On Thursday, August 25, the “Rai Al-Youm” (Today’s Opinion) news website published an article titled “What are the secrets and behind-the-scenes of the escalation again US forces in Syria?” (Arabic) by the well-respected Palestinian journalist and author, Kamal Khalaf. We will discuss the subject of the article due to its importance.
Although the discussion of the two terms of centralization and decentralization in the new Syria has taken a back seat a little, and is no longer as hot of a topic as it was years ago (and perhaps this is better so discussions move in more objective and sustainable directions), the topic in its essence is still hot and important. One could even say that the time for serious preparations to discuss it and reach understandings about it is dwindling, given the amount and speed of the ongoing changes.
The Century Foundation, an American think tank based in New York, published on the fourth of this month a report titled “Syrian Prisoner Amnesty Could be a Breakthrough if Damascus is Ready to do More”.
Scholars of World War II history agree that among the most important reasons for the collapse of Nazism at the time, was its opening two major fronts together, the first in 1939 and the second in 1941.
Hardly anyone argues today that official wages in Syria are no longer able to cover some of the actual costs of living. We have explained on several occasions on the pages of this newspaper that the State apparatus in the country has long stopped paying actual wages to its employees, whose number in 2020 was estimated by the Central Bureau of Statistics at 1,595,475 workers, out of 5,726,290 workers in general.
Talking about the global food crisis is no longer just speculations and warnings done by some, as the countries of the world, the countries of the global south in particular, have made real steps in this direction. At the Syrian level, where we are already suffering from food insecurity, the country is effectively left to the unknown, to be a prey between the jaws of the global food crisis, which is still not clear where it is headed yet. In addition, internal plunderers are ready to seize any crisis that increases the accumulation of wealth above their already accumulated wealth.
The catastrophic economic and social repercussions of the Syrian crisis have affected society in general, but they have affected the situation of Syrian children more deeply, entrenching them as the most vulnerable and fragile group in the country. Part of this group was forcibly pushed into the labour market in order to contribute to their families efforts to fill the huge difference between the minimum costs of food for the family and the minimum of wages. At the same time, most of these children live under conditions that threaten them with consequences throughout their entire lifetime.
With each passing day, and with every additional complication and blow to the global economy, it is becoming increasingly clearer that only the countries that have maintained and developed their production systems – particularly the real production in industry, agriculture, and others – are the ones able to be resilient and ensure the living conditions of their people considerably, and away from the corny use of slogans about resilience.
Estimates of the disaster affecting the food system in Syria are increasing daily at an unprecedented pace, as there is an additional number of Syrians every year getting in a state of food insecurity, not in thousands or hundreds of thousands, but in millions. This is happening at an accelerated pace, which threatens to drag more citizens into destitution and poverty.
At the beginning of Ramadan 2022, the average cost of living for a Syrian family of 5 has exceeded 2.8 million Syrian pounds according to Kassioun index. It is an unprecedented increase within a record period of time that threatens millions of Syrians who are witnessing a catastrophic gap between the costs of living and the minimum wage of Syrian workers, which remains at the threshold of 92,970 Syrian pounds (i.e., less than half of the cost of the minimum amount of food per working individual alone)!
