Syria’s Second Revolution
So silent for so long on Syria, the international community has finally been jolted out of its slumber. “Let them kill each other. It’s so far away and nothing to do with us.” The wake-up call came in the form of the Paris bombings of Friday 13 November and the massive media focus on their aftermath.
Now that the dangers of allowing ISIS to thrive in the vacuum of Syria’s chaos have finally exploded in Europe, the nature of the conflict has changed in most people’s minds. Suddenly Syria looks different. In reality nothing has changed at all in Syria’s tragic crisis. Simply our perception of it has changed.
Syria’s first revolution which, lest we forget, began with peaceful demonstrations in March 2011, was hijacked long ago by extremists masquerading as Muslims -ISIS moved into the Syrian provincial capital of Raqqa as long ago as spring 2013, but no one paid attention (except Father Paolo, who paid the price https://dianadarke.com/tag/father-paolo-dalloglio/). Like a germ left undisturbed in the perfect environment, ISIS multiplied exponentially.
Coming hot on the heels of the largely ignored 12 November Beirut bombings and the much publicised 31 October Rusian plane crash in Sinai, the 13 November Paris bombings were cleverly timed to be a day before the 14 November Vienna international talks on Syria and the 15 November G20 talks in Turkey’s Antalya.
ISIS planners wanted maximum world attention and they succeeded. The 33-year old US/Syrian ISIS Head of Media is not paid a fortune for nothing.
ISIS prepares for staged beheadings in Palmyra’s theatre May 2015
So now what? All the signs are that the international community is ready to unite and take action, especially after confirmation that the Russian airliner was definitively downed by an ISIS bomb. The chief outside players in what the media insists so cruelly on calling Syria’s “civil war” (as if this war is the fault of the Syrian people) have been stoking this war in their own ways. Russia and Iran with their military and tactical support for the Assad regime are heavily involved on the ground inside the country, while Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have been feeding in weaponry to their preferred rebel groups but careful to do it from the sidelines, no actual boots on the ground. The US-led coalition of 60 countries has been dropping bombs on ISIS for over a year to little effect. Russia has been dropping bombs on opposition groups inside Syria, usually not ISIS, for the last six weeks, also with little effect.
Bashar al-Assad bigging himself up in the mirror (Ali Ferzat cartoon, 2010)
Everyone realises it is time for something new.
Momentum is building for Syria’s second revolution. A rare consensus is taking shape. It happened before with the surprisingly speedy UN deal to rid Syria of its Chemical Weapons, after Assad crossed Obama’s “red line” in August 2013. It could happen again:
“this time to rid the country of the growing extremist groups like ISIS. Maybe moderate elements from the rebels can find a common cause and unite against this greater extremist menace whose terrorist jihadi agenda threatens not just Syria’s future but the future of the entire international community…For such a second revolution to succeed, everyone must forget that the first began with peaceful protests, everyone must forgive regime troops for gunning down unarmed protesters. The diversity of Syria’s identity must be its strength, not its weakness.” [ref page 256 My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution, January 2015]
And that is the key. In Syria’s second revolution there must be unity among all Syrians. Even “the silent majority” and the “greys”must find their voice. Most Syrians living under ISIS are there by coercion, longing for their nightmare to end, praying for someone to set them free. There is still a sense of what it means to be Syrian. Partition, convenient though it may appear to outside governments looking for quick-fix solutions, would be a disaster, resulting in massive ethnic cleansing and waves of emigration on a scale Europe cannot imagine.
This time the international community must not abandon Syria, as it did during the first revolution. For all our sakes, Syria’s second revolution must succeed.
Aylan Kurdi drowned on a Turkish beach September 2015
Relevant articles:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-34840858
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34840943
dianadarke 
Dear Diana Darke,
I recently joined the Labour Party,as you will know members are now being asked by Jeremy Corbyn what our views are on Syria. I feel strongly that we should have supported the original demonstrations for more democracy in Syria…but now the situation is very confused I also believe Assad should go. If you were able to advise me on this I would be very grateful.
With Best Regards
Jackie Scoones
Dear Jackie
I understand your dilemma – like you I feel our lack of support for Syria’s moderate opposition to Assad in the early stages (ie from summer 2011 onwards, when the Free Syrian Army was asking for the international community to support them with a no-fly zone on the Turkish border) has led to huge numbers of those moderates either being killed or forced to join extremist groups in desperation. Remarkably though, there are still a surprising number of them fighting Assad, albeit in smaller, fractured groups, which shows that the anti-Assad revolution is still alive. Cameron’s figure of 70,000 is about right and does not include the Kurds. I feel we should do whatever we can to support these moderate groupings, whose vision is to maintain Syria’s multi-coloured fabric of society but without Assad. Realistically, the West will only support these groups if they first help us fight ISIS by being the fighters on the ground. The trouble is, they may not trust us to remove Assad once the fight with ISIS is over.
On balance, though as you say it is now far more complicated, I would probably support Britain joining the air strikes against ISIS, as long as there is a genuine effort alongside it to help the moderate opposition to unify and become a stronger force. If we don’t, then the moderates will get fewer and fewer and we really will only be left with the two extremes of ISIS and Assad – exactly what both ISIS and Assad want.