Syria, or the evil you can ignore

Over Easter, I had the strange experience of travelling to Syria to visit my sister, who was evacuated a week after I left due to the civil unrest sweeping across the country.
It was an odd feeling, really. In most places it was just business as usual – but all that changed on a Friday. ‘For the love of God, don’t get caught up in central Damascus on a Friday,’ my sister’s boss warned us.

Also, the cities of Latakia, Deraa, Homs and Hama were strictly forbidden, no matter what day of the week it was. Actually, we spent an hour in Homs when we were transferring trains, and the cab driver explicitly told us not to talk to anyone except for the man behind the counter.
Popping outside for a breath of fresh air, the town was virtually empty at five in the evening – every shop and every souk had closed up early and there was a sombre hush in between the sparsely scattered cars rumbling down the main road. When there isn’t a demonstration with live ammunition going off, a town can seem ghostly.

Syria’s heavily-policed, phony-democratic brand of socialism is a great deal more than perturbing. Assad’s smug face watches you as you enter a restaurant, stroll round the souks and even drive down a motorway. Speaking to the locals about their political situation has an even more grim and ominous tone to it.

{{ quote Assad’s smug face watches you as you enter a restaurant, stroll round the souks and even drive down a motorway}}

‘Why are there so many pictures of him?’ I asked the cabbie when we left the airport. ‘It’s election season,’ he replied. ‘Where are the other candidates?’ I said. ‘He’s the only one.’ The scary thing is I don’t think that he even registered his own irony.

Syria’s history over the past few decades has certainly been interesting. In 1970, the minister for defence Hafez al-Assad forced his way into power in what was called “The Corrective Movement”, creating a government that was purely ‘democratic’, if a bit on the authoritarian side of things. Remarkably, al-Assad stayed in office until he perished in 2000 and his son, Bashar, took over the wheel.

In the transition, Syria saw a great relaxation of the strict enforcements previously carried out by Hafez. Political prisoners were released and Bashar looked like the man that was to calm the country down and transform it into a freer, more friendlier society.

Needless to say that, whilst political prisoners were released temporarily, who was going to stop them being put back in prison again a few years later? The government stayed more or less the same as it always was. I’d like to follow that sentence up with “until now”, but I somehow think that would be misleading.

The sad thing is that it’s highly unlikely that the rebel uprising will work. Over 500 people have been killed now – the Deraa province has been sectioned off, leaving the people almost starving to death. Pro-Assad militants are just opening fire to anyone they see and although the rebels say that this only inspires the people even more, the sheer fact is that the people don’t have tanks and weapons.

{{ quote The government stayed more or less the same as it always was. I’d like to follow that sentence up with ‘until now’, but I somehow think that would be misleading }}

This is no Libya. Aid from other countries is not a likely possibility, with China and Russia continuously vetoing any plans of action. The success of the Libyan rebels is largely due to Western interference, and for Syria, to interfere is the last thing people want to do.
And what with the death of Osama, Kate’s pretty dress, Libya going to smoke and one of the biggest earthquakes since records began, we’re all a bit spoilt for news.

I’m not trying to sound too grim, but the point is that Syria isn’t exactly the first priority on people’s minds right now – whether it’s the general public or the leaders of the Western world.

With such momentous events happening all over the globe, it is probably the most easily-ignored struggle for freedom we have ever chosen not to see.

Still lingering in my mind is the busy border-crossing that I went through to get to Jordan. Coach after coach after coach of nervous-looking families were waiting to get out, passports at the ready in a huge plastic bag. On the other side, there was practically nothing except a few
lorries.

Maybe this is true of all immigration offices, but the stifling number of people lent an eerie nervousness to my exit.

It was obvious why such a massive crowd of families was leaving, and, now that I come to think about it, I’m sure they have their own reasons for ignoring Syria as well.