Clashes resumed this afternoon in Qamishli after a short truce brokered by Russia. It is not clear how long these clashes will extend. This is despite the efforts made by the residents of the area and the Russian side, to try to stop the clashes immediately.
Ten years have passed since the Syrian crisis; a whole decade whose effects will not be over in one more decade even if the war has ended and the losses have stopped from today! Economic losses continue, and social losses, despite being difficult to be measured, some of their indicators say that the greatest losses are in the wide social effects that will continue to appear in the future. While the situation of the youth and children today is difficult and dim, their future burdens will be greater, as they will pay twice the price!
It is usually said that major wars are followed by natural compensation for human losses, and that societies experience a mutation of population growth after war. This was what Europe and the United States have experienced after both World Wars, but great wars that break out and end then get followed by a successful and large reconstruction phase may allow for such compensation! However, continuous wars such as those in our region, which have not yet experienced a safe exit for decades, prevent even the natural compensation mechanisms, hence, generations continue to lose maternal and paternal rights and society loses its future.
In the context of political application, Marxism always insists on the inextricable interdependence of three aspects: the national, the economic-social, and the democratic. It says that there is no separation among these aspects in any way.
It does not matter what is the dollar figure in exchange for the Syrian pound. The most important thing today in light of the expanding hunger is the Syrian pound figure in exchange for food. The collapse of the Syrian pound on this scale is the highest and the most dangerous, and food prices are skyrocketing at rates that exceed the price of the dollar. The issue is no longer related to import and the price of the dollar directly, as much as it is related to the (heart attack) that the Syrian economy is suffering from, which some of its officials are still saying that (the indicators are good) but (the problem is with speculators)!
The Minister of Economy appeared in an interview on the Syrian Satellite Channel on March 24, 2021 talking about the economic situation, and his speech is said to ignore the (elephant in the room) or perhaps more precisely the (whale floating in the pond) because it describes our situation better! He spoke at length about the government’s endeavors and efforts, and ignored the fact that the government’s actions are practically without effect! However, this article is considered (in defense of the government) being an apparatus with limited capabilities that has to carry the burdens of others.
10% of the Syrian land that has been cultivated in 2010 remains uncultivated in 2019. Although the rate may seem small compared to all high rates and index numbers recorded during the Syrian crisis, the area we are describing here approximates 520 thousand hectares: i.e.: what is equivalent to the area of Daraa and Tartus combined! An area that can increase the amounts of grain and legume production on average by 900 thousand tons if recultivated.
The Central Bank of Syria issued a statement on February 14 about the situation in the exchange market. The statement and the procedures that have been taken were mostly about “security”, as the collaboration between the Anti-Money-Laundering/ Combating the Financing of Terrorism and stakeholders was discussed to conquer a group of companies and agencies that work in speculation on the Syrian Pound and confiscating large amounts of money in the Syrian Pound and the US dollar. The statement also discussed other non-specific intervention tools.
It really suits the US that the (Syrian Quagmire), according to their expression, gets stabilized, i.e.: that the political stalemate guarantees the interaction of multiple factors in order for the country to remain a quagmire that swallows what has remained of capabilities and resources, and drives away all those who are capable and willing to lift the country up.
When the number 3500 billion SYP is mentioned in the budget, we are talking about 40% of total government expenditure for 2021. It’s the most important expenditure bloc in the budget, which is a normal thing because it reflects the significance of the energy sector and securing essential food at least, i.e., it is the sum that expresses the continuance of securing the essentials for living, as the confusion in dealing with subsidies, rethinking about them, and trying to reduce them, is a major part of the crisis of the decline in the means of life support inside the country.
