Stand aside for Syria’s women

Good news can bring joy and happiness except on social media, where naysayers, pessimists and the bitter anti-capitalist and radical left have tried to push a rancorous narrative about what we hope will be the end of the civil war in Syria. Yes, there are many imponderables, but I think we should focus on the positive: the Syrian people are finally free of an unspeakable regime which has been ruled by state brutality and cruelty for five decades.

Bashar Al-Assad is no Lion of the Desert, nor is he an anti-imperialist; he was the softly-spoken London ophthalmologist who morphed into a monster. He presided over a ruthless regime which organised the industrial-scale rape of at least 7,000 Syrian women.

Speaking and writing as a Muslim woman, I have absolutely no time for those misogynists who have called the opposition groups terrorists, Al-Qaida and Daesh/ISIS. I suppose, though, that if your only source of information comes from a poisoned well of sectarianism, ignorance and Islamophobia then it is easy to reach that conclusion.

I have many friends on the ground in Syria and I can tell you with a degree of authority that the opposition rebels came together and rose up against the Assad regime while Lebanon’s attention was diverted by Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza. These brave souls were ordinary, largely working class, home-grown heroes who had endured more than enough of Assad and his henchmen.

READ: Assad regime has killed most forcibly displaced, says rights group

Of all the Syrians I’ve encountered, I am still haunted by the women I met in 2018 who told me in awful detail of their rape, torture and abuse in Assad’s prisons.

“Incredible as it may seem, the face of the Syrian leader is emblazoned on T-shirts worn by the rapists in his employ, as if he defiles Syrian women by proxy,” I wrote in MEMO at the time. “No wonder that many who manage to get out of the prisons cannot bear to look at the face of the Syrian leader. Those small, thin lips and piercing stare must send shivers down their spines every time they see his image.”

It is for those women that I am celebrating the fall of Assad, for only they truly know the joy of finally being free of the brutal dictator.

And I want the Assad “warriors” of Branch 215 brought to justice and made to pay for their crimes against women.

That, more than anything else, is why I cheered the arrival of the rebels liberating Damascus this week. For the record, I’m no big fan of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, with which I have had dealings over its behaviour and treatment of aid workers in Syria.

However, give credit where it is due, HTS has done more than any other “Islamist” group (they’re all Islamists as far as the secular, anti-systemic left is concerned) to cleanse the region of Daesh/ISIS Yes, it did have links with Al-Qaida back in 2016, but as far as I am aware it is an amalgamation of many rebel groups in Syria that opted for unity and strength in numbers.

To claim that HTS is working for Israel is ludicrous, although having the Israeli air force bombing your enemy has to be a bonus. Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to claim a big part in the victory in Syria is equally ludicrous, but that man has the brass neck to say anything. No doubt we’ll hear more shameless lies from the disgraced Israeli prime minister during his corruption trial this week, and I hope we will get to hear what he has to say in the dock at The Hague on war crimes charges.

The rapid advance by the opposition factions caught Israel, America and its allies in Europe on the hop.

I’m not sure why, because HTS was apparently ready to go more than a year ago, but held back because of Israel’s war in Gaza and then Lebanon and the subsequent ceasefire with Hezbollah. Much has been made by keyboard warriors of the fact that HTS has not attacked Israel and so it must be fighting for the Zionist army. The conspiracy theorists have joined in with claims that HTS is being backed by the CIA. That may or may not be true, given that the US intelligence agency has made some seriously crazy decisions over the years when meddling in US foreign policy, but personally, if I was a soldier with an enemy in my sights, I couldn’t care less if the weapon has been supplied by Russia, China or America. My only question would be: does it work?

Assad had few friends apart from Russia and Iran and both are naturally hacked off at his demise. We and they need to look at his human rights record, and not forget that revolutions are accomplished through the ranks of ordinary people. Both Russia and Iran should understand this. And if I really want to blow the collective mind of the sanctimonious, secular leftists, they should consider this: Islamists can be and are working class people too.

Over the years, Assad has been responsible, directly and indirectly, for the killing, wounding and suffering of millions of Syrians and their children. Without his reign of terror, around 12 million Syrians would not have fled their homes as refugees or be internally displaced people in the country that the Assad dynasty has ruled so brutally for more than 50 years. His regime is responsible for the slaughter of many more people than were killed or suffered under Daesh/ISIS, and it used chemical weapons and barrel bombs.

READ: UN envoy warns against sending refugees back to Syria too soon

It is important for us to remember that the uprising in Syria was never about the rise of Daesh/ISIS, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (remember him?) or the deluded band of killers who murdered, maimed, raped and pillaged their way across the region for his terrorist group, which at its height ruled a huge swathe of land across Iraq and the Levant.

Nor had the Syrian revolution anything to do with those Kurds who were seeking self-determination with or without the help of the dodgy PKK or YPG and their boy soldiers. The presence of the US or Russia in Syria had nothing to do with this particular Arab uprising either.

Who remembers Syria’s brave ‘Graffiti Boys’? I wrote about them in January 2014.

While Middle East political analysts from East to West are tying themselves in knots about who gains and who loses from the HTS victory, let’s keep it simple: Women are the big winners, especially the women who have survived Assad’s dungeons, thugs and rapists.

As the great and good gather to “help” move Syria forward positively, I hope that the men in suits from the West and the Arab leaders stand aside for Syria’s women. They should, because these women deserve a place at the top table to advise and help a brave new future emerge in Syria for the next generation. Rim Turkmani is one such woman, and her presence would shut critics up when they claim that HTS leadership in Syria will strip women of their rights.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.