Syria’s future is uncertain, but the organising is only getting started
Red Flag’s Omar Hassan, a longstanding supporter of the Syrian revolution and a Palestine solidarity activist, is in Syria to report on the situation after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship. This is the sixth in his series of reports, the complete list of which can be found in our Syria After Assad section.
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Entering Lebanon from Syria, the first noticeable shift is the greenery of the villages, mountains and plains. They contrast starkly with the largely bare central and southern parts of Syria, which have a sparse palette of ochres and greys—a testament to hard times.
It wasn’t always this way in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of trees were felled during the civil war, the wood used as winter fuel. A report by Dutch NGO PAX estimates that nearly 40 percent of Syria’s trees have been lost since the revolution began in 2011. In eastern Ghouta—the green belt around Damascus that includes Harasta, Douma and other sites of bitter fighting—the figure is around 80 percent. The same report also describes a pre-war Daraa possessing “lush riverbanks and parks”, which reads today like some sort of sick joke.
Returning to Lebanon is a shock to the political and physical senses. In the past, it’s been hard to stomach the country’s endemic poverty, governmental failures and perpetual exiling of its youth in search of better opportunities. All of that remains. But having spent so much time in the ruins of Assad’s Syria, Lebanon seems almost idyllic.
Lebanon has been through tough times, with the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah the cherry on top after years of economic and political crisis. Yet a new government has been elected, led by figures partially independent from the corrupt crony capitalism of the country’s traditional elites. Though the left remains sceptical that there will be much change, there is at least an opening to push.
While many Syrians are hopeful for their country’s future, the legacy of 54 years of totalitarian rule hangs over the place like a dark cloud. The drive back to Beirut from Damascus is a final reminder of the lingering bitterness. Each man sharing the car takes a turn explaining the crimes of the regime, the terrible losses of cousins, uncles and aunts, the kidnapping of friends by the security services.
“Nobody in the world has ever invented means of killing like Assad”, says our driver. “I mean, they created a press for human bodies! Rooms of acid, salt!” The mood is black, emotionally charged. No pill or cognitive-behavioural trick can mend these deep psychological scars. It will take time, social reconstruction on more humane lines, and more time.
Three of the four men also complain of their treatment at the hands of the Lebanese. “They looked down on us, as if we were dogs”, spits one. “I hope to god that one day they experience what we did, so we can show them how it feels to be abused in your time of need”, swears another. The younger man in the backseat next to me shoots a wry smile. He tells me later that he hasn’t found Lebanon so bad, having worked for the past eight years in a high-end French patisserie in downtown Beirut. But he’s heard many such stories and rightly sympathises with those who tell them.
I glean from this and other conversations that there is a clear class dynamic within the Syrian refugee community. Those who are educated—and who tend to be younger and wealthier—have built fairly happy lives in the relative freedom that Lebanon and Europe offer. But more blue-collar refugees and migrants have found the going much harder, typically shunned towards low-paid and exploitative industries like construction, cleaning and domestic labour.
A later interview with Omar, a Syrian refugee who has built a life for himself working in construction and landscaping in the sleepy village of Batloun, starts awkwardly. Knowing I’m Lebanese, he initially emphasises how thankful he is that the country has tolerated the presence of so many Syrians. “We’ve nearly doubled the population of your country”, he says. “I can understand why there is some hostility towards us.” This is only a small exaggeration: the Lebanese government estimated that, at one point, around 1.5 million Syrian refugees lived in this country of just over 5 million. (It puts Australia’s annual refugee intake of around 15,000 into perspective.)
When it becomes clear that I am sympathetic to the Syrian plight, Omar opens up. “The treatment we get here is very mixed. Many deal with us fairly, but others act as if we are an underclass ... Often, it is shaped by their political affiliations.” He cites an example of a Lebanese man pulling his daughter away from him as he entered a shop, as if he were a rabid dog. His agitation is obvious. “How can you teach a child to act that way to another human being?”, he asks. Omar goes on to explain that the sections of the community aligned with the Lebanese political party Hezbollah tend to be far more hostile towards Syrians. One even threatened to turn him over to the Syrian secret services.
Omar’s tale is a sad one: he was forced to flee Syria after spending two months camping in the wilderness to avoid being arrested by security forces. They had identified him as an oppositionist—and falsely branded him as al-Nusra—after he refused to join the security forces when the revolution began.
“I was part of the revolution; how could I work against my people?!”, he asks rhetorically. He lost 21 of his relatives to the regime’s counter-revolution, but still thinks it was worth it. With a huge smile, he tells us that he will soon visit his family for the first time in twelve years, though he’s not planning to stay permanently as work remains hard to find.
While many refugees of working age found ways to live relatively normal lives in Lebanon, or continued the perilous journey towards Europe, many others were unable to do so. For the old, young, orphaned or sick, the enormous refugee camps set up in the Bekaa Valley were the only option. More than 300,000 people languished in plastic tents through the freezing winters and scorching summers. Similar institutions were set up in Türkiye and Jordan. “I feel sorry for the poor children raised in these places”, Omar says.
It was hard to leave Syria, to process the gut-wrenching feeling that I was abandoning a people who have struggled alone for far too long. The governments of the world watched while the country burned, more fearful of revolutionary victory and regional instability than the regime’s brutal repression.
Syrians were also abandoned by most of the Stalinist and anarchist groups internationally, who disgraced themselves either by slandering the revolutionaries or, in many cases, openly defending Assad. By relying on familiar narratives about imperial intervention rather than grappling with the complex reality of a popular revolution, they found themselves on the wrong side of the barricades, siding with unimaginable state violence against some of the bravest people on earth.
The fall of Assad, along with the collapse of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance this year, is yet another major turning point in a region scarred by two decades of brutal US wars and occupations, revolutions and counter-revolutions, growing sectarian tensions and violent Israeli expansionism. Western imperialism has played a key role in these tumultuous events, leaving millions dead or injured in the wake of their barbarous operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, of course, Palestine.
But in Syria, as with Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt, the West was a secondary player. And while the historic crimes of colonialism are important to recall, the immediate causes of the social and economic crises that plague the region are overwhelmingly to be found in the exploitative, bigoted and sectarian politics of the regional capitalist classes.
As the bitter debates over the Syrian revolution proved, making sense of these complex and contradictory dynamics, and even more importantly, championing those fighting for liberation, has not been easy. But lest those who got it right feel too complacent, we should remember that we were unable to offer any practical solidarity—a painful failure and an urgent challenge for the future.
By rights, the Syrian people now deserve a global effort to facilitate reconstruction and the alleviation of their country’s many social and economic crises. That would be the minimum reparations for the world’s indifference to their suffering. But in this despicable capitalist world, it is more likely that there will be a mad scramble for the country’s resources; Syria as the ramshackle house on the corner bought only to be bulldozed by developers seeking a quick buck.
Syria’s new rulers, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, will be another challenge, being both right wing and highly pragmatic. Thus far, they have been keen to prove their commitment to international norms, including the free market. They have also refused to make any statement of support for the Palestinians and have instead called for their militias to be disarmed. Even worse, they seem set to deport an Egyptian man, himself a member of HTS, for the crime of calling for the fall of his country’s military dictatorship. All of this suggests that it is far from certain that the new Syria will fulfil the dreams of the revolutionaries who continue to fight.
Yet pessimism is a privilege reserved for those who stand aside from the battle for life, freedom and economic justice that the exploited and the oppressed have waged for millennia. Right now, there are tens of thousands of Syrians fighting to wrest their rights from the local and international capitalists who have denied them for so long. Far from feeling defeated, their organising efforts are just getting started. On WhatsApp and Facebook, there are constant updates about meetings, protests and strikes across the country. Friends in Suwayda and Daraa are busy replanting thousands of trees lost in the calamities of the past fifteen years, a quietly courageous investment in an unknown future.
These brave comrades—the socialists, unionists and students determined to shape their country’s future—deserve our solidarity and love in the coming period.
