do not know that more arms and more violence would only cause more brutality from the regime. As if their dearest partners in the region are not much more brutal than the Syrian regime!
It is a criticism of the Western Medias who make no distinction between peaceful manifestations and violent opposition; a criticism of those journalists in place, who are extremely selective of the events, and of the people to cover; whose microphone is never tended towards, for example, that Christian minority; who never ask the question why those Christians want this brutal dictatorship to stay in place.
It is especially an expression of an astonishment to see the enlightened people everywhere in the world, who opposed to the intervention to Iraq but who said nothing to what happened in Libya and who say nothing to what has been happening in Syria: launching a civil war with the aim of toppling a regime which is on the “Axis of Evil” defined by the American establishment of George Bush’s reign. A regime which has a Russian naval base on its land, instead of American ones like everyone else in the region. A regime which demands visa from the citizens of the most Western states, and which demands the same documents from them that the Western governments demand from its own citizens. A regime who is certainly too good friends with Iran. A regime which is too anti-imperialist for historical colonialists, too pan-Arabic and secular for the Qataris and the Saudis.
It is awfully upsetting to see that it is the American establishment who got the lesson of Iraq: “if you want to control the region, you have to find more subtle ways than what you have done in Iraq. You know very well that if there is one ideology that unites all the peoples of the Middle East; it is anti-Americanism. So act as if you don’t care, as if you’re not in; even diffuse the murmurs that in fact you want to keep Asad in power. Your collaborationists, who will be presentes as the revolutinaries, the freedom fighters will do the dirty task inside, Sarkozy and Erdogan, outside. So that you will even not have the headaches that those little liberals, socialists, all the anti-war people have caused you in Iraq”.
Well, that works very well. Unfortunately.
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