There is no
doubt that the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime will keep surprising
policymakers and policy planners. Not because people regret the loss of a
leader or the erosion of an ideology. The controversial leader was quickly
forgotten, and the ideology, of which the Ba’ath Party (1947-1966) boasted, was
already part of the past when its Founder Fathers, Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din
al-Bitar, Zaki al-Arsuzi, and Akram Hourani (representing an explosive cocktail
of contradictions), found themselves tossed between Syria and Iraq. Like Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels, the idealized intellectual construction (1848) was
downsized when the actors in charge of its implementation reached a deadlock.
The reason
why Syria will remain in the spotlight for the next three or four years is that
it will confirm a fact that is repeated after each regime change under the
pressure of international forces or coalitions in which neighboring countries,
geopolitical subcontractors, play a role of elevator.
This argument
is reflected on the one hand in the race of the state actors directly or
indirectly involved in the change made in order to have a share of the pie in
the reconstruction process. And on the other hand, in a laborious if not
chaotic management of the political transition, which always has an
unpredictable human cost.
Afghanistan
and Iraq provide a chilling example, as the aftermath of hastily negotiated
transitions continues to mark the political and strategic chessboards of the
Middle East. The same will apply to Syria. The civil war that the three
countries suffered has bequeathed to their peoples and to the international
community an unbearable human burden in terms of security, stability, and
viability of states.
An Idle
Fighter with an Easy Trigger
The burden
that interests us is that of the fate of the local and international fighters
and militias that the Syrian transitional government no longer knows what to do
with. Are they equated with mercenaries, fighters for freedom and independence,
or intruders to be gotten rid of? One shouldn’t take for granted the fact that
the new master of Damascus has appointed foreigners to key positions within his
transitional government structure.
Obviously,
the issue raised is what to do with the foreign militias and their families and
their children. Namely, their potential requests for repatriation,
regularization of births, etc.? It goes without saying that an idle
fighter with an easy trigger.
I propose to
reflect on this phenomenon, which is giving a hard time to all the governments
directly involved in the issue. However, I will broaden it to include other
even more critical situations that have been under scrutiny for decades. My
reflection is based on a simple hypothesis: the existential pretext that
imposes choices stemming from an opaque perception of life and relationships
within societies suffering from dire social cohesion.
The day after
هيئة تحرير الشام (Hayat
Tahrir al-Sham) forces entered Damascus on December 8, 2024, a video was shared
on Moroccan social networks. It shows a young man, a gun in his hand,
addressing the audience and introducing himself as a veteran hailing from the
mythical Hay Mohammadi district of Casablanca. He is one of those young
fighters fighting in the ranks of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or who joined this
organization coming from another faction that merged with it.
Comments
randomly shared have praised him or made him look like a lame duck. A son of
Hay Mohammadi in the procession of the “victors,” carrying the banner
of Islam? I am sure that no one has asked themselves what his future will be
after the new institutions are put in place. He is not Syrian. He cannot
therefore claim any status.
I couldn’t
help but flashback, four decades and more, earlier. In the screen of my memory,
the war of the Afghan Mujahedeen against the Soviet troops that pushed the Red
Army to withdraw from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989.
At the time, scholars throughout the Arab-Muslim world
hailed the victory of Muslims over the Communists. Theoretical transnational
solidarity has worked. No one managed to look into the political and
geopolitical contours of the Afghan affair. No one made the connection with the
controversial history of Afghanistan, which had always been a graveyard for all
invaders.
People
wouldn’t pay attention to the doctrinal differences and political ambitions of
the Afghan resistance fighters, whose figurehead was Ahmed Shah Masood
(1953-2001). His standoff with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and
his links with Western countries later cost him his life. He was assassinated
in 2001.
I even
remember this scene, in December 1979, where we witness a student running
through the university campus of Casablanca as if he had been chased away by a
swarm of wasps. He shouted and called for jihad and repeated that one of the
lands of Islam had been simmered by the ungodly. This young man was later to
have an exciting political trajectory, becoming an important figure in the
contemporary history of Moroccan Islamic formations.
The Islamic
revolution in Iran had just won an unexpected victory. The deal between the
merchants of the bazaars and the mullahs was not respected. Another
disappointment like the one felt by the founders of the Ba’ath party or
communism. Moreover, Arab and Muslim public opinion was flabbergasted by the
signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979, following the
Camp David Accords of 1978.
Egypt
was perceived to have betrayed the Palestinian cause simply by failing to
capitalize on its relative victory in the October 1973 war. Idealists did not
understand what realpolitik or rational choice could mean, depending on timing,
context, and opportunity in the here and now.
Another
flashback to Casablanca, during the 1970s. The recruitment of young people and
their enlistment in debates between progressives and conservatives, between
secularists (or enlightened Muslims) and Islamists. The political situation is
confused. The disturbed gaze of political actors bleeding on rusty blades of
uncertain transnational ideological allegiances gave goosebumps to everyone
within and on the margins of the political chessboard.
The debate on
how to proceed with the recovery of the Moroccan Sahara is intense. And each
time, the polemicists realize that this debate cannot succeed without
distancing themselves from foreign influences that seek more than to harm the
country, to favor regime change.
At the same
time, a tradition was established in which young people volunteered to help
young people incarcerated in prisons prepare for their school exams with the
aim, once released, of a flexible reintegration into working life. Another
fringe of young people has been attracted by the wave of ideological
wanderings.
Indeed, the
narrative of Islamist movements from the Middle East flourished while the
public authorities kept a low profile. The country had other fish to fry, as it
is true that the battle for achieving territorial integrity and the opening of
the area of freedoms was raging and draining the energy of political actors.
Amateur theatre
and cine-clubs, respectively under the impetus of Abdelkrim Berrechid and
Noureddine Saïl, offered an ideal framework for both to try to confirm their
existence. Nass El Guiwane, Jil Jilala, and Lamchahed shook up the artistic
scene by seducing a youth suffering from a lack of symbols that would help them
to show their potentiality. Some young people join factions of the Palestinian
resistance, and others, along the way, affiliate with organized crime networks.
A question might be raise about the link between these
events and the situation in Syria. I will start by asking two questions. One:
What would be the real motivations of the abovementioned actors? Are they
politically, ideologically, or religiously driven?
Two: Are
these motivations the expression of well-defined and thought-out social
projects? To what extent in the process of commitment would one be able to
distinguish between determination-dedication and personal ambitions?
It seems that
it’s very hard to pick the right answer. However, I put forward a hypothesis:
one of the fundamental reasons that push young people to mobilize for causes
that they perceive to be just is unhappiness, social disobedience, and a
pessimistic view of the future.
It might be
argued that such behavior is shared by people in all societies where equality
of opportunity is lacking. Might be, but in this case, it is that these young
people choose the most extremist path, by bearing arms and adopting a sort of
logic of unavoidable programmed suicide.
These young
people would have left to escape the miserable status quo, which, according to
their view, wouldn’t offer a promising future. Once the adventure is over for
those of them who survive, they face the same dark horizon. I can cite, without
tiring, examples in which the return back home was as unbearable as swallowing
a pill of madness.
A
Pessimistic Vision and a Weakened Compass
As
paradoxical as it may seem, there is a striking similarity between young people
who enlist in the armed struggle for so-called universal causes far from their
countries and young people who embark on makeshift boats to escape misery in
their countries.
Naturally,
these young people must be distinguished from the boat people who made the
headlines during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, fleeing endemic wars in Southeast
Asia and other corners of the planet. The main cause is not the fight for just
values but the fight for survival.
The
pessimistic perception is also found today in the behavior of activists who
have made political protest in their countries a stock in trade. It is true
that on particular issues, they have solid arguments that they put forward to
improve the conditions for the exercise of democracy and respect for human
rights. Most of them are currently going through a difficult situation that is
caused by the fact that these activists cannot accept the fact that they are no
longer useful or that their narrative is no longer appealing.
The same
argument applies to those who make obstruction of the implementation of gradual
democratic processes their perfect weapon. In the light of the changes taking
place on the political, diplomatic, and strategic chessboards, they are losing
their way and are beginning to brood.
Desperate
young people are easy prey for all kinds of unhealthy and dangerous schemes.
The annals of diplomacy tell us about young people weakened by the illusion of
running into better fabrics than those of their own country. They end up being
hired by organized crime networks or by foreign intelligence services.
Once their
mission is accomplished, these young people are either terminated or abandoned
to their fate. This was the case for some young North Africans picked up in
Istanbul, Brussels, and Cyprus and sent to Middle Eastern countries for
training in the art of subversion.
One of them,
it is said, a few years ago, was on the street after a few days during which he
had received VIP treatment. His recruiters realized too late that he was
suffering from mental disorders. If it hadn’t been for the solidarity of some
members of his own community who contributed to pay for the hotel, the plane
ticket, and allow him to return home, he would have ended badly in one way or
another. The tragedy is that even his family did not want to hear from him
anymore and wanted him to stay where he was or get swallowed by the waves of
the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean.
The difficult
return and the nightmarish awakening hurt. The most notorious example is that
of fighters from Arab and Islamic countries who returned home in the aftermath of
the end of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan.
Fighters
called Algerian Afghans are the most mentioned in the literature on the
collision between terrorism, jihadism, and separatism. 1991 was the date of
their first appearance on the ground, according to the official version of the
Algerian authorities.
The other
version is that these fighters were in cahoots with the Algerian intelligence
services, which would have used them for domestic political purposes and
geopolitical calculations dedicated to the North African and Sahelo-Saharan
areas.
The entry of
Algerian Afghans into the race therefore coincided with a climate of
instability that began in 1990 and ended with the failure of the democratic
process in Algeria. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which was on the verge
of winning the general elections at the beginning of 1992, was dissolved. This
resulted in a decade of civil war that made a half million victims.
The link
between Algerian Afghans and the FIS has never been seriously established. It
would have served the Algerian military institution to stay in power and to
make it a business to justify the burial of the Algerian democratic experience.
The same
assessment applies to Tunisian fighters who fought in the war within different
religious formations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria from 2000 to 2017. It goes
without saying that additional revelations would be made once the new
authorities set the rules in Syria.
The confusion
in people’s minds stems from the fact that religion and politics are inseparable,
while the interested parties themselves hear a different story. Then there is
the human drama of children born in the militant camps, whose kinship is
difficult to establish.
Worse still,
the fate of these young mothers who have left to escape the curse of celibacy
that their communities find difficult to accept and who find themselves
exercising jobs that rob them of their dignity and self-esteem.
The fate of
these mothers abandoned to their fate is a sad repetition of that of their
sisters around the world who had children with foreign soldiers on the soil of
their countries. The foreign military presence because of war or as a
consequence of military agreements has often ended up leaving psychological
damage. Women and children born of fortuitous or forced liaisons and abandoned
by biological fathers. The latter are obliged to return home after the end of
their mission.
Human
tragedies have haunted people’s consciousness for decades, such as what
happened in Indochina (1946-1954), in Vietnam (1955-1975), in the Republic of
Korea (1957), and in Japan (1954-1972). There is still complicit silence on the
existence of similar tragedies in many countries in the Middle East and Africa
due to the presence of military bases and peacekeeping forces. Even the amnesia
that sensitive people wish for cannot turn the page.
Amnesia
Awakens at the Cry of the Absurd
For years,
diplomatic chancelleries and security structures have negotiated to find
solutions to this human tragedy. Cases have been resolved, as Morocco proved,
which, under certain conditions and while placing the necessary safeguards.
Indeed, for humanitarian reasons, Morocco allowed the repatriation of a dozen
women and children affiliated with terrorist networks in Syria in 2021.
The question
becomes even more complicated after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. About a
hundred men, women, and children of jihadists are believed to be held in jails
and camps in northwestern Syria. But most of them remain unresolved. They are
in addition to those, on another register, who would be tried and imprisoned in
Iraq. Negotiations have been underway since 2023 to consider their relocations
in order to continue serving their sentences in their own countries.
Other
European countries such as Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, and the
Netherlands organized repatriation operations for the wives and children of
jihadists between 2021 and 2023.
What would be
the main reason for this? In addition to the fact that it is difficult to
establish family ties or affiliations, there is also the fact that those who
return continue to have a grudge against society. The reintegration is up and
down. And at the first opportunity, the passion for subversion resumes.
On a more
global scale, the return of regular soldiers from the war is not going well.
These soldiers return with traumas that are difficult to control or heal. The
literature on the subject surprises us with truths that knit on the senseless.
But the Palme d’Or goes to Hollywood. Cult films such as Deer Hunter or Taxi
Driver plunge us into the world of these soldiers eaten away by idleness and
the painful memories of the absurd wars in which they participated, which were
hardly justified.
What fate
seems to be assigned to these fighters, most of whom left for Syria in 2012?
They are not militias recruited by private companies such as Russia’s Wagner or
the American Black Waters.
They are not
similar to the militias of non-state armed groups. They are free spirits who
have no choice but to return home to face heavy-handed investigations into
their activities within movements labeled extremist and terrorist. But most of
them wouldn’t be that lucky.
From
schizophrenia to unlimited denial, there is no tangible explanation in people’s
behavior. Does this mean that they wouldn’t be entitled to forgiveness? Of
course not. The haste to which modern man is subjected means that reason is sometimes
missing. It is so out of weariness in the face of the senselessness and
ridicule shown surprisingly by individuals and communities.
The headlong
rush becomes the only affective link with a virtual reality producing
pathological behavior. There is a surprising similarity in the behavior of the
combatants, who wake up to reality after a journey into the unknown, and that
of the would-be illegal migrants, who try to protect themselves from the waves
of the oceans by playing down their saliva.
So, remembering
the image of this young man from Hay Mohammadi fighting in the ranks of Hayat
Tahrir al-Sham, I tell myself that illusion and absurdity are no laughing
matter. They are not laughable like all those people who make transnational
alliances a priesthood or a business, but in real life, they keep an eye on the
grain to remain more down-to-earth. The Middle East experts are aware that
regime change in Syria has been planned for a long time.
Political
planners and military strategists around the world know that making the same
mistakes pertaining to the Arab Spring is no longer an option. They are
sharpening their weapons for future geopolitical battles that will be even
fiercer. In the meantime, they are working to reduce tensions in some unstable
areas. They begin with this truce between Israel and Hamas: a half-hearted
agreement.
Supporters of
the all-out fight, especially within progressive and Islamist movements, are
claiming victory and assuming that the wave of normalization between Arab
countries and Israel has fizzled out. They take up the same refrain sung during
the years 1970-1990-2000. They know that they are wrong, but they cannot admit
it for the time being.
However,
people with sensitive hearts are asking the same old question: thousands of deaths
and victims since October 7, 2023, for a piece of paper that does neither
advance the Palestinian cause nor give guarantees for Israel’s security. Even
more surprising is the fact that the main regional actors involved in the
Middle East conflict have brilliantly negotiated their exit from (or entry
into) Syria.
These
regional actors will do so again in the case of Iraq or Yemen. Yet, the
scapegoats (and the victims) will be the same, like (once again) this young man
from Hay Mohammadi at the entrance to Damascus greeting his friends in the
neighborhood, a gun in his hand. By doing so, he may have gotten his revenge
against those, including theoretically, members of his own family, who would
have taken him for a broken arm. What a great consecration! What a beautiful
illusion!
