By: Masud Javed (Bureau Consultant-International Affairs) ICN Group
NEW DELHI: The fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 yielded a wind of change which swept East Europe. The people living in the counties allied to the erstwhile Soviet Union ( Warsaw Pact members namely, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania), revolted against their socialist/communist governments and finally managed to bring in democratic form of governance and leaders. In other words, they joined the capitalist bloc with an exception of Slovakia which remained in the socialist bloc. Not only that, even the Soviet Union could not stand in the face of the powerful wind of change. This, too, was disintegrated into 15 separate independent states. All these developments were welcomed as victory of democracy over totalitarian form of governance.
After much consideration and careful thought, most of the countries in the world adopted democracy as an ideal form of governance. The quintessence of Demo-Cracy is sharing of power. If this is not done properly, it is seen, time and again, that such country is marred by public unrest, political instability, civil war and disintegration. Syria has been going through these phases now due to not fulfilling the main demand of the democracy which is sharing of power.
Syria’s population is around 23 million. Out of this, more than 4 million have fled Syria to take refuge in the neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Europe besides those who were killed in this civil war. Seeing the composition of the population, it is obvious that the root cause of the civil war is Asad regime’s arrogant negligence of power sharing. 75% of the population is Sunni Muslim, 13% is Ismaili and Alawi Shia to which Al Asad belongs to, 8% is Christian and 3% is Druz. Government Institutions, in particular, Security and Defence are dominated by Shias.
The demonstration initially had begun without sectarian feelings. Later on it was divided on Shia and Sunni lines. Iran, Lebanon’s shia militia Hizbullah and Iraq’s shias extend their support to defend Shia regime of Al Asad. Russia, after collapse of the USSR took over charge as debt collector of the Soviet Union from Syria,emerged as custodian of Al Asad regime by air attacking the rebels and using veto power at the U.N.O. in favour of Syrian regime. On the other hand, Sunni majority states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and others are staunch supporters of the rebels.
It is really pity that Asads did not learn from what its next door neighbour, Lebanon, had gone through due to fierce civil war which had ruined the once Paris of Arabia Beirut and other towns. Neither they learned from SriLanka’s Sinhalas’ adamant majoritarian attitude towards Tamil speaking minority. This arrogance had pushed the steadfst developing country to years long civil war. The Asads did not learn from how Belgium’s wise leaders averted civil war and disintegration. They intelligently had agreed to give equal representation to the French speaking people in Brussel and Dutch speaking people in the central government.
Unlike Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, Syrian regime’s adamant stand caused the open intervention by the external forces, which of course, is in explicit violation of Syria’s sovereignty. It seems Syria has become a weapon test laboratory or an open field of war for regional players to establish their hegemony. In addition to that, though the United States had warned Asad regime following its alleged use of chemical weapons, for one reason or other, it is hesitant to get involved deeply.
