Damascus has fallen. once again. One of the world’s oldest cities has fallen into decline. Rising again from its ruins, beginning a new order. In its rise and fall, Damascus has lessons for all civilizations, all rebels, and all regimes.
In July 2012, rebels entered Damascus, which had until now been considered impenetrable. Both the regime and the rebels understood its importance – military and symbolic. Rebels advanced towards Syria’s heavily militarized capital but made no real gains. A year later, in August 2013, the Syrian regime launched Operation Capital Shield. The capital had to be defended, and any amount of force was acceptable to repel any rebel attack. The city was defended through the use of disproportionate force against rebels operating from around Damascus. Only temporarily. Eleven years later, the regime has fallen. For the sixth time, at least, the Roman victory over the Seleucid Empire of Damascus since the 1st century AD.
circle of power
Damascus has not only seen violent regime change, but also experienced ethnic and religious clashes, including the Crusades. But in almost every significant conflict – whether civilizational or political – one thing has remained the same: the recapture of lost ground. Cyclical nature of power. The centuries-old unrestrained competition on the socio-political arena of Damascus has defined its character. Therefore, current developments in Syria should be examined through a more comprehensive lens of history and culture.
Peter Frankopan’s the Silk Road This underlines the importance of Damascus as an emporium near one of the world’s most prosperous trade routes. Despite not having easy access to the Mediterranean Sea, it was in the league of great metropolitan cities such as Byzantine Constantinople (Istanbul), Greco-Roman Antioch, and the old Chinese capital Chang’an. The natural inland water systems of the Barada River and investment in irrigation infrastructure led to the adoption of agricultural practices that gave Damascus abundant land.
Even at the height of Christian-Muslim religious conflicts around the 10th century AD, merchants were having good times in Damascus. For example, Muslim traders from Spain were protected by the Christians of Damascus. For one of the world’s oldest inhabited cities, with no religious basis derived from any religious texts, trade was vital. Therefore the traders, the outsiders, were immune from local political and religious conflict. Damascene society was dependent on “outsiders” to maintain its regional power as the seat of socio-cultural dominance. Damascus, as it is known today, is essentially the result of four centuries of Ottoman rule that ended with the First World War. This city was the seat of the Turkish Vali.
Land of ‘outsiders’
Interestingly, Damascus had not been ruled by a local dynasty since the overthrow of the Aram-Damascene Empire in the eighth century BCE. This feature makes Damascus closer to Delhi than its Phoenician, Jewish and Arab neighbours. Soon the “outsiders” began to become insiders and the city grew. Delhi has this similarity with Damascus and hence the lessons from Damascus are relevant for us.
The rise and fall of the Assad regime alerts us to the limits of liberalism when it remains within the realm of the elite. There is always a danger of it collapsing under the weight of popular mobilization. The main basis of Syria’s multicultural nature was the harmonious association between different ethno-religious groups at different times in history. The Assad regime’s politicization of the multiculturalism of Syrian society was selfish. Following the 1970 military coup that installed Hafez al-Assad as an authoritarian ruler, the ruling Ba’ath Party, ironically the regional champion of dissidents in the Arab world, began to crush all forms of dissent.
When liberalism becomes weaponized in this way, it spells doom not only for conservatives but for quintessential liberal values. Bashar al-Assad carried forward his father’s legacy with even more zeal and ruthlessness. Therefore, the rebellion against them must be seen not only as political but also socio-religious. Syria’s majority group, Sunni Muslims, were clearly marginalized by the Alawite (Shia) Assad family and their henchmen.
liberalism and liberals
This should seem familiar to us. The weakening of liberal values by the liberals themselves, the rise of conservative forces, the politics of exclusion and multiple flare-ups of violent ethno-religious conflicts, we have seen it all. The politics of exclusion, even when the most inclusive players are involved, never ends well. The civil war in Syria should be seen as another element of a continuum that includes the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, Erdogan’s reactionary overthrow of the Kemalist order in Turkey, and the fall of the sheikhdom. Hasina in Dhaka as historical events.
Immediately after the fall of Damascus, scenes of celebration (and looting) began flooding the news and social media. Undeterred by them, Israel took the step of planting its flag beyond the earlier buffer zone. And this is the lesson that the Delhi regime and the rebels should heed.
(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based writer and academic.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
