This is a cross-post by James Snell
The importance of Syria’s civil war in international terms cannot be overstated. It has spawned the greatest mass movement of people since the end of the Second World War. It has provided thousands of terrible, heart-wrenching vignettes, from the unseeing body of a small boy washed up on a Turkish beach to the grisly output of a thousand propagandists, which fill newspapers and television screens on a daily basis. And it is unlikely to be over any time soon.
It seems the war in Syria – with all of its subtleties and complexities, many of which transcend national borders – has become the defining conflict of our age. And as is the case when considering other conflagrations which hold that title, governments, statesmen and individuals of our own time will be judged for their thoughts, their public pronouncements and, most importantly, their actions with regard to this most vital and horrific of civil wars. They will be judged by history; but that judgement is also contained within the starving bellies of those who are victims of regime-sponsored famines, and the fear-filled eyes of those who find themselves under attack by ISIS for the simple crime of being.
As such, it is vital both for governments and individuals to set about saving Syria from the theocratic fascists who now threaten the nation and its people. One thing, however, is certain: the solution to this terrible situation does not lie with Bashar al-Assad, who is – not unlike Saddam Hussein – hardly ‘secular’, but with the much-maligned ‘good guys’ in Syria; and this is true not only in the abstract, but in the personal.
When I think in personal terms about the Syrian rebellion, the man who most often springs to mind is Abdelbasset al-Sarout, whose status as a legendary figure in the early protests against the Assad regime (which broke out in 2011, nearly five years ago) has given way to a far darker reality. Though he once demonstrated non-violently, singing songs which rallied the beleaguered people of Homs, he is now accused of affiliating with ISIS, and attacked in that vein – both metaphorically and literally – by other rebel groups. The most recent of these came in late 2015, when his small band of rebels was set upon by Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise.
Do read the rest of James’ post here
