“Long live Syria! Down with Bachar!” It has been years since this slogan, popularized during the revolution that began in 2011 and ended in civil war, was no longer heard in Syrian cities under the control of the Damascus government. But poverty caused by the 12-year conflict, international sanctions and the regime’s ongoing corruption has sparked a new wave of protests concentrated in the south of the country. This comes just as President Bashar al-Assad managed to break his isolation and resume relations with other Arab states.
This Friday, hundreds of people gathered in a central square in Sueida, a Druze-majority city in southern Syria that has remained loyal to the regime throughout most of the conflict. According to exiled media outlet Suwayda 24, with journalists in the interior of the country, it was “the largest anti-Assad demonstration in Sueida since the uprising began in 2011.” The digital newspaper claims that around 2,000 people took part in the protest, raising the colorful Druze flag and shouting slogans such as “Bachar out!” and “Free Syria!”
It was in this city and others in the province of the same name that protests began in mid-August. They were originally due to the removal of fuel subsidies, which almost tripled their price overnight. At the same time, the government ordered a doubling of public salaries and an increase in the minimum wage to 185,940 Syrian pounds (about 26 euros at the official exchange rate, practically half at the real exchange rate), but the collapse of the Syrian pound has led to it having fallen 80% since the end of July lost its value – triggered inflation.
The UN World Food Program estimates that a minimum wage can only finance a third of the basic foodstuffs for a family of five and cover only a tenth of all family expenses. Back in June, the United Nations warned that 90% of Syria’s population lives below the poverty line and nearly 70% relies on humanitarian aid, after 12 years of conflict in which around half a million people have died. Half of the population was driven from their homes.
Concern in Damascus
From protests over shortages, strikes, strikes and the resignation of some local officials, we have moved to political demands and condemnations of the Assad regime. And that is probably the most worrying thing for Damascus, given that Sueida stayed out of the 2011 protests and the regime has tried to lean on minorities – Alawites, Christians, Druze – to counteract the greater weight of Sunni opposition to counteract. traditionally excluded from power in Syria. Perhaps that explains the regime’s reaction. While Syrian leaders accused protesters of being in the hands of “extremists” – especially after the attack on the Baath Party and police headquarters – and blamed the economic crisis on the international embargo, security forces from the center were removed from the cities and were locked up in their barracks. This is the opposite of what happened in 2011, when police, military and related militias were deployed to massacre the protesters.
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But demonstrations have spread to the neighboring province of Daraa, the cradle of the 2011 revolution, where dozens of people protested on Friday with the banner of the Syrian rebels and shouted slogans against Iran, one of the regime’s main backers. But there were also protests in coastal cities such as Latakia and Tartus, traditional strongholds of the regime where Assad and the Baath Party were criticized.
Protest in the southern Syrian city of Sueida on September 1, 2023. SAM HARIRI (AFP)
The protests also come at a time when the regime believed it could end its isolation. Assad, with the help of Russia and Iran, has defeated the rebels and regained control of large parts of Syrian territory, with the exception of Idlib province – in the hands of Salafist groups – and some parts of northern Aleppo province – under the control of rebel groups backed by the Turkey – and in the northwest of the country, where the regime’s presence coexists with the administration of the US-backed Kurdish militias. And this victory has prompted many Arab states, especially those in the Gulf, to change their position and restore relations with Damascus.
In May, the Arab League readmitted Syria to the organization, 12 years after it was expelled. Criticism from Western countries was of no use as they wanted to maintain pressure on a regime accused of bombing its population and forcibly disappearing at least 130,000 people. But there were also voices within the European Union from some political leaders calling for negotiations with Assad. Even the government of Turkey, the country that has given the most support to the opposition and the Syrian rebels, is considering what steps to take to normalize relations. Damascus hoped that the return to the international stage would ease the serious economic situation. It remains to be seen whether the protests – and the regime’s response to them – tip the balance in one direction or the other.
“The reasons for the recent outbreak of protests are the regime’s policies, which have led to worsening living conditions,” explains Baraa Khurfan, a researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in Istanbul. In particular, the suspension of subsidies for basic products and the disillusionment with the lack of results after normalization with other Arab countries. The expert attributes this lack of results to the regime’s lack of cooperation regarding the demands of its partners in exchange for financial support, for example in the fight against the production and trafficking of Captagon, a drug that is flooding the Middle East.
Khurfan emphasizes that the protests also “challenge the image of stability that the regime wants to project,” which represents a “reality in which the population is neither satisfied with the situation nor with its governance.”
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