No Revolution by Remote Control

Through My Eyes:
By a Syrian Human Rights Activist

Damascus, February 8, 2011

This is a call for hope, don’t get me wrong. What is happening in the region gives us a long needed rush of optimism to stand up and tell the world, but first of all ourselves, that we too deserve a life and that we, like others on this planet, have dignity, long for freedom and hate the walls of oppression surrounding us.

That is what the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions have done for us so far. They told us in our native Arabic tongue that we were not just dreamers, and that what many of us thought impossible has been achieved – or almost achieved – in two countries in our region affected for decades by tyranny.

At the same time, a close look at the Tunisian and Egyptian experiences tells us that change is not a virus that simply spreads across borders and infects one country after the other.

Each Arab regime is different; their internal structures, allies, interests, and also to what extent their state and civil society structures have been destroyed by dictatorship. How does the regime deal with its citizens, how severe is the suppression and how significant the willingness to let blood flow? All these factors play a major role in the moment when change might arise.

This is precisely why many Syrians resented the calls for a Syrian Day of Wrath.

Short-sighted calls for protest from abroad

These calls were very short-sighted and disregarded important facts on the ground here. Not a single opposition group based inside the country supported these calls.

That is not surprising, given their presence within Syria, which enabled them to assess the situation and whether or not it was possible to call for a popular movement in the country.

In fact, all pages calling for a Day of Wrath in Syria on Facebook, and invitations sent via text messages to Syrians, were sent from exiled Syrian opposition parties and Syrians living abroad.

These groups and people often do not realise that their efforts may have a negative effect on the opposition movement, the forces for change inside Syria and for the discourse about freedom in general.

The risk of losing credibility is high

They are using the same modern means of communication that contributed to igniting revolutions in countries nearby – but in an absurd and ill-advised way which over time might lead to a loss of trust in these tools. To use these communication and social media tools at the wrong moment or in an irresponsible way will make it more difficult for the dissidents inside Syria to rely on these same tools, and it might also affect the trust people have in the opposition forces in general.

Different Western media showed great interest in those calls, and many foreign journalists came to Syria to cover the Day of Rage, only to be surprised by the complete silence, leading them to the (wrong) conclusion that there are no significant forces for change in Syria.

By creating expectations that could not be met, the exiled opposition dealt a big blow to the Syrian democratic movement, simply by ignoring the reality on the ground.

The opposition, intellectuals and activists inside the country may also carry part of the responsibility, because they kept silent and did not distance themselves from those calls.

We all know that the open space of the internet cannot be controlled, but nor should it be filled with contradictory calls and war rhetoric. In the end, those who live outside Syria should be morally and politically responsible enough not to push people inside Syria to make their revolution – while they themselves are safely sitting overseas.

Syria is different

Some say that the situation in Syria is much worse than in Egypt and Tunisia and conclude that therefore the country must be even riper for a revolution.

On the contrary: this is the major reason why the Syrian people will not rush into any revolutionary action, not now nor in the near future. The level of oppression that Syrians have experienced and are experiencing up to today is unlike what has been witnessed by any Arab people, perhaps with the exception of Iraq.

Margins of freedom that might be available in other countries are not available to the Syrians. And most of the other peoples in the region don’t have an early history written in blood where an entire city was flattened by tanks and shelling, as was the case in Syria’s Hama in February 1982.

Other countries don’t have regimes that play the sectarian card to secure their rulership, and there is no other Arab regime that in order to maintain itself, so expertly plays regional politics. The Syrian regime has succeeded in intertwining itself into international and regional affairs so tightly that it makes any efforts for change extremely complicated and complex.

Nobody knows when the anger of the Syrians will explode – but it will

This does not mean that the Syrians will remain silent forever.  But it is not possible to predict the moment when the anger of the Syrians will explode and how it will happen. It might be totally different from what we witnessed in Egypt and Tunisia.

Anyone who hopes for change in Syria needs to acknowledge the suffering of the Syrian people and also understand their complex realities. It’s not in any way useful to rush people from overseas to carry out a revolution that could turn into a tragic joke and might tarnish any serious future calls for mobilisation that might emerge from inside Syria.

Syrians, or at least substantial part of them, are very angry and sad about the situation in their country, at all levels. But just as they are tired of being forced to participate in rallies to support the system, they will soon be bored of invitations to false days of anger.

When the Syrians move out into the street, it will be their decision alone, and their moment alone. The revolution will not be managed by remote control from overseas.