Displaying items by tag: Syria

“After the fall of the former regime, the level of satisfaction with the new situation was higher than the level of dissatisfaction and concern regarding the country’s economic and social conditions. However, one year after the regime’s fall, dissatisfaction with the domestic situation began to increase. The real danger will arise when the level of dissatisfaction exceeds the level of satisfaction over the fall of the previous regime. The degree of public dissatisfaction with living conditions is steadily rising. While this dissatisfaction reflects a certain level of resentment, that resentment has now reached a level of social mobilization”.

The fate of Syria—as a people, a state, and as political forces in different places—depends on what we do in the coming weeks and months, and on how quickly we act. It also depends on the rapidly unfolding international and regional developments. These are major and turbulent transformations that must be understood well, and we must act based on that understanding.

The country is experiencing a persistent deadlock on every level, particularly in the socioeconomic and living conditions of its people, alongside manufactured security and social tensions that increasingly threaten civil peace. All of this is unfolding amid major shifts in the regional balance of power as well as at the international level.

The scope of protest activity among Syrian farmers and workers is expanding daily across the country. They are demanding their right to a dignified life; the right to wages sufficient to secure housing, feed their children, provide them with education and healthcare; and the right to be treated in a humane and respectful manner, whether by employers or by state institutions.

The country is experiencing an extremely dangerous situation on all levels, and it is not “doing well” in any sense. Nevertheless, both the country and the Syrian people have a rare historic opportunity for a fundamental turning point that could lay the foundations for the long-awaited state: a strong, independent, and just state, in which power truly belongs to the Syrian people both officially and in practice. That means power belonging to the more than 90% of Syrians who live below the poverty line; those who produce the nation’s wealth yet receive only a tiny fraction of it; those who come from all ethnicities, religions, sects, and ideological and political backgrounds, united by the fact that they are “underneath”, in contrast to those who are “above”. The latter also come from all ethnicities, religions, and sects, but are united by the fact that they appropriate the greater part of what Syrians produce through their labor and daily toil—and even through the blood they have shed over decades in defending and trying to improve this country.

Among the lessons and conclusions drawn from the Euphrates River’s flooding — and its disastrous effects, which have not yet been fully uncovered — are the following:

Protests of a socioeconomic nature, centered around people’s demands have been growing in both depth and scope over recent months and weeks. Estimates range between 50 and more than 80 protests, demonstrations, and gatherings during the past three months, across various Syrian areas.

“People usually look at the ‘Greater Israel’ project from the perspective of geographic expansion—through building settlements on Palestinian land, and through Israel’s current efforts to expand its borders in Lebanon and Syria. But the core of the issue is about total control over the region—not only geographically, but also through expanding the dominance of its hard power. It seeks to create a situation in which it is surrounded by states that are either collapsed or in a state of chaos and heading toward division and fragmentation, such that they cannot pose any obstacle to Israel’s hard power. This is a geopolitical strategy for Israel. What Israel wants from dragging the US into war with Iran is not merely the dream of regime change in Iran; rather, it seeks the comprehensive collapse of the regime and the state. Someone might say that what Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are facing is an unfortunate and unintended byproduct of such a war. That is completely wrong—it is calculated in advance and intentional by Israel, because part of the objective is to weaken the Gulf states and to show America as incapable of defending them, thereby pushing them to align with Israel’s project, which seeks to become not only a dominant regional power but also a global one, as Netanyahu has explicitly stated”.

The protest, which all the forces of the old past and its ghosts—both abroad and at home—tried to exploit and divert from its demands on the one hand, or intimidate and frighten on the other, has succeeded in overcoming all these obstacles, marking a turning point in modern Syrian history.

Recent weeks have revealed a gradual rise in socioeconomic protest movements carried out by Syrians across various parts of the country and in many economic sectors: from teachers to taxi drivers and street vendors, as well as the struggles of residents of the Jobar and Qaboun neighborhoods to preserve their rights and property. These also include protests against increased taxation rates, rising service prices, and the lifting of subsidies—especially for electricity and telecommunications—along with threats of privatizing the healthcare sector, and the grievances of dismissed employees or those still working but facing wage deductions or repeated delays in receiving their salaries.