Sahar Hweijeh

Years after the useless bloody fight, the Syrian citizen is now seeking the political prospects of the fight run on the Syrian land, and the necessity to put an end to the war which turned into a killing cycle and a massacre inflicting the Syrians, where the Syrians have started to count their losses either in humans or materials. As a result, the Syrian Citizen’s concerns have increased on himself, for his future, his family’s future and mostly for the future of Syria.

In discussion to the famous quote which says: ‘war is politics but in different means’ mainly violence. Nevertheless, this extraordinary violence has forcibly removed politics from society in the manifestations of political efficiency, participation in organizations or parties. Also , the fighting powers have become outside politics, either the regime or the opposition, where even the slogans used for mobilization have become useless.

The Syrian reality which is defamed and inflicted by feasibility and inability, rotted by the sectarian and the regional division is being now under the threat of division. Thus, which resolution are the Syrians waiting for? A reality in which the powers operating the negotiations don’t represent the real powers on the ground, and the ground powers don’t represent the Syrian society. However, in spite of all of what happened and is still happening, the communities are still dreaming of the Syrian Land in which their dignity is preserved and their future is guaranteed based on Justice and Citizenship.

The negotiations rounds that have been run between the regime and the opposition and which have ended up by failure, and followed by renewed fighting, on hope to change the balance of power on the ground.

Thus, whose power against whom?

Quite after each shelling that normally intensifies after the failure of negotiations between the regime and the opposition, new rounds of talks and mutual understandings between regional and international influential players on the fight in Syria are being held. In that sense, we are confident that during the agreements and mutual understandings they discuss the outstanding issues between themselves away from Syria and the Syrian crisis which is used by them only to measure the range of understandings, differences, good intentions and the outstanding issues without finding any resolutions. Once the meetings and mutual understandings commenced, it would clearly be reflected directly on the Syrian land, where bargaining start on Syria, both the land and the people. That what happened upon setting a settlement for the Iranian Nuclear Program where America has kept silent towards the Iranian Role in Syria, but rather went far beyond that by allying with Iran in Iraq against DAISH. On the other hand, and upon the settlement between Russia and Turkey, in which Russia has permitted Turkey to approach in the Coastal Mountains bordering to Turkey, where, after that, Turkey has gained both the Russian and the American attitude together on the account of the QASAD and the PYD, then Turkey has interfered on the claim of fighting DAISH on the bordering strip which separate Turkey from Syria.

Upon an alleged Russian-American understanding, the war of Aleppo has recently started , and to know from the intensity of the battles that the Americans and the Russians are in disagreement. Meanwhile, Russia used massive power and still American causing us headache by expressing concerns towards that.

In briefing to the international and regional countries’ attitudes; that however they were different, they will find ways to resolve their conflicts exploiting the situation of feasibility and the division amongst the Syrian powers – the regime, the opposition, and the society.

It is worth to mention that none of these Great Powers has lost in the ongoing war in Syria but rather it is counting what has been reached of gains, mainly here to mention, the trade of weapons and the profits raised by America and Russia regardless of reinforcing their presence in the region. As for their human losses, they can be counted on fingers, except for the losses in humans that have been inflicted to Iran and Hezbollah as they linked their destiny with the regime.

Accordingly, the great influential powers in the Syrian crisis have got a wide margin to change their politics and attitudes as they won’t find oppositions to them inside their countries.

At the end, whenever these powers, which has far interests in Syria, want to find a resolution, they will bring it up but rather impose it especially that the Syrian sky and its land are under their fire and those who oppose, the whole world will stand against him.

The Impacts of the negotiations between the regime and the opposition on society:

The Syrian People has rebelled on hope to change the policy ruling forcibly by the tyranic regime which has never been hesitant once in history to use different manifestations of violence in order to control the society. The morale violence and deprivation from the rights, scaring, threatening and arrest. What was going on was just a fire under the ash. What was going on, was the potential war!

In the beginning, people believed in its ability for peaceful change as the request touch upon the public interest, societal rights and the right of each individual within it. However, the regime bet for its military power and the desire to exterminate the opposing mobilization, hoping to reach definite victory. The fight started and new powers were created and grew up because of the reactions on the ground.

Since the beginning, the conflict has been accompanied with the hatred speech and defamation between the regime and the opposition, especially after the dissemination of violence and ignition of war where the division between the Syrian people’s components has culminated based on social, political and territorial factors. Even though the division is mainly between the opposition and the regime, however, it is interlinked regarding political, sectarian and socially aspects to the extent that in each individual family you could find a profound political conflict and in most of the time the dialogue between its individuals ends up most of times with estrangement, with exchanged accusations of infidelity.

It has been so clear that what the opposition was being exposed to of siege, isolation and sometimes using violence against them in the so called advocates’ areas. The manifestations of the extreme division in the opposition areas and which is accompanied by deep fears, the regime advocates, as a result, fled from these areas to protect their lives.

Not accepting the other besides the absence of the language of dialogue, rendered abolitionary aspect on the other party. Hence, each party considers himself is on the right side and the other is totally wrong. All of that reflected on the relations amongst people inside Syria where concerns for death or arrest dominate. In addition to the rigidity of the regime and rejection for negotiations with or recognizing the opposition, the regime started to mobilize his advocates hoping to achieve a crucial military victory over the opposition, where it started to claim accusations of terrorism against the oppositionary powers that cause to track them.

During this atmosphere, it was hard enough to imagine that both the opposition and the regime advocates recognize each other and at best they put conditions on each other to abstain talking on political issues.

However, and because the war has extended for years, many issues have started to be disambiguated to the whole Syrian society, some of them:  the role of the military fighting powers have declined in regard to controlling their popular incubator that greatly helped in mitigating the range of tension in society.

On the Regime Level:

As a result of the regime’s failure to rule and suppress the armed opposition, and because of the military defeat it has befallen to it especially the losses in humans and materials, the absence of security and safety at the regime controlled areas and which has been accompanied with the starvation and impoverishment policy (and which has affected the majority of Syrian society), the role played by the kidnapping, robbery and exploitation militias at the regime controlled areas with the absence of law and accountability. All of that influenced the regime’s popular incubator where all the games, swindles of the regime have been uncovered as well as its disability in front of the popular incubator.

On the Opposition Level:

The outcome of military divisions and the fighting that took place between all factions, especially after the rising of DAISH and Alnusra, and keeping these powers a distance from the values and the goals of the revolution, that reasons made the communities to take decisions on the Military Powers according to whether they are close or far from the revolution’s goals. Besides, the international decisions to stop fighting and find a settlement in Syria in addition to the  role played by the international powers through their decisions to stop and find a peaceful resolution in which the regime accepted through pressures practiced by its alliance,  and the opposition accepted as well through pressures of their alliances, in addition to the wide volume of pressure from the society to stop the fighting which is useless and the people are paying the debt highly from their blood and souls.

The regime, and after recognizing the political opposition at least in theory and accepting to negotiate with some oppositionary military powers the thing which was reflected on society, and once Geneva Talks 3 started, the ice started to melt between the opposition and the regime and this could be realized through the attitudes and the treatment amongst people in the streets.

Final words: 

 Any negotiation won’t succeed unless we encounter the abolition and tyrannical powers, that has to be protected by a social, economic and political guarantor , this has to consist of capable powers to encounter the societal  reality of division, radicalism, factional, sectarian and doctrinal extremism, private interests and dictatorship, violence and working to bring back politics to society. Otherwise, we would stay outside this era.

Exclusive to the Syrian Women’s Network