Following the uprisings that started in Tunis and spread to Egypt, Libya and Yemen, freedom became a possibility in Syria after decades of opression. Its first manifestations were the sit-ins organized in solidarity with their Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan and Yemeni neighbors. Questions like "What about us?", "Will the unthinkable happen here?" started to arise.
The young protesters gathering in front of the embassies were not aware at the time that they were the first wave of a historic struggle in a land eagerly awaiting freedom. For 50 years, tyranny suffocated all forms of civil society and freedom of expression in the country, to the extent that even dreaming of change became impossible. Then, the unthinkable happened in Syria in a way that dazzled the world, in spite of all the violence and destruction. Two years later, the Syrian uprising continues, in a strong momentum between militarization and civil activism. The countless events prepared in celebration of the second anniversary are an assertion that the struggle continues and that the Syrian people will not stop until they manage to turn the Assad page for the Syrian impossible to be born.
How did the story begin? How did it develop? How will it end? How can we tell the story of the Syrian struggle? For every day and for every Syrian there is a story. For every party, organization, girl and boy, fighter and bully, there is a story that is difficult to reduce to a few lines. How can we tell the story of the two years of the Syrian impossible, while Syrians continue to break another impossible every minute?
Even though these questions are difficult to answer, and even more difficult to write about, the story has to be told with its different angles, with its details, pain, and happiness involved. We hope there will be more room in the future to tell the story from all the neglected sides. Our aim is to search for all these stories so that they will not be forgotten.
The Tremors and how it all started
The Syrian uprising, like the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, is a product of years of the region boiling beneath the surface. The Damascus Spring (2000), Al-Qamishli riots (2004) and the Damascus Declaration (2007) were previous attempts to challenge dictatorship. Like a bottle of wine aging in the dark, the efforts supported by human rights defenders in Assad´s prisons awaited its peak, which came after the beginning of the Arab Spring in Tunisia. The Syrian youth challenged the authorities by protesting in front of the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan embassies, chanting the slogan “A traitor is that who kills his own people”. This slogan was the first warning to the Syrian regime, which did not learn from its neighbors. The interview Bashar Al Assad gave to the Wall Street Journal on January 31st had a negative effect on the eager for change Syrian public. It increased their rage and their persistence to pressure for change. The interview encouraged renowned political activist Suhair Atassi to join a sit-in with a group of young people in Bab Tuma Square holding candles in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution. She was assaulted by the police, together with other activists such as writer AbdelNasser Al Ayed, who was detained for two days
Meanwhile, calls to protest against the regime on 5 February spread through several facebook pages. Since the organization was not clear and the wall of fear had not yet been broken the demonstration did not succeed. It was postponed until 16 February, when a number of Syrians protested in the famous Harika market in Damascus. When a policeman, trying to silence the protest, insulted a shopkeeper, the slogan "the Syrian people won't give in" was chanted for the first time, which lead the Minister of the Interior to address the crowd saying “Shame on you! This is a demonstration!", highlighting the long-standing tradition of oppression by pointing at a demonstration as an illegal and shameful act. Activists and intellectuals responded with sarcastic and mocking banners and placards: these were the first seeds of freedom.
These seeds were collected by the Children of Daraa on February 26, when they wrote the following slogan on their school walls: “The people want to overthrow the regime”. Inspired by what they had seen on TV and heard around them, they were the palpable evidence that something had already changed in Syria. The children, ages between 8 and 12, were arrested by regime forces, insulted by the Political Security Chief of Daraa Atef Najib and its governor Faisal Kalthoum, and tortured. These arrests lead to an increase in popular anger: a Facebook group entitled “Isn’t it time for Damascus rose to florish ?” was created to call for a massive protest on March 15, from the Umayyad Mosque to the Hamidiyah and Hariqa markets, opening a new page in the history of Syria. On March 16, protests took place in front of the Ministry of Interior in Marjeh square, in solidarity with the children of Daraa and all prisoners of conscience. The crackdown against protesters was brutal . Philosopher Al Tayeb Tizini was beaten and several torture cases were reported: lawyer Sirine el Khoury , former prisoner Nahed Badawie, poet Nart Abdel Karim [ar] and many others.
The Friday of Dignity was the first massive reaction to the crackdown against protesters. It was the first Friday of the revolution. Four demonstrators were shot by regime forces that day. It is believed that protester Mahmoud Al Jawabra was the first martyr of the Syrian uprising. A number of activists, poet Mahamad Dibo and blogger Ahmad Hadifa among them, were arrested that day.
Video of protest facing the Ministry of Interior in Damascus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv5t2EEKrdI
The deep-rootedness of the revolution
The following protests in Daraa were met with unprecedented brutality. The increasing number of victims ignited solidarity throughtout the country. Rif Hauran, Douma, the outskirts of Damascus, Homs and other towns and villages joined Daraa, which had already been named "the cradle of the revolution". By the time the Friday of Glory (25/03/2011) and the Friday of Martyrs (01/04/2011) were clebrated, Homs was already "the capital of the revolution". Demonstrations continue to spread to Banias, Homs, Al-Salamiyah, Al Sanamayn, Al Tall, Amuda , Kafr Sousa, Latakia. The regime responded to peaceful protests with more violence, leading to more demonstrations being held during the martyrs´ funerals. The snowball effect continued and the reforms announced by Assad political adviser Bouthaina Shaaban did little to appease the people´s demands. Assad´s March 30 speech, in which he described demonstrators as part of an international conspiracy against Syria, increased the population´s uneasiness and distrust. This provokation was met with episodes of violence like burning the Daraa Palace of Justice.
By April 18, the number of protesters had reached 100.000 during daytime, including massive female participation. The authorities then opened fire on the crowd killing some of them, transforming the town into another Daraa. Demonstrations in solidarity with Homs spread to other cities and districts like Qabun, Maadamiyah, Qimaria, Midan, Darayya, Kafr Sousa... Intellectuals like May Skaff joined the protests, presented their condolences to the relatives of the deceased, composed songs to honor the protests (Samih Choucair sang Ya Heif Ya Heif (Shame, Shame) ) which quickly became viral as one of the anthems of the Syrian revolution. It was at that time when other popular slogans such as “May your soul be cursed, Hafez” or “Freedom, Forever ... this is the country demands" arised.
Jisr Al Shughur: a decisive stage. Violence and army defections
Due to the violence inflicted by the regime, Syrians went from calling for freedom and reforms to demanding the fall of the regime. "The people want to overthrow the regime" gradually became the most repeated slogan throughout the country, as the uprising reached Idlib, Jisr al Shughur and the city of Hama, of symbolic importance for having been the first city to rise against the dictatorship during the 1980s. Like in the 80s, Hama protesters met in Al Assi Square in June 2011, and just like back then they were met with violence and savagery by the regime, which reopened old wounds and woke up the popular anger that had boiled under the surface for decades.
Since the security apparatus proved incapable to stop the protests, the regime increased its armed repression. Snipers and soldiers were deployed, barricades and checkpoints were set up to stop protesters from gathering. This strategy backfired on the regime, which witnessed many defections from the official army during that period. After first lieutenant Abdul Razzak Tlass announced his defection, many others followed. On June 28, Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Harmoush and a group of army officers constituted the “Free Officers Movement” and announced their will to protect demonstrators from the regime´s violence. On July 29, the Movement became the Free Syrian Army , headed by Colonel Riad al-Assaad. This was the first step towards the militarization of the uprising.
Hussein Harmoush showing his military ID in a refugee camp in the Turkish town of Guvecci:
The peaceful uprising continues... despite the crackdown
The regime´s crackdown against protesters resulted on the one hand in a dramatic increase of the death toll. On the other hand, it pushed an increasing number of soldiers to defection, which resulted into a larger Free Syrian Army (FSA), which constituted legitimate resistance against the crackdown against unarmed civilians. An agreement was signed by the FSAy and the Syrian National Council, which played a crucial role by providing a political cover to the armed resistance. While some consider that this step harmed the revolution by pushing it towards militarization, for others it is a natural development given the brutality of the Syrian regime forces and security apparatus. Assad responded by bombing neighborhoods and districts with a large presence of armed rebels with tanks and warplanes, perpetrating massacre after massacre: Karm el Zeitoun was the first bloodbath to gain international attention, but it was certainly not the first one. Before that, a massacre took place in Al Sanamayn on March 25, and another one in Izraa in April 22, receiving virtually no media coverage. Karm el Zeitoun marked a new period in the Syrian uprising, one which witnessed increasing violence and brutality against civilians. On February 3, the regime forces bombed Al Khalidiya, Bab al Dreib and other Homs districts. On February 27, the infamous Baba Amr massacre was carried out, in the aftermath of which Assad visited the area. The list continued to grow: Al Rastan in March 2, Jobar in March 9, Karm el Zeitoun again in March 12, Deir Baalba in April 27, Houla in May 25 [ar], Al Kobeir in June 7, and Darayya in August 26. This report aims to shed light on those events.
Al Arabiya reports on the massacres in Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-ETI8BPyw
During the first months of 2012 militarization continued to gain ground. It is during this period that we witnessed the birth of Al Nusra front , a group affiliated to Al Quaeda which issued its first statement on January 24, 2012, opening the door for unprecedented violence in Syria. However, peaceful resistance did not stop. The Strike of Dignity took place on December 11 and continued through the end of the month. The Syrian Rebel Youth continued with its civil disobedience tactics in the Damascus Rukn al-Din district; Nabd group, April 17, Freedom Days and other movements continuted to emerge and encouraged people to take part in the revolution. “We are a moral alternative” and the “Birth of Freedom” are some of the campaigns that marked this period.
