In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [61]
“Ana arabiya” (I am an Arab), Leila replied. In Syrian speak, this means “I am first an Arab, then a Syrian, then a Muslim.” They then glanced at me and looked down before starting what seemed a rehearsed tirade.
“America is behind this [cartoon],” said one of the group, a forty-year-old man named Mohammed. “We are here to express our anger.” He then looked at me a bit sheepishly. I snapped a photo.
“But Denmark is in Europe. The European Union helps Syrian reform. What do you think of that?” Leila said.
“The government has its policy,” Mohammed said. “The people are here to defend the Prophet and express their anger.”
Pretty lame, I thought, but interesting. Mohammed was making a distinction between the state and religion. In the past, acting publicly on behalf of religious sentiments could have got you thrown in jail. In 1982, it also could have got you killed or “disappeared” during the state’s battle with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Moving on, we stopped three other middle-aged men—including one wearing a green Islamic headband—to ask what brought them out into the street.
“Down with the Baath Party!” the men exclaimed. Leila raised her eyebrows; here in the land of the Assad family’s Baath Party, I knew that she hadn’t heard that shouted before in public. They didn’t seem nervous at all, and they let me take their photos. When Leila asked them their names, they just continued shouting, “Down with the Baath Party!” and walked off.
Islamic protesters openly calling for destruction of the Baath Party? I thought. Contemplation of the deeper meaning of what I had just heard was interrupted when fire trucks turned up—much too late to save the Danish embassy. They rolled through the crowd so lazily that they eventually coasted to a stop. No firemen were in sight. Protesters just used the trucks as observation decks for the spectacle. A red station wagon arrived—one of the well-known “protocol” cars that direct traffic for President Assad in the Syrian capital. It blew its siren once, half-heartedly. The crowd quickly parted, then broke up. The fire trucks moved in, their hoses shooting water at the flames. Street gutters flowed with water like small streams. Everyone who remained stood calmly and watched the firemen do their duty.
As we walked away from the protest, we ran into Tarek, Leila’s friend. He was smiling, joking with several men in black leather jackets and expensive, well-polished shoes. After watching them for a few minutes, I realized that Tarek was talking to intelligence officers. Men around them with black handheld radios were barking orders; all held wooden batons.
“So what did you think?” Tarek asked me.
“I think it was quite a show,” I said. “People are angry, but the security services don’t seem to be doing much.”
“Yep,” Tarek said with a grin on his face. “People are under a lot of pressure. We have the Hariri problem, and the government just raised petrol prices by 20 percent. They [the regime] are just letting off the pressure.” Tarek moved his hand as if turning a valve.
On the surface, Syria seems a secular society. Minority rights, religious or ethnic, are guaranteed by the state, which is dominated by the Alawites—an offshoot of Shiite Islam from which the Assad family hails. The Baath Party is a secular, pan-Arab party. The other political parties aligned with the Baath in the National Progressive Front are secular as well.
In the half decade leading up to the Danish protests, increased signs of Islamic sentiment in Syria had appeared. At first it showed up in terms of Islamic dress, then mosque attendance grew, as did Islamic study centers. In the midst of this trend was a female religious leader, Munira al-Qubaisi, who runs an organization Syrians call “Qubaisiaat” in her name. The influence of the group had spread rapidly under Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
As we walked away from the demonstration toward Tarek’s office for coffee and chitchat,