They use the same slogans, the same methods, just their venue is located elsewhere: Syrian opposition groups have declared Friday their “yaum al radab” – a day of rage, employing the very term Egyptian revolutionaries made use of when they mobilized tens of thousands to take to the streets two weeks ago and ushered in the end of Hosni Mubarak’s reign of thirty years. “The Syrian revolution against Bashar Assad”, is the name of the page on Facebook that calls on people to join the protests ”inside ALL Syrian Cities and Outside in front of all Syrian Embassies!”, starting on Friday 1 p.m.. After mass protests have unseated Tunisia’s president and threaten to do the same to Egypt’s and Yemen’s, they obviously hope that Assad will be next in line of deposed Middle Eastern dictators.
 
Originally, Bashar al Assad was not supposed to be ruling over Syria in the first place. His elder brother Basil was destined to inherit the republic from their father Hafez, but he died in an automobile accident. Hurriedly, Bashar, who until then had pursued the career of an ophthalmologist in London, was recalled to Syria. There he underwent military training, breezing through the ranks to become a Colonel in only five years. When his father died in the year 2000, parliament had to amend the constitution to allow the 34 year-old to take the reins. Normally, he would have had to be 40. Initially, there was hope the rule of a Western trained physician who speaks fluent English and passable French would herald an era of openness and reform. But after a short experimental phase, that lead to much unrest, Assad retraced his steps to revert to the proven autocratic style of his father, keeping his 23 million subjects in check with an iron fist. Since taking office, Assad junior has been “confirmed” in two elections: The first took place in 2000, when he garnered 97.2%. He improved on this result when he ran for his next seven-year term in 2007, when he received 97.6% of the vote, unsurprising as no one was running against him.
 Assad belongs to the Alawites, one of the many religious minorities in Syria, a group that has controlled this predominantly Sunni state for decades. The largest minority are the Kurds, who make up 10%, live in the North of the country, and who, like the Muslim brothers, refuse to accept Alawite minority rule. This is one reason why a State of Emergency has been in effect in Syria since 1963 – 18 years longer than in restive Egypt. In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood rose up against Hafez Assad’s reign. He responded with troops and heavy artillery, killing more than 20.000 people in the city of Hama in less than two weeks. In 2004, a Kurd rebellion was crushed by Assad the son with tanks and use of live ammunition, resulting in the death of tens and the arrest of hundreds, if not thousands.

With deterrence and fear still on his side, Assad feigns a lack of concern in recent interviews. In comparison to his secret services, Mubarak’s police state appeared almost benign. In contrast to Egypt, where opposition was stifled but never mute, there are no opposition papers in Syria. Facebook has been outlawed in 2007, as are Twitter and Youtube today. This has led most observers to assume that the majority of the more than 13.000 people who signed up for the incipient Facebook-revolution were Syrians living in exile. Though an estimated 30.000 Syrians do have access to social networks via proxy servers, their use is by far not as common as it is in Egypt. However, the news of the planned demonstrations has been widely reported in Arab media, and satellite dishes are not banned in Syria.

Protesters have much to fear. According to Amnesty International, “political activists, human rights defenders, bloggers, Kurdish minority activists and others who criticized the government or exposed human rights violations were subject to arbitrary arrest and often prolonged detention or were sentenced to prison terms after unfair trials before […] Military and Criminal Courts.” Assad’s security apparatus commonly torture “with impunity” to extract ““confessions” that the defendants alleged were extracted under torture while they were held incommunicado in pre-trial detention.”

But Assad need not only rely on brute force. His economy is off much better than Egypt’s. Around 10% of Syrians live below the poverty line, while 40% are destitute in the land of the Nile, gross national income per capita is almost twice as high. For weeks, Assad has been trying to placate unrest by making economic concessions. He has increased allowances for state employees, still Syria’s largest sector. In addition, Assad asserted in an interview to the Wall Street Journal this week that by standing up against the U.S. and Israel, he was much more in tune with the public mood than Mubarak, who has been disparaged as a Zionist stooge.

In spite of the inciting language and the obvious parallels to two other successful Arab uprisings, most pundits therefore do not expect mass protests to break out in Damascus anytime soon. That is just what they said about Egypt two weeks ago.

© 2011 Gil Yaron - Making the Middle East Understandable