Activism and Optimism: The Syrian Uprising – An Interview with Karam Nachar

Posted by eric.stern in International on December 18, 2011 10:32 pm / no comments
Conducted by Justin Schuster

Revolutions and democracy are not easy. People who think you have a revolution one day and the next day you have democracy, stability and economic growth – no, that’s a joke. I think Syria is going to be in turmoil for the coming three to five years but at the same time I think that’s totally fine. We’ve been under the Assad regime for the past 41 years and under the Baaths since 1963 and it’s getting time to be able to get rid of them.

The revolution has its doves and hawks. The hawks are people that think there is no other way than to ask for international intervention. They are very scared that the revolution will be defeated before this actually materializes. They don’t know how it’s going to happen but they want to push for something – Turkish, NATO, something to bring the regime down. They think the regime is like the Libyan or the Iraqi regimes in that it will never have a breakdown on its own. They think the regime will keep killing people until there are no more people willing to demonstrate. The longer the revolution lasts, the more hawkish people are becoming. There are people that are for international intervention and for the militarization of the revolution like the Libyan model, by letting go of the peaceful means of demonstration and actually carrying arms. This is becoming more and more of a reality because of the defections from the army. The defectors are keeping their weapons with them even though they have no ability to actually fight, and so I think that any talk about a civil war in the country is completely immature. At the same time they are attacking every week or two a convoy or a building that belongs to the security apparatus in the country.

Then there are the doves: people who believe the revolution should persist in the way it started no matter how many people are dying, and they should keep demonstrating until the revolution becomes really massive.

Read the full article HERE