SYRIA:TELEVISIONS EVERYWHERE in Damascus, from fancy new cafes to satellite-dish-studded slums, have been permanently tuned to the Egyptian uprising.
“My heart is on fire with the people,” said Fatima, a widow living in one of the Syrian capital’s slums who did not want to give her full name.
Syria, like Tunisia, whose uprising triggered the wave of protests rocking the Middle East, has a highly repressive state apparatus and suffers from endemic corruption, a bulging youth population and large numbers of people struggling with rising prices.
But on February 4th, when Facebook pages, largely supported by people outside the country, had called for a “day of rage” in Syria, the only presence felt on the streets was that of the leather-jacketed mukhabarat or secret police.
People demonstrating in solidarity with Egyptian protesters on previous days had been detained and several activists were reported to have been warned against protesting.
It is not clear that these pre-emptive measures were necessary. The Damascus Declaration for National Democratic Change, a coalition of Syria’s mainstream opposition activists, hailed Tunisia’s revolution last month but did not endorse the call for action on February 4th.
One human rights activist said an uprising in Syria “won’t come from people calling from behind the scenes on Facebook”.
For most Syrians, the deterrent to political activism existed well before the mukhabarat appeared on the streets. In the 1980s, the state’s response to a Sunni Islamist uprising left thousands dead. Many dissidents were imprisoned and, as a result, people became either depoliticised or too afraid to discuss politics.
Analysts in Damascus insist that the anti-Israeli and hardline foreign policy of Bashar al-Assad, the president who assumed office after his father’s death in 2000, plays well at home. The violence that followed the change of regime in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion also helped Assad, as his regime pointed to chaos as the only alternative to the status quo.
Assad is seen as someone whose reform efforts are hampered by officials inherited from his father – although the younger man is believed to have sidelined the old guard in reality. Some analysts feel, however, that the lack of economic opportunities for Syria’s youth and the repressive security apparatus make the regime vulnerable in the long term.
Unemployment is estimated at about 20 per cent, and the slow pace of job creation fuels resentment among those excluded from state patronage networks. “If you ask young people, they will say wasta [connections] will put you in charge,” said one young man who did not want to be named. He said many Syrians believed education and talent counted for nothing.
Economists say that, given falling oil revenues, officials have no choice if they want to create new jobs but to move the economy away from the command model developed by the president’s father. Removing subsidies is politically risky, though, particularly when commodity prices are high.
In the short term, the regime is expected to delay further easing of subsidies, while campaigning against corruption and perhaps announcing limited political reform. A ban on Facebook has just been rescinded.
Whether such measures will contain the frustrations of the young – and upset the “domino effect” of democratic unrest in the region – remains to be seen.
According to Suhair Attassi, one of the organisers of a candlelight vigil in support of Egyptian protesters earlier this month, Syrians are full of “repressed anger”. But with public expression closely monitored, it is hard to tell what people actually think.
People who want to see social change, meanwhile, are watching and waiting. “We’re just trying to survive,” said a human rights activist. Since the events in Egypt and Tunisia, there was hope “for the first time in five or six years”.