The latest bloody, catastrophic turn in Syria started to reveal that the Syrian people are seemingly divided into three segments: one segment is blindly supportive and ferociously defensive of the regime. It even wishes the regime to continue using an iron, terminating fist against the rioters and it lays its whole existence per se to the regime’s salvation from its plight. This segment represents a minority. On the other hand, there is another segment that is absolutely, unconditionally and unreservedly supportive of the street’s uprising. It defends this uprising in whatever form it may take at any cost the people may pay. The followers of this group appeal to the people on the streets to maintain their rebellion and they call for its raving, despite all the possible vagueness and mistakes that may stem out of such a rough and non-calculated escalation. These mobilizers opt for this counter-violent and counter-aggressive reaction because they also lay their fate on the final victory of the street’s uprising in overthrowing the regime. This segment also represents a minority that is equal in size to the size of the previous one.
The past few days, nevertheless, have unearthed the real existence of yet a third segment, which comprises in my opinion the majority of the Syrian population comparing to the other abovementioned two. I will not call this group ‘silent’, for it is not silent, though its voice is not loud or strong and its accent is not simmering or agitating in style. I will not also call it ‘neutral’, for no one can remain neutral in Syria today, and no one wants to be so, I believe. Add to this, this is not a neutral majority, but one that takes a real and sober position that lies in refusing to be partial to one of the other two sides because it believes that none of them echoes its own voice. On the other hand, this majority is not also to be construed the segment of the ‘fearful’. For, fear among the members of this group is neither different in nature nor is it more ( or less) in degree than the fear of the regime’s supporters, who are very apprehensive from the possible success of the street’s uprising and the substantial change the overthrowing of the regime would bring about, nor is it different from or lesser than the fear of the rioters and their mobilizers from the regime’s retaliation and counter-crackdown in case they decided to empty the public-squares, retreat to their houses and concede to negotiation with the regime.
The third segment, then, is not silent, or neutral or exclusively fearful. It is a group I prefer to call the ‘quiescent majority’. It is a majority that is utterly dissatisfied with the regime’s perpetual reliance on its usual tyrannical, oppressive and bloody aggressive method, its lofty and condescending attitude towards the people as well as its systematic undermining people’s rights and underestimating the ramifications and consequences of their suffering, bad conditions and tiredness from the recent ruling order. Yet, this is a majority that is equally saddened by and disappointed with the exclusivist and discriminative, simmering and agitating discourse that entices the public-square’s uprising and calls people to remain at all costs on the streets and welcome death as the passage to final victory. This is specially the case in the light of the recently growing power of the instigation and spur that is becoming more noticeably Islamist, anathematizing, condemnatory, tribalistic, sectarian and vengeful in nature. This majority is uncomfortable also with the fact that the uprising people’s vision is vague and imprecise and that those mobilizers, who ride the wave of the public-square’s opposition, are either in shortage of precise and reliable alternatives, or loaded with dangerous, disunifying and publically rejected agendas. This majority takes seriously its realization that the uprising on the street has no evidently reliable or tangible ‘alternative’ at hand, notwithstanding its equal perception and affirmation that the peoples have basic, essential and undeniable ‘demands’, which all the Syrian population aspire at and seek, and the country cannot be truly a ‘state’ without. Yet, this majority believes that these are still at the level of ‘demands’ and have not become yet tangible, complete and coherent ‘alternative’ for constructing a new republic, civil statehood that can preserve co-existence, plurality and unity in the country.
The quiescent majority stands astride two equally hard choices in Syria: either the regime’s opting for violence and political and national blindness and suicidal acrimony,on one side, or the street mobilizers’ sentimental and over-reactive, religiously- and sectarianly- energizing agitation of the population, on another. Against opting for one of them, it pleads for Syria’s release from the mercy of the mistakes of either option. It hopes that a wise, reasonable and patriotic third voice may find a chance to invite the whole population to rise above any demagogic logic and to break the three vicious circles of the physical-violence and its verbal counter-violence, the vengeful fear and its suicidal counter-fear and hatred and treason and its emotional and condemnatory counter-agitation. The quiescent majority is failed by the regime when it sees that within the ruling circle the voice of force and the logic of oppression prevail over the voice of reformation, the readiness to admit the mistakes and the intention of change. It seriously questions the conspicuous contradiction which one can spot between the president’s promises, decisions and decrees and the conducts of the governmental media and security forces and their persisting in all the procedures that defy and militate clearly against the declared reformation-decision. This majority asks in a clam yet rational voice: who rules Syria now and who decides its fate, and which clumsy game the whole country is pulled into by these authority-holders? On the other hand, the quiescent majority affirms that the rebellions’ intentions and motives are reliable and trustworthy in their nature and goal. It knows that those who occupy the public-squares in Syria’s cities are innocent and sincere, normal citizens, whose scream stems from the heart of the people’s thirst for justice, freedom, human rights, decent life, prosperity and dignity. However, this majority worries when it hears the discourse of those who ignite the population and try to dictate and orchestrate the mass’ movement, especially when they continue pressing the people to remain on the streets endlessly, despite the shed blood and the increasing amount of casualties, and prevent them from giving the regime’s reformation promises’ any trail-time, during which the people can examine and discover the sincerity or deception of the regime. The quiescent majority hears the discourse of the street’s extremist mobilizers and tremble from and abhor its exclusivist, tribalistic, divisive, vengeful and inflaming approaches that manipulate people’s sentiments and implement the noble sacrifices of their casualties and martyrs in its verbal violence and hatred.
Yes, Syria has not en masse strolled down to the streets. And yes, the majority of the Syrian population is definitely not standing beside the regime and it does not want it to remain statically the same. The majority of this country, to the contrary, is still standing in the shadow of its deep concern and sadness, resorting to its inactive position. More importantly still, many Syrian intellectuals stand within this majority’s circle because they read between the latest events’ and radical developments’ lines nothing but a vain and void struggle that does not promise any alternative and does not feature any foreseen hope. If we look to the position of Syria’s intellectuals from beyond the framework of the governmental media’s treason-mentality and the people’s arousers’ inflaming discourse, we would realize that the Syrian intellectuals were not at all silent or neutral. They just evaded both the involvement in the regime’s justification of its violence and brutality, and the endorsement of any fanatic and confrontational exploitation of the rioters’ blood and martyrdom. Many of the Syrian intellectuals, who have always been known as the first opposing-front against the regime’s corruption and hegemony, stand with the quiescent majority and stretch their hands toward the rational, objective and dialogical members among the two clashing sides. And, let every one knows, that they pay for this position a very high price, as they simultaneously suffer from the regime security forces’ intimidation and persecution, as well as face the accusations, blames and attacks of the extremist mobilizers of the riots.
Whither Syria in this situation? This is the most difficult question. Unfortunately, the events of the public-squares will alone decide the answer, despite the fact that neither the peoples on the streets nor the regime’s members can actually either tell us how these events will end, or can decide such end by themselves. The only remaining hope is to enable the public-squares to listen to a voice different from the voices of both the regime’s hard-core members and the streets’ confrontational mobilizers. This different voice is today the voice of the quiescent majority and the intellectual opposition group within it; the group. This voice, nevertheless, needs the aid of the media-centres, the thinkers and authors and the decision-making circles in the Arabic and international societies in digging its way to the ears and minds of the rioters. This voice needs a pulpit, wherefrom it can address and build mediation-bridges between the reasonable and wise people of the regime and the rioters. The noble and innocent heroes who went down to the streets need before any one else a parallel dialogical and political interaction to accompany the peaceful, patriotic and honest movement of the common citizens. Every one believes in change and freedom and future in Syria should support the voice of the quiescent majority and help the intellectuals therein to make contact with the wise and reasonable in the two other groups, so that Syria can truly step away from an impending black hole that is about to swallow the whole republic
