Belgravia Dispatch - Iraq: Ripple Effects in Northeastern Syria
People often mock Dubya's "freedom is on the march" locutions. True, they often do ring quite hollow given the immense complexities we face in Iraq and democracy roll-backs in soi disant GWOT allied countries like Uzbekistan and Russia. That said, his statements can't simply be dismissed out of hand completely . Check out this NYT dispatch from northeastern Syria re: one example of democratic stirrings caused by our involvement in Iraq.
The Iraqi election next month may be evoking skepticism in much of the world, but here in northeastern Syria, home to concentrations of several ethnic minorities, it is evoking a kind of earnest hope.
"I believe democracy in Iraq must succeed," Vahan Kirakos, a Syrian of Armenian ethnicity, said recently. "Iraq is like the stone thrown into the pool."
Though Syria's Constitution grants equal opportunity to all ethnic and religious groups in this very diverse country, minority activists say their rights are far from equal. They may not form legal political parties or publish newspapers in minority languages. More than 150,000 members of Syria's largest minority, the Kurds, are denied citizenship.
Minority issues remain one of the infamous "red lines," the litany of forbidden topics that Syrians have long avoided mentioning in public.
But in the year and a half since Saddam Hussein was removed from power in Iraq, that has begun to change, with minority activists beginning to speak openly of their hopes that a ripple effect from next door may bring changes at home.
And here in Syria's far northeastern province of Hasakah, which borders Turkey and Iraq, there are signs of a new restlessness...
...In late October, more than 2,000 Assyrian Christians in the provincial capital, Hasakah City, held a demonstration calling for equal treatment by the local police. The demonstration, which Hasakah residents say was the first time Assyrians in Syria held a public protest, followed an episode in which two Christians were killed by Muslims who called them "Bush supporters," and "Christian dogs."
Nimrod Sulayman, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party's central committee, said Hasakah's proximity to Iraq and demographic diversity meant that residents of the province were watching events in Iraq and taking inspiration from the freedoms being introduced there.
"This Assyrian protest in Hasakah was caused by a personal dispute, but the way the people wanted their problem solved was a result of the Iraqi impact," Mr. Sulayman said. "They see that demonstrating is a civilized way to express a position."
"Since the war in Iraq, this complex of fear has been broken, and we feel greater freedom to express ourselves," he added.
There are cautionary notes, however:
Bachir Isaac Saadi, the chairman of the political bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that throughout Syria, anger over the American presence in Iraq had set off a sharp rise in Islamist sentiment, which was creating difficulties for Syria's Christian minority.
"Christians in Syria aren't afraid of the government any longer," Mr. Saadi said. "They're afraid of their neighbors."
I've also heard first-hand reports that mosque attendance, in the face of wide-spread feelings of Arab "humiliation," is up significantly in parts of Syria.
Still, if policies are put in place that ease such democratization along, rather than brutishly force it down people's throats (risking nationalistic and/or Islamic backlashes in the process), it is possible to see (particularly in conjunction with an Arab-Israeli peace) the beginnings of a New Middle East ten or so years hence. Rosy Shimon Peres-like dreamy talk? Yes, to a fashion. But at least something is happening in the region to stir movement--and the catalyst is Iraq, of course. What Richard Haas has called the U.S.' "democracy exception" policy in the Middle East, where we seemed content to allow autocrats to stay in power while we fought harder for democratization in places like Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America during the Cold War, while not necessarily having come to an end--is certainly undergoing reappraisal forced on, not only by events in Iraq, but also by more modest policy initiatives stemming from the watered-down Broader Middle East/N. Africa Partnership. And, if we believe democratic reform, economic liberalization, and a solution to regional conflicts can bring about peace and prosperty in this so critical region--well, isn't it nice to see an Administration really grappling with these issues rather than just status quo'ing along? Of course, it's a matter of degrees. Iraq, for reasons I have extensively detailed, was a worthy candidate for regime change. Marching into Iran, say, or Syria--would be a massive blunder that would lead too many in the region to think we were simply looking to occupy the entire Middle Eastern land mass. But strongly encouraging reformist agendas, ones calibrated so as to avoid nationalistic and/or religious backlashes, in conjuction with progress in Iraq, economic liberalization, the Palestine issue--all could lead us to a happier place than where we sit today.
After all, isn't it a happy event that this man simply hasn't been arrested or worse?
Mr. Kirakos, the Armenian activist, has even begun a bid for Syria's presidency, an astoundingly brazen gesture in a country where the Assad family has ruled unchallenged for more than 30 years.
The Christian Mr. Kirakos's presidential run - which he announced in September on Elaph.com, a pro-democracy Web site - is illegal, as Syria's Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Muslim. But though he lost his engineering job as a result of his activism and his family has received uncomfortable phone calls from the secret police, Mr. Kirakos is unfazed.
"I carry a Syrian citizenship which is not equal to Ahmed's citizenship," he said, using the common Muslim name as shorthand for Syria's Sunni majority. "It is the Syrian Constitution that must change. We should be writing a constitution that guarantees equal rights for everyone.
Talk of equal citizenship and changing consitutions. This isn't Hafez al-Asad's Syria, is it? |
