Sorry for posting this here, I don’t know a better place. I feel very sick watching the events in my country unveil. Sectarian tensions have been bad for a while, but in a matter of one week, so many of my people have decided that the druze minority is their enemy, and that “liberating” their towns (from their own people!) is their righteous conquest.
I am very saddened about where things have gone. Things just keep getting worse and I see no way out. A small protest in damascus against the violence was attacked by mobs, without any government protection or presence whatsoever (the protest was next to the “parliament” building!). We are living in fascism, where speaking out against sectarian violence is punishable my mob beatings.
I apologize for the rant. I understand probably none of you here is syrian or even middle eastern, so please feel free to ask questions and I will happily answer. At this point this is my only outlet.
it depends what you mean exactly by less oppressive. Do you mean of minority ethnic and religious groups ?
Why things are going bad, I don’t think there is one single comprehensive answer. The closest is probably that the country has undergone a devastating and long war for 14 years, and many of the events of this war had sectarian elements which agitated sectarianism in the population. That’s the closest thing to factual I can give.
My own analysis is that the imperial core saw the agitation of sectarian violence as the best way to “disable” syria (in the sense of disabling its struggle against israel and other imperialist aims), similar to how they did Iraq and Lebanon, and I think a lot of sectarian propaganda probably came in with foreign funding. But that’s just my own reading.
Sectarian propaganda combined with war leads to sectarian interpretations of the war and hence agitations. Sectarian violence only leads to more sectarian violence, agitating the other side, and it is just a runaway effect from there.
I’m from that imperial core. I am incredibly sorry and really ashamed of what we’ve done. I know that means nothing, and I am very sorry for that, too.
Yes, thats what I meant.
Its an interesting yet troubling read. The sectarianism kind of reminds me of the way the owner class divides workers in the west. It feels like a similar mechanic.
Do you live in syria or have family there?