Syria as we speak is probably the most dynamic diplomatic venue within the Center East as a result of it’s the most strategically contested one – because it has been for millennia. The end result of the competitors to manage Syrian governance and alliances will outline political developments within the Levant and the broader Center East for years to come back.
Three concentric circles of home, regional, and world actors compete for energy and affect in Syria due to the nation’s distinctive place and standing. It’s a uncommon full and consequential Arab nation, as a consequence of its human and pure assets, strategic geography, and political, cultural, and ethnic ties within the Center East and the world.
Syria as we speak, even in its dilapidated state after half a century of autocratic abuse and 13 years of warfare, hosts a whole bunch of diplomats, businesspeople, civic activists, and carpetbaggers. However this isn’t new.
The individuals and rulers of the land of Syria have skilled this all through the final 5,000 years, ever since Damascus and Aleppo emerged as productive, vibrant, and strategic city centres within the third millennium BC. All through recorded settled human historical past, the land and folks of Syria have persistently generated data, worth methods, meals, wealth, tradition, expertise, and identities which have made their land a strategic and coveted world crossroads.
A visit by land throughout Syria reveals overlapping networks of roads, forts, farms, water methods, and concrete centres which have lengthy serviced the east-west and north-south commerce routes linking Asia, Europe and Africa. Alongside them stand Syria’s main entrepot cities – Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Deir az-Zor, Palmyra, Deraa, Latakia, and others – which have performed outstanding roles within the nation’s historical past. Numerous ethnic and spiritual teams coexisted in these strategic city centres – Sunnis, Shia, Alawites, Druze, Christians, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, and some others. All through historical past, they lived collectively by negotiating variations by means of formal and casual mechanisms based mostly in these cities.
Syria has all the time been and stays particular as a result of it’s the most full Arab nation that enjoys all of the property of real statehood and nationhood. These embody fertile land and water assets; mineral and agricultural wealth; an industrial base; human wealth in expert residents, proficient managers, and entrepreneurial businesspeople; a pluralistic citizenry throughout vibrant and inventive city centres, alongside deeply anchored villages and rural settlements; a robust nationwide and cultural id; and, entry by land and sea to the wealth and commerce routes of three continents.
It’s also a consequential nation due to its intrinsic wealth and its strategic geography. Historic and trendy empires – from Greece, Rome, Persia, Byzantium, and India to Britain and France, to not point out Russia and america – have fought to manage Syria with a purpose to safe entry to its assets and vital cross-continental routes that traverse it. If you wish to get a really feel for the way that works, go spend just a few days within the Damascus Sheraton Lodge.
Greater than some other Arab land, together with trendy Egypt and energy-rich Gulf states, Syria can be consequential as a result of it emits throughout the area waves of emotion and id that mirror what bizarre Arabs search with a purpose to fulfil each their human and civic aspirations. At numerous moments up to now century, these sentiments emanated from the realms of pluralism, constitutionalism, Islamism, anti-colonialism, and Arabism.
Syria can be vital for individuals world wide to understand as a result of its expertise reminds us in a single stroke of your entire trendy Arab area’s strengths, weaknesses, failures, identities, and aspirations.
For millennia, “Syria” meant the larger Higher Syria, or Bilad-el-Sham (“The Land of Sham”), which comprised a lot of the Levant and components of the Fertile Crescent territories that at the moment are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and components of Turkey and Iraq.
It was truncated after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by Franco-British imperial militarism that prevented the beginning of a constitutional monarchy anchored in an elected meeting in 1920. The following colonial-engineered state predictably suffered the identical troubles and vulnerabilities that outline most Arab international locations as we speak.
These embody: anti-colonial resistance and a wrestle for independence that by no means achieved full sovereignty; continuous overseas army interventions; makes an attempt at consultative and participatory decision-making that all the time resulted in dictatorships and army rule; bouts of real improvement in schooling, healthcare, infrastructure, and financial progress that in the end stagnated and deteriorated, as a consequence of corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability; and pluralistic societies that usually succumbed to sectarian wars, stoked by exterior forces.
Immediately, many Arab and different residents throughout our area observe Syria’s transformation with hope and admiration. All of us need Syria to turn out to be the trendy Arab world’s first self-determinant, citizen-validated, and actually democratic and sovereign state.
It isn’t misplaced on any of us that Syria’s present management emanates from Islamist teams who had been battle-hardened in US-occupied Iraq and overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad with US, Israeli, Turkish, and different non-Syrian help. This solely heightens our cheering on Syrians to attain their bold targets.
Regional and worldwide powers that work time beyond regulation to affect the brand new Syrian management will use bribes, weapons, and subterfuge to make sure that the brand new Syria that emerges will align with them. If the brand new authorities resist, they may actually face foreign-inspired and funded makes an attempt to overthrow them, as has occurred so typically up to now throughout this area.
In a manner, Syria’s wrestle for dignified, secure statehood as we speak is the delayed fruits of the historic however quashed decade of mass Arab rebellion for democracy, pluralism, and equal rights for all. As in 1920, Syria as we speak additionally checks whether or not exterior powers can permit its residents to outline themselves, and set an instance for the remainder of the area. If there may be any Arab citizenry that may obtain this, it’s the Syrians, as a result of they’ve been training for this second for five,000 years.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
