Syria as we speak is essentially 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 regulate Syrian governance and alliances will outline political traits within the Levant and the broader Center East for years to return.
Three concentric circles of home, regional, and international 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, because of its human and pure sources, 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 battle, hosts lots of of diplomats, businesspeople, civic activists, and carpetbaggers. However this isn’t new.
The folks 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 constantly generated information, worth programs, meals, wealth, tradition, know-how, and identities which have made their land a strategic and coveted international crossroads.
A visit by land throughout Syria reveals overlapping networks of roads, forts, farms, water programs, 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 distinguished roles within the nation’s historical past. Various ethnic and non secular 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 embrace fertile land and water sources; mineral and agricultural wealth; an industrial base; human wealth in expert residents, proficient managers, and entrepreneurial businesspeople; a pluralistic citizenry throughout vibrant and artistic city centres, alongside deeply anchored villages and rural settlements; a powerful 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. Historical and trendy empires – from Greece, Rome, Persia, Byzantium, and India to Britain and France, to not point out Russia and america – have fought to regulate Syria in an effort to safe entry to its sources and necessary cross-continental routes that traverse it. If you wish to get a really feel for the way that works, go spend a number of days within the Damascus Sheraton Resort.
Greater than another Arab land, together with trendy Egypt and energy-rich Gulf states, Syria can also be consequential as a result of it emits throughout the area waves of emotion and id that mirror what extraordinary Arabs search in an effort to fulfil each their human and civic aspirations. At varied moments previously century, these sentiments emanated from the realms of pluralism, constitutionalism, Islamism, anti-colonialism, and Arabism.
Syria can also be necessary for folks world wide to understand as a result of its expertise reminds us in a single stroke of your complete 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 elements of the Fertile Crescent territories that are actually Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and elements of Turkey and Iraq.
It was truncated after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by Franco-British imperial militarism that prevented the delivery 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 nations as we speak.
These embrace: anti-colonial resistance and a wrestle for independence that by no means achieved full sovereignty; continuous international 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 development that finally stagnated and deteriorated, because of corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability; and pluralistic societies that usually succumbed to sectarian wars, stoked by exterior forces.
At this time, many Arab and different residents throughout our area comply with Syria’s transformation with hope and admiration. All of us need Syria to turn into the trendy Arab world’s first self-determinant, citizen-validated, and really democratic and sovereign state.
It’s not 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 extra time 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 usually previously throughout this area.
In a approach, 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 assessments whether or not exterior powers can enable its residents to outline themselves, and set an instance for the remainder of the area. If there’s any Arab citizenry that may obtain this, it’s the Syrians, as a result of they’ve been practising for this second for five,000 years.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.