The Middle East should have had democracy; instead there were chaos and destruction

by Jan Pêt Khorto

Photo by Peter Hove

The schoolmaster shouts: “Our pledge!” and we response thoughtlessly, loud, glamorously: “To confront Imperialism, Zionism and the Reactionary Mind, and crush their criminal device: The Muslim Brotherhood criminal gang.” Thus started my first day at primary school in 1990. A repeated chant that we echoed every morning for years into my education without comprehending its meaning. I was even practicing saying it in front of the mirror at home to show my fellows that I am the most loving son of Syria’s “Father”; Hafez Al-Assad. Our notebooks replaced Stalin’s and Lenin’s pictures on the front cover with this Father. We treated the notebooks as scriptures; it shall always be clean and tidy. We kept being reminded of the enemy in the south – Israel, and the source of all evil in the world - America at school, on the radio, on the télévision and in the demonstrations every time we have a public celebration, or every time America or one of its allies’ attack or invade a new country (regardless if we are an ally with these countries or not). I even dropped a tear when the Father died in 2000, not knowing the reason why! On that particular day my biological father gazed at me from the corner of his eyes and whispered: You idiot!

During these years of schooling we learned the history of the Arab World and the glorious victories they had against the Western invaders in the last few centuries. However, with the beginning of the 2000s I started realizing that the Syrian political façade was nothing but a farce. On 9/11, Bashar Al-Assad quickly condemned the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. However, there was an undeclared satisfaction among those who I encountered of regime supporters, beside those of the beard. During the Friday sermons there were speeches of an unintended victory on the “source of all evil” and on the “American infidels”. The Security Service forces were everywhere, and the clerks were strangely outspoken. When the American troops invaded Afghanistan and Iraq rage was escalated, and countless of demonstrations were held across Syria against the American invasion of these two Muslim countries; a vivid contradiction in the Syrian political identity, with Syria being identified as one of the sturdiest secular states in Middle East. The people were divided into three groups: one which opposes the American invasions; one which supports them (being careful not to be heard publicly); and one which is ambiguous. Those of the ambiguous group always puzzled me, as you never knew what they could do and what their hidden objectives were.

During the Iraqi war, Syria became a hub for extremists who have travelled across the globe to fight the foreign infidels in Iraq (a cynical phenomena considering the Syrian conflict nowadays). At the time, my uncle was a military officer at Al-Bukamal checkpoint on the border with Iraq. He told me once that the orders they received were to register every person who exits Syria into Iraq and detain them when they come back. After a couple of years, I met some of those extremists who fought with AL-Qaeda in Iraq in the detaining and investigation centers of the Secret Service, when I was imprisoned in 2007 due to my writings and political activism. The majority of those extremists were used as a tool by the Syrian regime in their different vicious tactics in the Levant.

Prior to my arrest, I was studying journalism at Damascus university. Me and several other classmates initiated an underground paper. Our objectives were clear: the rise of a civil society in Syria and the call for a multi-party political structure, hence Al-Demokratiya. We were impressed by the Western democracy and craving for freedom of expression in Syria. Being an agnostic myself, I was impressed with the Danish government’s response regarding the Muhammad cartoons’ issue, citing it as an act of freedom of expression. I personally refuse everything that leads to violence, however, the stand which the Danish government took fascinated me. I remember being close from clashes at the Danish embassy on February 2006. I remember hearing the demonstrators chanting “With our blood and souls we defend you, O Prophet of God”. The first part of this phrase was repeated for almost 4 decades in Syria with a different ending “…., O Hafez” and then “…., O Bashar”. My friends and I quickly left the neighbourhood that day, avoiding a confrontation with the demonstrants or the Secret Service. This incident, together with our initial objectives of fighting for a civil society and calling for the rights of minorities in Syria such as the Kurds, shaped our understanding that nothing could be changed in Syria but by Western assistance. Although we clearly comprehended at the time the bloody history of the imperialist involvement in the Middle East for centuries, and the consequences the American wars had on the political and societal environment in the Islamic World, we found no other alternative solution but calling for help from the Western powers. Almost more than half of my close friends opposed this “insane” idea. However, we needed nothing but “Freedom”!

After a couple of years, I found my self in a situation that forced me to leave Syria. I arrived in Denmark in 2009. Through my prison experience, journey through the EU and my personal encountering of the political sphere in Middle East, my understanding of the conflicts in the Islamic World started taking another shape. I have come to realize that the Western involvement in Middle East created unfavourable consequences that would not have existed in the absence of such external interference in these countries. Almost all dictatorships – including monarchies – in the Middle East were directly or indirectly backed by the US or have had strong economical and geopolitical ties with the pax americana. However, when interests change, the backing disappears and as a consequence the US and its allies were good at destroying their enemies in the region in order to satisfy the desirable interest. The aftermath of these wars were horrendous. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya became the most destabilized and failed states in the world, and the rise of sectarian tensions together with the flourishment of jihadi islamist groups have had dreadful consequences not only on these two countries, but also on the entire region and the whole world.

When the Syrian revolution started and transformed into a violent civil war, I myself became one of those ambiguous personas. I was certain that the Syrian opposition was not capable of defeating the Al-Assad regime without the help of the West. Simultaneously, I was confident that Western involvement in the war would worsen it even more, especially because of the proxy dimension of the Syrian conflict; i.e. Saudi Arabia contra Iran and Russian/Syrian’s camp contra Western/Syrian-opposition’s camp. Nowadays, five years into the conflict and it is more difficult for me to accept Western troops in Syria. America’s fixation on fighting ISIS shifted the international communities’ focus from defeating the source of unrest in Syria to assisting it indirectly: i.e. strengthening Bashar Al-Assad’s argument in fighting terrorism in Syria. There are several things which could have changed the course of events in Syria from the beginning of the conflict. A No-Fly zone was essential and could have ended the war in earlier stages, as Al-Assad and Russian air forces have devastated thousands of houses, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and pushed hundreds of thousands of refugees to neighbouring countries and hence towards the EU. Supplying the FSA with more weapons and threatening Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries with economic and political sanctions, should they continue their support to their allied forces on ground, to name other examples. In addition, the western countries who were/are involved in wars in the Middle East shall take responsibility of the consequences of their involvement in this region by at least containing the refugees’ influx and helping in building the infrastructure of these countries. The most indispensable thing is to stop arguing that the events in the Middle East are only a natural “religious” and “cultural” consequence of the region’s history and admit that the Djinni would not have come out of the lamp had they not broken it in the first place.

This is article is publish in Danish in Information Avis:
https://www.information.dk/debat/2016/07/mellemoesten-faaet-demokrati-fik-kaos-oedelaeggelse