Diverse Inhabitants of Al-Jazeera Express Hope, Fears for Change
The Syrian region of Al-Jazeera is noted for its wide ethnic and religious diversity. This area, situated in the north-east of Syria and bordered by Turkey from the north and Iraq from the east, is home to Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Chechens, Armenians, Chaldo-Assyrians as well as Christians of other denominations.
The policies that the Baath regime has implemented in the past decades, however, have deeply undermined co-existence between these groups.
Sixty-year-old AJ recalls very clearly the period of co-existence that reigned over the region until the 1960s.
“Our area was diverse and contained Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Armenians, Assyrians and Chechens,” he said. “We played together on the [same] sports teams and we visited each other.” AJ lives in Ras Al-Ain, which was one of the most demographically diverse cities in Al-Jazeera.
“I remember that the Armenian church in the 1950s had a football team that gathered all the [ethnic] elements of our city,” he added.
MD, a 70-year-old Kurdish man, speaks of a similar experience.
“Initially, we lived in the countryside and our village had several Christian homes,” he said. “Nothing set us apart before the Baathists came to power. Tension started after the regime confiscated our lands, as well as the lands of some of the Christian farmers, and gave them to loyalist clans.”
He recalled the discrimination against Kurds, banned from raising their national flag and celebrating the Nowruz festival, in addition to being deprived of teaching their own language and having access to government employment.
FH, a young lawyer, comes from a family that arrived in the area relatively recently.
“The regime brought us into the region in the 1970s, after our lands in Al-Raqqa had been flooded as a result of building the Euphrates dam,” he said. “Following our arrival, we could feel tension between us and the inhabitants of the area. Our only fault is that we were [not] born here. We haven’t been able to adapt to living with the people of the region because of the policies that the various Syrian governments have followed. Therefore, and until this day, we still consider ourselves strangers to the area.”
AS, an Armenian who is involved in ecclesiastical work, said, “Al-Jazeera was full of Armenians. People in this area welcomed us after we fled the Ottoman massacres and we co-existed well with them. I remember that our Armenian ancestors built the first Armenian church and school in one of the areas of Al-Jazeera in 1932 with the help of Kurds and Arabs. We didn’t face any problems worth mentioning back then.”
The number of Armenians in the region has now dwindled because of the deterioration of the economic situation, leading some to move to other Syrian cities, such as Aleppo, or to leave the country.
Since the outbreak of the revolution last year, the regime has tried to win over several groups in Al-Jazeera to its side in order to prevent the revolution from spreading eastward. The edict that gave Syrian citizenship to thousands of Kurds is an example of that.
But despite these efforts, protests have reached Al-Jazeera, causing various responses on the part of the local population. The Kurds’ participation in the protest movement was influenced by the position taken by Kurdish parties; at the beginning, these parties showed some reluctance to endorse the demonstrations because they wanted reassurance from the Syrian opposition about the future.
After the convention of the Kurdish National Council, KNC, in November 2011 – which joined together most of the Kurdish groups as well as independent figures – there was an agreement to support the revolution.
As for Christians, there has been a noticeable participation on the part of independent figures as well as freedom defence associations and other organisations, such as the Assyrian Democratic Organisation, ADO, which is a member of the Damascus Declaration and the Syrian National Council.
The majority of Christians in Al-Jazeera, however, have been reluctant to participate in the protest movement as they feel threatened by Kurds and Islamic movements, in addition to the fact that the various Syrian churches have taken a more reserved position vis-à-vis the uprising.
Even though several Arab clans and figures have actively participated in the revolution, it is obvious that many other groups are not siding with the protesters. They fear losing the privileges they obtained during the last few decades through official posts in government and partisan establishments, as well as peasant organisations.
“The anxiety that the regime has instilled in us since its start pitted us against each other,” says SM, who belongs to an Arab clan in the region. “I am one of the people who believe in the revolution, but I have received a lot of threats from parts of my own and other Arab clans, as well as officials in the Baath party. Since day one, the regime has tried to win over all of the Arab clans to its side, and spread the view that the Kurds’ participation in the protests was aimed at seceding from Syria.”
The view from the Kurdish side was expressed by AM, who comes from Qameshli.
“Since the second week of the revolution in March [2011] we took to the streets and demonstrated in solidarity with Daraa and the other cities,” he said. “The Baathist regime has inflicted upon us the cruelest forms of injustice. Our uprising in March 2004 was met with brutality, but thanks be to God, today we are trying to show [our] Arab and Christian brethren that the revolution represents all of the Syrians and not only one single group of them. The proof is that we have participated [in the revolution] alongside some of the members of the Arab clans and the ADO.”
As for RJ, an Assyrian Christian, he said, “We, as Christians, are scared for our future after the fall of the regime because we don’t know what will happen to us. Will the Muslim fundamentalists and the Sunni street accept us, a Syrian minority? I see that the only solution is to sit at a [round] table because [dialogue] is the best way to reach stability in Syria.”
