SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) – Since the 1960s, the ruling authority in Syria has worked to profile political and civil life in Suwayda, and throughout Syria in general, according to trends regarding the permanence of its presence in power.
In 1963, a coup took place in Syria, or what is officially called the “March 8 Revolution,” in which the military committee of the Syrian regional branch of the Baa’th Party seized the civilian leadership in the country.
Since then, working in government institutions has become a routine in which there is neither creativity nor appreciation for any distinguished work or individual success that can be achieved within an institutional system that adopts the principle of loyalty to one party and influential individuals, according to a government employee in Suwayda.
Killing creativity
Sami Ra’ouf (a pseudonym), an architecture engineer working in a government institution in Suwayda, said, “The principle of the Syrian authorities in running the institutions extinguishes all attempts at development, initiative, and achievement in ourselves.”
Ra’ouf has been working in the planning department at the Directorate for Technical Services in Suwayda for more than 25 years.
“During this period, I was not promoted or enhanced at work, although I prepared vital and developmental plans to raise the level of service work in Suwayda,” he told North Press.
“Unfortunately, those plans did not gain encouragement or support, just because I do not belong to the Baath Party and have an ideology opposed to the authority,” he added.
Additionally, because Ra’ouf does not have any personal ties with imported government figures in Suwayda, “like my peers, who occupy important administrative positions, because of their security ties through which they gained benefits.”
“I no longer have the motivation to give in these stereotyped and marginalized institutions for scientific expertise,” he said.
He pointed out that everyone who subscribes to a trend against the partisan policies followed by the government, “is like an enemy to it that must be demolished and functionally marginalized at work to the utmost extent.”
The government cares neither about how to invest in the country nor about scientific minds, and “there is no incentive or rewards,” according to Ahmed Iskandar (a pseudonym), an engineer in Suwayda.
Work marginalization and persecution
“When I was working in a government institution in Suwayda, I faced a lot of work marginalization and persecution,” Iskandar, who is a graduate from France, said.
The reason for this marginalization “is because I expressed my opinion in a workers’ meeting in 2003 criticizing weakness and corruption in those institutions, and the scientific methods that are necessary to improve the deteriorating condition that it adopts.”
The engineer did not realize then that dozens of security reports were written against him and sent to security apparatuses in order for him to be transferred to a government institution in a remote area.
He said that the decision was a punishment from his direct manager, who justified the action by saying that it was an order he received from Damascus.
Iskandar submitted his resignation, which was immediately accepted, to devote himself to private work “away from the stereotyped and marginalized government work, which is managed with a security mentality and not an institutional one,” as he said.
Political subordination and corruption
Most of Suwayda’s residents rely on these salaries, whether civil or military, which makes the individual tied to a source of livelihood that is threatened with disruption at any moment, and are unable to break away from a system based on personal loyalties and subordination.
Jamal al-Alam (a pseudonym), a researcher and writer living in Suwayda, told North Press that the government security apparatuses have traditionally dismissed political opposition figures from their positions and young men who evaded military service.
“According to the international economic laws, the job economy cannot build a developmental or independent economy as much as it builds a policy of subordination and corruption over time,” he added.
Due to this policy, “you find that the phenomenon of security informants is widespread in the state’s service institutions in Suwayda, and they themselves are used to spread rumors and recruit others in supporting demonstrations, especially those working in the front and for the Baa’thist parties,” according to al-Alam.