| |
Syria: Odd man out in a tough
neighbourhood
By Iason Athanasiadis
DAMASCUS - The capital is no longer an Assad
theme park. The visitor is no longer greeted at the
airport with a sign declaring "WELCOME TO ASSAD'S
SYRIA". Where once 10-storey banners bearing the
likeness of Hafez al-Assad draped entire buildings there
are now gaudy ads for local or imported chocolate,
mobile phones and other consumer products.
A
European TV crew on shoot in Syria spent the better part
of a day driving through Damascus last week, on the
lookout for the monumental portraits of the former
Syrian president that had once occupied prize positions
in collections of dictator paraphernalia. Frustrated,
the camera-crew ended up with paltry shots of
conventional portraits hoisted up on government
buildings. Businesses, cars and lampposts are no longer
adorned with the cult of the raiss (president).
Today, another Assad is in charge - Bashar
al-Assad, the son of the former president. A political
neophyte, Bashar was studying opthalmiatry in London
when he was suddenly recalled to Damascus and put
through a crash course in presidential politics. He
officially assumed power in September 2000, aged just 34
years old. An enigmatic figure who gives few press
interviews, Bashar made a series of apparently
contradictory moves which confounded observers and
proved that the clique of senior advisers he inherited
from his father were digging in and protecting their
vested interests.
Bashar issued a license for
Syria's first satirical paper, threw himself behind
economic reform and appeared tolerant to moderate
criticism of his government. But just months after
appearing to sanction the mushrooming of democracy
debates in private houses, a series of arrests brought
an end to the "Damascus Spring". After the formation of
a new government and a series of sackings of corrupt
officials, inertia set in on the economic front. Despite
brisk cross-border trade with Iraq in oil and goods,
efforts made to tackle the bloated public sector or
corruption in government were frail.
If Hafez
al-Assad gave Syria 30 years of istiqrar
(stability), then his son is trying to contribute
economic, then political reform. Bashar's first order
that his father's ubiquitous posters be taken down
betrayed excessive zeal. The attempt to reverse 30 years
of personality cult and foster independent thinking in
his citizens was a faux pas in a country grown
used to living under the president's patriarchal gaze.
But three years after assuming power, a Damascus
city-scene denuded of presidential memorabilia is
evidence that Bashar's softly-softly approach worked.
Three years after his coming to power, Syrians
enjoy marginally higher salaries, foreign products cram
shop windows and private banks are about to start
functioning. Instead of decrepit American cars dating
from the 1950s and a surfeit of soldiers and policemen
drifting through central Damascus, today's city is sunk
in gridlock as new cars scrape fenders on the congested
roads. In the evenings, many of the old city's Ottoman
houses - converted to restaurants and coffee-shops -
open their doors to friends and lovers as a newfound
liberalism unfolds in the cobbled lanes. As one
suq regular remarked, "Syrian girls have been
watching Lebanese satellite TV [considered racy by Arab
world standards] and it's starting to tell in their
appearances."
Syrian girls are not the only
thing on the mend. With a new government formed in
September, boasting fewer Baathists than any other
post-Assad government, bank reform under way, and
Damascus making it clear it wants to sign a key trade
agreement with the European Union, the economy seems set
to improve. Jihad Yazigi, an economist who publishes the
independent monthly The Syria Report from Paris,
believes that "Syria has many advantages: low debt; a
lot of resources; it is very competitive price-wise in
all of the primary (agriculture, mining), secondary
(industries) and tertiary (services) sectors. These are
very rare features in developing countries. Its tourism
is widely under-developed, it still has to benefit from
its strategic geographic position and the same can be
said of its expatriates."
But on Monday, one day
after Israeli jets bombed an area outside the Syrian
capital, several frightened Damascenes woke up to the
sound of cannons thundering over Damascus. The tense
city soon remembered that instead of facing a renewed
Israeli threat, the cannons were ceremonial, fired in
commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the October War
fought by Syria and Egypt against Israel.
Even
before Sunday's strikes on an alleged base for Islamic
Jihad ended 30 years of cross-border calm with Israel,
Washington had been pushing hard to isolate Damascus.
The US occupation of Iraq doubled the borders Syria
shares with hostile countries and is forcing Syria to
adapt to life in a changed neighborhood. Frozen
relations with Turkey and Jordan and the occupation of
Lebanon by Syrian troops complete the picture of Syria's
diplomatic isolation.
Bashar's reaction has been
to give Washington the kind of intelligence-sharing that
would have been the preserve of Syria's former Soviet
ally in the past. On top of that, the Syrian government
is distancing itself from some of the controversial
Palestinian groups it hosts and which Israel claims
orchestrate suicide bombings. But crucially, the Syrian
government did not renounce Hezbullah, the Lebanese
militia group that spearheaded Lebanese opposition to
Israeli occupation of the southern part of the country
until June 2000 and whose chief sponsors are Syria and
Iran. Additionally, Israeli and US accusations that
Syria allowed Arab mujahideen and weapons to percolate
through its borders into Iraq, mainly through
influential middleman Firas Tlass, son of the Syrian
defense minister, make Syrian claims of impartiality
appear doubtful.
One unintended side-effect of
the recent Israeli and US pressure on Damascus has been
to radicalize figures heretofore considered to be
moderates. "After insisting that America be the main
moderator in Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations, [Foreign
Minister Farouq] Sharaa has given up and adopted a more
hardline position," a Syrian journalist told Asia Times
Online. Indeed, the urbane minister had a recent
outburst during which he described the Bush
administration as surpassing all others in "foolishness
and proneness to violence" and accusing its hawks of
wanting "the sword to remain over Syria's head".
The sword might well take the form of the Syria
Accountability Act (SAA), a piece of legislation that
has been a top priority for pro-Israel groups for the
past two years. The legislation would ban military and
dual-use technology exports to Syria and impose
sanctions such as banning US investment , downgrading US
diplomatic representation, imposing travel restrictions
on Syrian diplomats, prohibiting Syrian commercial
airliners from travelling to the US, and freezing Syrian
assets.
With the bill expected to pass Congress
with an overwhelming majority next week, the outlook for
Syria remains bleak. "The SAA is an additional card in
the hand of Israel's friends in the US, a stick which
can be used to block all development in the relations
between the two countries," opines Yazigi. "Should the
SAA pass, it will mark an additional hurdle in Syria's
relations with the US, which must improve if Syria wants
to manage successfully its regional and domestic
agendas: a peace agreement with Israel, its presence in
Lebanon, economic and political relations with Iraq and
the continuity of the current political regime." "It
will end the dialogue between the US and Syria, a
dialogue that Syria wanted very much," Murhaf Jouejati,
a Syrian scholar at the Middle East Institute told the
Washington Post. The message it will send Arabs is that,
despite cooperating with the US on the war against
terrorism, it was punished. "No matter what Arabs do,
the United States will stick to its bedrock support for
Israel," said Jouejati.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
