SPEAKING
FREELY Syria and the end of
populism By Ahmed E Souaiaia
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
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The Arab Spring has
provided scholars and analysts with a laboratory
to observe radical social change.
Tunisia
and Egypt taught us about non-violent resistance
and the power of the people to overcome regime
repression. In Libya, we saw how tribal, regional,
national, and international actors whose interests
intersected to create allies out of discordant
ideological and religious entities.
The
Yemen uprising revealed the limitation of popular
will in the
face of regional and
international apathy. In Syria, one could argue
that national and international actors prematurely
started an uprising to dislodge a regime that
failed to conform to Western dictates.
Importantly, one must ask why President Bashar
al-Assad remains popular despite his suppression
of dissent, a topic rarely discussed in Western
media.Though the Syrian uprising is ongoing, we
can learn as much from it as we can from the
experiences of other Arab Spring countries.
The path of the uprising in Syria is
undoubtedly different from that of the uprisings
that took place in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and
Libya. But its causes are not necessarily
different. Before the March 2011 Syrian uprising,
Assad predicted that Syria would be immune to the
Arab Spring because his regime's policies were
popular among the Arab masses. He was partly
right. However, he overestimated his political
capital with the Syrians and underestimated the
fundamental similarity his regime shares with
other Arab regimes: a single clan's monopoly on
power.
Arguably, Assad's alignment with
popular Arab causes has bought him some goodwill.
But such goodwill is exhaustible especially in the
face of the similarities he shares with the rest
of the Arab regimes: Assad's family, like that of
Tunisia's Ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Yemen's
Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi,
has ruled the country far too long. The Arab
people are tired of leaders who monopolize
political and economic power. The Arab Spring,
therefore, seems to be about ending perpetual
rule, not about rewarding populism or benevolent
leadership. Ending perpetual rule, in my
estimation, is the cause of the initial Syrian
uprising and the key to resolving the conflict.
It is true that regional and global powers
are partly to blame for the current militarized
conflict in Syria. But it is also true that
Assad's failure to share power deprived him of
support that could have helped him withstand
foreign meddling. He can rightly claim that
foreign countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and
Turkey are overtly interested in toppling his
regime, but he cannot deny that he and his family
have ruled Syria the same way other Arab dictators
have ruled their countries - for decades. Without
admitting this fact, the bloodshed will go on and
regional players will continue to gamble with the
blood of the Syrian people.
Assad could
save Syrian lives, end the displacement of
hundreds of thousands of civilians, and safeguard
state institutions by resigning and transferring
power to a transitional government. That
government must then usher in an era of shared
governance beyond clannish, ethnic, and religious
interests and control. Simply put, Assad is not
the only person who could govern Syria. Surely,
there are many other qualified Syrians who could
lead their country out of this crisis. To insist
that one person and only one person could save
Syria from terrorists and foreign enemies is to
confirm the authoritarian character of the regime.
Assad and the armed militias are
responsible for much death and destruction.
Neither of them could govern and heal the country.
If Assad retains power, extremists will continue
to fight. If armed groups violently take over
governmental institutions, civil war will ensue.
The quickest path to stability is through a
solution that safeguards state institutions. With
so much blood and destruction, no leader can
afford to be stubborn: nearly 20,000 dead, more
than 500,000 refugees, and a wrecked economy
should be enough to force any responsible leader
to step down. In fact, Assad's resignation could
restore hope for Syria, and isolate extremists and
foreign opportunists at the same time.
By
contrast, the military solution legitimizes
violence and creates space for extremism. Armed
militias hijacked the peaceful uprising. They
claimed that military resistance was needed to
protect civilians. Instead, they risked civilian
lives and property. They entered neighborhood
after neighborhood, town after town, and then
withdrew under fire in what they call "tactical
retreat". Behind them, they leave civilians to the
mercy of government troops and their affiliated
gangs. Even in cases when regime forces make no
reprisals, frightened residents are left to live
in terror or are forced to pack and leave their
homes. These scenarios alone speak to the virtues
of civil resistance, not militarized
confrontation.
The eventual fall or
resignation of Assad should send a strong message
to other Arab authoritarians who think that their
financial generosity, cosmetic reform, populism,
or religious standing could confer on them a right
to perpetual reign. It is evident that a people's
dignity rests on the idea that all citizens are
born with the inherent right to participate in
public life in meaningful and significant ways.
That dignity necessarily includes the right to
live without fear, and to run for political office
or endorse their peers for positions of power. The
era of passive consent to perpetual governance
premised on a thin veneer of populism is over.
Ahmed E Souaiaia teaches at the
University of Iowa.
Speaking Freely
is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
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