The Syrian opposition has not yet provided a specific definition or an accurate description of the nature of authoritarianism in Syria. Instead, it was more preoccupied with fighting the authoritarianism than with its reality and change. This is how it almost completely neglected the matter under the hustle and bustle of racist and sectarian slogans and the desire for sectarian revenge. It is also for this reason that it has failed to produce an alternative discourse in democracy and enlightened citizenship so far, a discourse against authoritarianism that amounts to confronting the discourse of authoritarian power and its claims in combating terrorism.
The political personalization of authoritarianism will make the issue of democratic change a matter of individual revenge against the tyrant and the substitution of the oppressor with another under different headings only, while maintaining the entire system of authoritarianism, without causing any fundamental change in the structure of authoritarianism itself. This position keeps the possibility for the return of another type of authoritarianism open and strong.
What stands as an obstacle to the freedom of the individuals is not the tyrant himself, but rather the authoritarianism system itself. At the same time, what guarantees equality and justice for the individuals is not a just or enlightened ruler, but rather a democratic system. The former US President Donald Trump did not differ much from any obsessive tyrant in the Middle East, regarding his personal inclinations, behavior and nature of political thinking, but what prevented him from turning into that tyrant and protecting the Americans from his evils was the democratic system.
In this sense, the authoritarianism turns even the angels into evil tyrants if they exercise power within this functional context. On the other hand, the democratic structure or system, is that which governs any imbecile, perverted or obsessed with power to rule and exercise power in a rational and fair manner as much as possible. Here lies the significance and importance of the slogan of (the comprehensive structural change of the regime) instead of the slogan raised and still raises by the Syrian opposition which is only represented by (the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime).
Settling for opposing the tyrant or the despot as a person does not necessarily lead to an alternative regime that is better, more fair and less unjust. The awareness of the need for fundamental and structural change to the authoritarian regime is what paves the way for equality and a democratic regime.
Fighting the tyrant makes you oppressed and creates a desire for personal revenge, without necessarily making you a champion of justice and equality. As for your awareness of the authoritarian regime and the need to change it, it is what makes you a true defender of justice and a fighter against injustice everywhere and anytime, with complete consistency and unabated.
It is this political logic in thinking that prevailed among the Syrian opposition, regardless of the volume of the human sacrifices it made in the face of the tyrant, without making it a real and fundamental opposition against the authoritarianism in Syria, which explains the double political standards and their blatant contradictions in its political behavior towards internal and external issues. On one hand, we see the opponents cheering on a sectarian tyrant obsessed with national racism such as Erdogan, shadowing under his shadow, applauding for his and his party’s rule over Turkey and blessing him for all his oppressive practices against his opponents. On the other hand, they never stop shouting and denouncing the authoritarianism of Bashar al-Assad. This duality overshadows most of their practices, political positions, notions of citizenship, equality between Syrians and pluralism, as we will see.
The real root of this thinking lies in the personalization of both politics and authoritarianism, and then the belief that changing the authoritarian individual is sufficient to change the political system.
The personalization of politics is totally incompatible with modern liberal political thought. The personalization of politics belongs to the era of authoritarianism, when the ruler, the individual authoritarian, was the only free politician among a mass of slaves who had nothing to do with politics. He used to monopolize politics and the right to practice it for himself, while the others had nothing to do with it.
If we assume that fighting the authoritarian is the negative aspect of political personalization, then the positive aspect lies in the belief of a group or people that their liberation depends on the existence of the sincere and inspiring leader.
The people or society that seeks freedom and equality, must not remain hostage to the mind of one individual. They must declare a rupture with the concepts of the single, inspiring and the genius leader who makes the people and history together. Such a belief contradicts every understanding of politics as a public affair for all people, who have the duty and the right to decide it by their independent will. Otherwise, the members of this people or society will abandon their humanity as free and sane beings with the dignity of thinking.
In the Syrian case, we find all the negative aspects of the personalization of politics in the thinking and logic of the Syrian opposition. The greatest evidence that the political mind of the Syrian opposition is not different from the mentality of the despotic Syrian regime, the regime of the Eternal Leader (in reference to the former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad), and that it does not aspire to serious democratic change in Syria, but only wants to overthrow the head of the regime for sectarian reasons and maintains what is below it, is that it has not criticized the Baath’s ideology and practices so far, but it still keeps silent regarding the fascist Baath practices. Its silence is a proof that it wants the Baath and its tyrannical regime to escape the crimes of the regime’s head and it does not consider the Baath party as partner in all what happened. This explains why it has been unable to crystallize new democratic and national values that reflect a higher national affiliation. On the contrary, the more time passes, the more democratic and patriotic values are stripped, and the more it sinks and becomes entrenched behind ideological values that are extremely backward and racist.
Based on this limited and inadequate understanding of politics, the behavior of the Syrian opposition during more than a decade of conflict has been marked by double standards and contradictions. This was evident in many important positions and stations which revealed flagrant moral and political paradoxes, including that most of the prominent figures of this Syrian opposition, who called on and incited the international community to hit the regime, were once, on the side of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and they worked with all their energy to justify or absolve the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in the city of Halabja in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The most ruthless and screaming among them stood against the American campaign to strike Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. The positions of those I talk about, are all documented. This paradox should now be shown and explained, and the extent of the political hypocrisy and lies that entailed the behavior of those, should be identified. The regime committed crime and that was expected from the start, but I cannot understand the reaction of these people against the criminality of the regime as a consistent moral and humanitarian position in any way, and I cannot trust that they are really against authoritarianism.
This duality is not limited to the behavior of the political opposition, but it also includes the behavior of opposition intellectuals. A large number of Syrian intellectuals who, even on the eve of the conflict, considered themselves imams of enlightenment and rationality, were no longer ashamed of any flagrant sectarian claim. I specifically mean those who justified and is justifying anything in order to take revenge on the regime and its sect. They were only motivated by the desire of revenge and hatred, and not the logic of anti-authoritarianism. Everything becomes permissible and justified for them as long as it serves the goal of revenge against the head of the regime. That is why these people misled and justified the infiltration of al-Qaeda (formerly Al-Nusra Front) and all Islamic extremists and terrorists of the Syrian uprising, and facilitated their robbery. These same people purified the ugly face of terrorism in Aleppo and other cities and justified the killing of Kurdish children in Afrin and the Alawites. Those whom I called the intellectuals of Aroor (in reference to Sheikh Adnan al-Aroor, a Salafist from Hama), committed crimes against the revolution and betrayed people’s hopes more than everyone else.
They are intellectuals who have been devoid of every moral or ethical claim and every critical sense of history. They are not interested in anything but media screaming, misleading sectarian squawking and simulating the whims of the street and the rabble.
They are intellectuals who traded in every principle and lofty values in the lives of the Syrians and gambled with them. Then, they spread the epidemic of sectarian and national hatred and left it everywhere. It is for this reason that we now understand why the Syrian uprising began as a great revolution and ended as a giant circus of killing and ruin, ending as an open hell in which all the demons and dwarves of the earth played.
From the beginning of the conflict, it became clear that Bashar al-Assad was not afraid of al-Nusra Front, ISIS, Jaysh al-Fateh or Ahrar al-Sham. He was not concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood and the like, because all of them were not opponents to authoritarianism as a regime and did not have a discourse opposing totalitarian tyranny. Hence, through years of devastation and bloody conflict, the regime was able to continue thanks to them and benefit from their presence. In the end, he was sure that they would not come up with a better regime than his own.
Bashar al-Assad feared the free, enlightened, truly democrat, rationalist Syrians, who were rejecting all this irrational regime. These Syrians were able to strip his regime, isolate it and throw it in the dustbin of history. Those alone were the true enemies of the despotic regime represented by Bashar al-Assad. Al-Assad realized this from the beginning of the Syrian uprising, and for this reason he beat out against their rights more than everyone else. In return, he released the hands of all those extremists from the holes of his prisons in order to raise the whirlwinds of hatred and chaos of atonement in the face of the Syrians and the future of their revolution. Then, he was able to corrupt the justice, purposes and legitimacy of the uprising. These takfiris were precisely who justified the brutality of the authoritarian regime, rehabilitated it and presented it as a regime that is hostile to terrorism and terrorists, and gave it an arsenal of free excuses for this purpose. Bashar al-Assad and these have been on one front from the beginning until now, the front of authoritarianism and its reproduction against the front for total change, the front for the resurrection of the Syrians.
The true secularists were indeed the historical opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his father, who were qualified to overthrow and undermine it. Al-Assad feared them more than all other political currents, as the true democracy can only come through a true secular gate. While bargaining with authoritarianism can be achieved through all ideological and political options, except with the secular and democratic option.
Political Islam was historically more receptive to authoritarian regimes and more acceptable and willing to collude with them and compromise. In parallel, the authoritarian Arab regimes were the most supportive of the Salafi and Islamist currents. There is thus, an illegal marriage between them that is more coherent and romantic than a holy marriage.
From here, we understand why Bashar al-Assad wanted and worked to eliminate the role of all secular and democratic activists since the beginning of the revolution, in order to keep the Islamists front and stand alone with them, claiming to fight religious terrorism, and in this sense granting political legitimacy to his terrorism. Of course, this criminal behavior of the Bashar al-Assad’s regime had tempted the Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and raised cynicism for them against the secular. They remained silent about Bashar al-Assad’s abuse against the secularists before and during the uprising, believing that the al-Assad’s regime exempts them from the task of getting rid of these rivals for the authority of the revolution and the state, and they will not be called to carry out this arduous task as Ayatollah Khomeini did after the Iranian people’s uprising against the Shah’s regime in 1979. This reveals the truth about their claims about democracy.