Daraa: The spark that lit the Syrian flame

[tabatha]

(CNN) -- Syria is burning -- scorched for nearly a year by tenacious political resistance, a merciless security crackdown and cries for democracy.

The spark that lit the flame began about a year ago in the southern city of Daraa after the arrests of at least 15 children for painting anti-government graffiti on the walls of a school. The community's blunt outrage over the children's arrests and mistreatment, the government's humiliating and violent reactions to their worries, and the people's refusal to be cowed by security forces emboldened and helped spread the Syrian opposition.

Daraa soon became a rallying cry across the country for what began as a rural and provincial-driven uprising.
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Syrians compare the dramatic dynamics in the rural city to the moment Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi torched himself in December 2010. Bouazizi's act and death spawned demonstrations that led to the grassroots ouster of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and fueled other protests across the Arab world.

Mohamed Masalmeh -- a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Syrian activist whose family hails from Daraa -- said Daraa residents broke the people's "wall of fear" by defying what he and others call a police state and taking to the street.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/01/world/meast/syria-crisis-beginnings/index.html

Someone posted that the Syrian crackdown is justified because of "armed gangs", and Cameron would do the same if it happened in the UK. Here are some errors in the claim:

a) The UK did see not only peaceful protests but riots and burned buildings, and the police did put them down, but they did not attack unarmed protesters with tanks and heavy weapons. There is no civil war in the UK because of these violent riots where buildings were looted and set on fire.

b) Syria is a police state and an autocracy. If people do not like Cameron they can vote him out in the next election. They cannot do that in Syria. The only avenue they have is via peaceful protests, which they have done hundreds of times. Please note - there were no burned and looted buildings by Syrian protesters! Some of these peaceful protests (hey, a socialist paper even claims peaceful protests) were fired upon by regime forces.

c) It was only after the brutal crackdown of peaceful protests, that the opposition took up arms to defend themselves. If peaceful protests happened in the UK and were met by tanks and brutality, you could rest assured that citizens would arm themselves. Riots and burned and looted buildings DID happen in the UK. Where are the massacred by the UK government bodies in the thousands?

[pampango]

1. The "Assad" strategy for dealing with massive protests is something all dictators should learn.

1: When massive peaceful protests occur, repress them as them as violently as you can get away with - snipers, arrests, torture, etc.
2. This may work to quell the protests. If so, reward your military and security services and go back to being a dictator.
3. If #1 doesn't work right away and massive peaceful protests continue, keep up the repression. (You have to come up with a strategy to keep the international community at bay.) Start talking about the presence of "criminal gangs" or "terrorists" among the protestors. There may not be any yet, but it's good to get the talking point out there for future use.
4. If your military and security forces continue to prove to be ineffective in suppressing dissent, don't worry. Keep up the armed repression. Eventually frustration will build up among factions of the protesters and some will become willing to resort to violence given the apparent futility of peaceful protest. Or outside groups will begin to take advantage of these frustrations.
5. At this point you can unleash your military and security forces to the full extent and hope you don't lose the civil war you have created.

I think this is a strategy that is workable in many repressive countries when populations get fed up with living with no rights.