The Butcher of Damascus exits, By Wole Olaoye

For the Butcher of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad, the long horrific chapter of his perch at the top of the man-eating power game in Syria came to a screeching halt last week, almost anticlimactically. Even though the world knew that the dictator was living on borrowed time, no one knew that his end would be as ordinary as a dog folding its tail between its legs and voting with its paws!

Everything that has a beginning must have an end. For every hello, there will eventually be a goodbye, which, in its turn, contains the seeds of another cry of welcome. There is a lesson to be learnt in the fall of any empire or kingdom or dynasty. Every dictator looks unconquerable until Father Time ticks his box and harvests his scalp. 

As Amy Poehler argues, “You have to remember that goodbyes are temporary because no one ever really leaves and nothing lasts forever. People are always with us, because they are in our hearts and in our memory. The only thing we can depend on is change… Life is just a series of moments — a string of pearls that make up the necklace of your life and so every once in a while, to complete the circle, you need to end a chapter.”

Time Up!

For the Butcher of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad, the long horrific chapter of his perch at the top of the man-eating power game in Syria came to a screeching halt last week, almost anticlimactically. Even though the world knew that the dictator was living on borrowed time, no one knew that his end would be as ordinary as a dog folding its tail between its legs and voting with its paws!

In my neck of the woods, the old Oyo Empire, the king (Alaafin) was second only to the gods. He was the father and mother of death. But he was not omnipotent. If he was considered to have committed a serious infraction against the Earth or misruled in a way adjudged anti-people, he would be presented with a ritual calabash which was a symbolic invitation to man-up and commit suicide. He wasn’t expected to cut and run as Bashar did. The same society that honoured him with so much power and wealth had also designed a ‘heroic’ way of exiting the throne if he had to be shown the door. It was unthinkable that an Alaafin would exit like a plebeian, or, like a Bashar, be found hiding between the legs of Vladimir Putin! 

One of the lessons that mankind must learn from the failed Assad dynasty is the good old saying that man proposes but God disposes. Imagine, Bashar’s father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, had not planned to have Bashar on the throne. Bashar’s elder brother, Basil, was the heir apparent until he died in a high-speed car crash in 1994, thus forcing the father to start grooming his second son, Bashar, a quiet medical doctor born on 11 September 1965, for succession. The new heir was soon entered into the Syrian military academy at Homs, and rose through the ranks to become an army colonel in 1999.

Bashar had given the impression that he would be a modernist and so, many people looked up to a new era when his father passed away in June 2000, after more than 25 years in power. His father’s loyalists in the security forces, military, ruling Baath Party and his minority Alawite religious sect, ensured that he was appointed commander of the armed forces and secretary general of the Baath Party, before a referendum confirmed him as president.

Twenty-three years ago, Assad decreed a Press Law that tightened government control over all literature printed or published in Syria; ranging from newspapers to books, pamphlets and periodicals. Publishers, writers, editors, distributors, journalists and other individuals accused of violating the Press Law are imprisoned or fined. Censorship has also been expanded into cyberspace, and various websites are banned.

Bashar tailored his foreign policy to align with his father’s precepts. He maintained a hardline posture towards Israel. He was one of the few anti-war voices against the US-led invasion of Iraq, which was, indeed, a treasure hunt, not an anti-terror intervention. 

Join the Premium Times WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.

Open in WhatsApp

Repression 

Historians and political analysts have characterised Assad’s presidency as a highly personalist dictatorship, which governed Syria as a totalitarian police state and was marked by numerous human rights violations and severe repression. While the Assad government described itself as secular, various political scientists and observers noted that his regime exploited sectarian tensions in the country. Assad’s early economic liberalisation programmes worsened inequalities and centralised the socio-political power of the loyalist Damascene elite of the Assad family.

Twenty-three years ago, Assad decreed a Press Law that tightened government control over all literature printed or published in Syria; ranging from newspapers to books, pamphlets and periodicals. Publishers, writers, editors, distributors, journalists and other individuals accused of violating the Press Law are imprisoned or fined. Censorship has also been expanded into cyberspace, and various websites are banned.

The civil war made matters worse. Homs, like many Syrian cities and towns, was devastated by the fighting as rebels seized control of large parts of the North and east of the country, and the opposition National Coalition was recognised as “the legitimate representative” of the Syrian people by more than 100 countries. When the death toll passed 60,000, Bashar ruled out negotiations with the rebels, labelling them “enemies of God and puppets of the West”.

Chemical Weapons

Pro-government forces, in early 2013, launched attacks in southern and western Syria with some help from the Lebanese Shi’a militant group, Hezbollah. The Syrian army reportedly deployed its arsenal of chemical weapons to decimate the ranks of the enemies. Hundreds of people died after rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were fired at rebel-held towns in the Ghouta region.

The Syrian government suffered a string of defeats in the first half of 2015, losing control of the northern provincial city of Idlib to rebel factions and more territory in the East to IS. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a major air campaign in support of Assad that September. Russian military signatures could be seen all over eastern Aleppo in 2016. The intervention swung the conflict heavily in Assad’s favour. 

If you look properly, you’ll see that history keeps repeating itself. Bashar may not have cut the picture of your favourite cousin, but the US and its allies were okay with him when he professed liberal inanities and cut the picture of a potential puppy, as Osama bin Laden once did. The fact that America prefers the Islamist rebels to Assad tells you that it’s all about interests. Ask Afghanistan.

Russia was accused by a joint UN-OPCW mission of being behind a Sarin attack on the rebel-held northern town of Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017. Almost one million people were displaced by the fighting in Idlib in 2019 and 2020. In late 2019,  Assad’s forces resumed their offensive. Hundreds of people were killed and almost a million fled their homes before Turkey and Russia agreed to another ceasefire in March 2020.

Fragile

Only two weeks ago, Assad had seemed so secure after Russia, Iran and Iranian-backed militias had helped the military push the rebels trying to overthrow him into a small enclave in the north-west. His newfound confidence made him reject calls to engage in negotiations with the rebels. But the fragility of Assad’s government was exposed by the launch of a lightning offensive led by the Islamist militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Assad’s foreign allies were busy with their own  wars, and were not in a position to help.

If you look properly, you’ll see that history keeps repeating itself. Bashar may not have cut the picture of your favourite cousin, but the US and its allies were okay with him when he professed liberal inanities and cut the picture of a potential puppy, as Osama bin Laden once did. The fact that America prefers the Islamist rebels to Assad tells you that it’s all about interests. Ask Afghanistan. America doesn’t care what happens to a country after getting rid of the strong man. Libya is today a land of warlords after the US helped to get rid of Gaddafi. 

My prediction: With the dominance of the Islamist ideologues, the new Syria may eventually slip into a protracted sectarian war. 

Assad may not have been my idea of a president. Nonetheless, with a friend like the Western powers, who are now dancing on his political grave, Syria does not need to light a lantern in search of enemies.

Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on [email protected], Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021.