After almost ten years of nightmare, the Syrian people gets back in the dance of revolt

“Jay alek el door ya doctor”

In 2011, it all began when schoolchildren in Deraa (in the far south of Syria), inspired by the uprisings in other Arab countries, dared to dream of the tyrant of Damascus stepping down—Bashar al-Assad. Ironical slogans blossomed on the city’s walls, among them the one that enraged the president most: “Jay alek el door ya doctor” (“Your turn is coming, doctor”—Bashar al-Assad is an ophthalmologist).

Arrested and tortured by Bashar’s henchmen, the children of Deraa unwittingly ignited one of the most beautiful moments of revolt the country had ever known. Across Syria, massive demonstrations erupted. We remember the magnificent messages of hope sent week after week to the entire world by the residents of Kafranbel, barely an hour from Idlib—now the heart of the cyclone, bombarded daily by tons of explosives stamped with the seal of Russian and Western merchants of death.

We remember thousands of people dancing in the glare of floodlights to defy the curfew, and we can still hear ringing in our ears the chants launched by the two birds of the revolution, Ibrahim Qachouch and Abdel-Basset al-Sarout: “Yalla irhal ya Bashar” (“Come on, get out, Bashar”).

The fate of these two men encapsulates what followed. The first was arrested and tortured as early as 2011 by Bashar’s mukhabarat (intelligence services) and shabiha (henchmen), his vocal cords torn out. The second died in June 2019 from his wounds after fighting alongside rebels in the Hama region. Bashar’s torturers also crushed the hands of the cartoonist Ali Ferzat before leaving him for dead by the side of a road.

The revolt of 2011 was annihilated in terror and blood. Images—such as the 45,000 photographs taken by the photographer Caesar and smuggled to Europe by this former regime soldier turned defector—laid bare the regime’s barbarity for the world to see. The uprising fell silent, and those who chose armed struggle continue to be crushed beneath bombs in the north of the country. Many joined Islamist groups, while the least sectarian and most selfless, completely isolated, no longer interest anyone.

With the crushing of the Islamic State (a victory made possible by the armed intervention of the Kurds in the north and the Druze in the south), followed by the Turkish offensive, the ceasefire and joint Turkish-Russian patrols, the pawns placed here and there by the United States and Europe (through NGOs and agreements imposed on the Kurds), and the quiet invasion of Syrian territory by Russian forces and Hezbollah (with Bashar’s consent—perhaps believing this would secure his power and safety), Damascus now seems isolated at the center of a vast country where the president, with his small empty head perched on a long neck, controls very little anymore.

What has fundamentally changed is that he no longer enjoys the same footing as before. For several weeks now, a fratricidal conflict has pitted him against his cousin Rami Makhlouf, and everywhere the Russians occupy the territory—including Kurdish regions—as if they were slowly preparing to take full control of the country. And stubbornly, Bashar continues to flatten the north under bombs, as though his power still depended on it.

“Yalla irhal ya Bashar!”

But in 2020, the combination of international sanctions and the pandemic brought an end to years of resignation and fear: Syrians are starving.

Since the beginning of the year, the Syrian pound has suffered an unprecedented collapse. From 500 pounds per dollar in January 2020, the exchange rate passed the 3,000-pound mark on June 8. In one year, the currency lost 130 percent of its value. The price of onions rose by 97 percent in two months; lentils by 64 percent; bread by 54 percent; flour by 46 percent; pasta by 44 percent; and rice by 33 percent. With an average salary of 30,000 pounds and a family meal costing between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds for a typical household (two or three children), a full month’s wage barely covers food for ten days at the rate of one meal per day. Some families can no longer even afford olive oil or tea. Grocers now choose to open only a few hours a day, unsure what prices to charge as the dollar climbs by 200 Syrian pounds daily. Banks are beginning to shut down their ATMs.

Since Friday, at first timidly and then with growing fervor, the population has once again dared to defy the authorities, taking to the streets and chanting the refrain that so infuriated the idiot who has served as Syria’s president for far too long: “Yalla irhal ya Bashar!”

Those who, in their cynicism and indifference, would like to see the Islamic State wiped out and Syrian refugees return home by the grace of the Holy Spirit or by sheer brute force should understand this: the balance of the world depends on the fall of regimes steeped in virile authoritarianism and greed, wherever they may be found. The threat does not come from popular uprisings or exile, but from elites who believe human beings can be moved about like pawns on a black-and-white chessboard.

As the world enters a period of unprecedented upheaval, as systemic racism and authoritarianism are on everyone’s lips, we invite the world to take up once more the chant of the Syrian revolt—to finally bring down all the useful idiots of the system who pass themselves off as our leaders.

The liberation of peoples rhymes with the end of capitalism (and its imperialism).

Insurrection can only be global, carried by the people, for the people.

We express our full solidarity with the Syrian people.