Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview Shmuel Bar ...

398 S. BarSyrian civil society—such as it is after decades of Ba’th rule—came into the spotlighta short time after Bashar came to power. It existed in the preindependence era and came tothe fore for short bursts in the late 1970s and the late 1980s (in the wake of the fall of theSoviet bloc). This is, in essence, a movement of the Damascene middle class. Many of thefigures currently involved in the civil-society movement were involved in previous attemptsto forge a civil society and paid dearly, serving years in prison.During the second half of 2000 (the “Damascus Spring”), the expectation that Basharwould promote far-reaching reforms and liberalization encouraged intellectuals and youngBaathist backbenchers to preempt the anticipated reforms initiating a public debate on thenature of the regime and its policies. Some of the civil society forums, which were formedimmediately after Bashar came to power by known and tolerated civil libertarians, receivedat least tacit encouragement from key “old guard” figures in the regime, and this strengthenedthe feeling that the new president looked kindly on the movement. The movementtransformed quickly into a mass movement of the Damascene intelligentsia. The “DamascusSpring” reflected genuine expectations for change on the part of the intelligentsia,coupled with the popular perception that the new president was proreform. The “defection”of Bashar to the side of the “old guard”—whether on the basis of his own convictions orbecause he was weak and overruled—served to radicalize the opposition and its demands.The sense that the regime is less resolute than in the past, the spillover of the Lebanese“Cedar Revolution,” and international pressure on Syria all encourage the opposition insideSyria to continue to pressure the regime.The ideological basis of the Syrian civil-society movement counters the regime’s argumentagainst imitation or “import” of foreign social ideologies by tracing its own back tothe Ottoman Tanzimat and the rise of the concept of citizenship and voluntary association,in contrast to the status of “subjects” and organic affiliation. The basic documents of themovement—the Statement of the 99 and the later Statement of the 1000—are evidence thatit is well aware of the red lines of the regime and avoids crossing them. Thus, for example,demands included ending the state of emergency and granting political freedoms—ofexpression, economic rights, and women’s rights—but did not call for political pluralismor regime change. Later statements attributed to the same grouping also refrained fromradically confrontational demands and employed the regime’s own logic in attempting topersuade it to reform.As noted above, the “Damascus Spring” turned into a “Damascus Winter” by thebeginning of 2001 with the arrests of dissidents and closures of the political “clubs” that hadbeen formed. While this situation has not changed, some elements of the Syrian civil-societymovement have continued to promote their ideas. The latest document of this movement,The Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change, 112 has stronger wording thanprevious documents and reflects the feeling that the regime is under siege and that only farreachingdemocratization may satisfy the West. It calls for “establishment of a democraticnational regime” in a process that must be “peaceful, gradual, founded on accord, andbased on dialogue and recognition of the other.” Some opposition figures inside Syria (suchas Riyad al-Turk) have gone even further and demanded Bashar’s resignation (i.e., thedismantling of the regime) as an exit from the international crisis that the Mehlis report hascreated.One can distinguish three main schools of thought within the Syrian opposition regardingways to bring about regime change:1. “Gradualists” who feel that the regime can be deconstructed through incremental empowermentof the people and increasing restrictions on the arbitrary power of the regime.