Friday of Martyrs - 1st April 2011 - what does it mean?

Wow - protests in almost every major city in Syria. It is easier to list the cities without protests (Aleppo - surprising - and Tartous - not so surprising) than to list the ones where there were protests. The "pro-Assad" crowds a few days before may have been much much bigger but make no mistake: given the fear, intimidation and violence used to suppress dissent in Syria the fact that thousands took to the streets in almost every part of the country signalled a resounding rejection of Bashar's recent speech and announcements.

One feature I wish to highlight is the unity of the chants and the nationwide adoption of slogans stressing the unity of Syria.  Here is video from Qamishli, a city with a large Kurdish population and a centre of Kurdish nationalist activity. Yesterday they were flying Syrian rather than Kurdsih flags and they chanted: "One, one, one - the Syrian people are one."


Here is a video from Latakia - a large city with a mixed population including Muslims (Sunni, Alawi) and Christians. They chant "Sunni, Alawi, Muslims and Christians". On previous days they have been chanting "one hand", a traditional expression of unity and signs rejecting sectarianism have been hung in the city.


This shows that Syrians reject the divisive sectarian narrative that is being imposed upon them by the Syrian regime and many "experts" and commentators in the West.


Its not going to be like in Tunisia and Egypt. It is also going to be different from Libya (inshallah). But I am sure that Syria is now locked into a trajectory of confrontation between the regime and the people. Last night Syrians I know expressed amazement and pride. There is still a lot of fear but it is gradually being overcome.  Although I have no confidence in making long-term predictions I am sure that the highly diverse protest movement will continue to grow in the coming weeks, short of the regime doing something highly unexpected.

No dictatorship in history has ever been a monolith and Syria is no exception. The persistent rumours of a power struggle between Bashar and his violent younger brother Maher (architect of the horrific Seidnayah prison massacre in 2008), have an air of truth about them. There are many other entrenched interests and centres of power within the security services, the military, the Ba'ath Party and the commercial elite who will also be looking to fight to maintain their interests. Therefore there is a great deal of complexity to the sitaution.

These are "interesting" times for Syria. But they are also extremely dangerous and uncertain ones.

Bashar blows it.

So, clearly Bashar didn't read my blog post of 28th March (no need to write me to apologise, mate. I understand that work's been putting you under a lot of pressure recently. It's fine).

Bashar al-Assad made an eagerly awaited speech in the Syrian Parliament today - his first since mass protests began on 15th March.  With this speech he had a great opportunity to regain the initiative and win over the large numbers of doubters. In my opinion, he blew it!

• Too many veiled threads and talk of stability. Blaming foreign plots and satellite TV just doesn't work in 2011 when you have a well educated and IT-literate population.
• Too few promises on concretes steps that will be taken to reform the country. Vague promises have been made for 11 years. Syrians are getting tired of waiting for the Godot of reforms that never quite arrive.
• Virtually no mention of the dead, and certainly no apology. Even many Bashar supporters are shocked at the killings and want to see some kind of justice for the victims and their families.

It'll be interesting to see what happens on Friday.

More from Maysaloon

Guys, I may as well just let Maysaloon take over this blog!

I urge you to read his most recent post: A Very Syrian Way of Doing Things.

Just as an aside, Joshua Landis is really slipping these days isn't he? He always was a little bit of a regime apologist but he may as well be on the Assad payroll the way he's been talking since 15 March kicked off. He's certainly not describing the situation as I recognise it...