Syria as we speak is essentially the most dynamic diplomatic venue within the Center East as a result of it’s the most strategically contested one – because it has been for millennia. The end result of the competitors to manage Syrian governance and alliances will outline political developments within the Levant and the broader Center East for years to come back.
Three concentric circles of home, regional, and world actors compete for energy and affect in Syria due to the nation’s distinctive place and standing. It’s a uncommon full and consequential Arab nation, attributable to its human and pure sources, strategic geography, and political, cultural, and ethnic ties within the Center East and the world.
Syria as we speak, even in its dilapidated state after half a century of autocratic abuse and 13 years of struggle, hosts tons of of diplomats, businesspeople, civic activists, and carpetbaggers. However this isn’t new.
The individuals and rulers of the land of Syria have skilled this all through the final 5,000 years, ever since Damascus and Aleppo emerged as productive, vibrant, and strategic city centres within the third millennium BC. All through recorded settled human historical past, the land and folks of Syria have persistently generated data, worth methods, meals, wealth, tradition, expertise, and identities which have made their land a strategic and coveted world crossroads.
A visit by land throughout Syria reveals overlapping networks of roads, forts, farms, water methods, and concrete centres which have lengthy serviced the east-west and north-south commerce routes linking Asia, Europe and Africa. Alongside them stand Syria’s main entrepot cities – Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Deir az-Zor, Palmyra, Deraa, Latakia, and others – which have performed outstanding roles within the nation’s historical past. Numerous ethnic and non secular teams coexisted in these strategic city centres – Sunnis, Shia, Alawites, Druze, Christians, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, and some others. All through historical past, they lived collectively by negotiating variations by means of formal and casual mechanisms based mostly in these cities.
Syria has all the time been and stays particular as a result of it’s the most full Arab nation that enjoys all of the property of real statehood and nationhood. These embrace fertile land and water sources; mineral and agricultural wealth; an industrial base; human wealth in expert residents, proficient managers, and entrepreneurial businesspeople; a pluralistic citizenry throughout vibrant and inventive city centres, alongside deeply anchored villages and rural settlements; a robust nationwide and cultural identification; and, entry by land and sea to the wealth and commerce routes of three continents.
It is usually a consequential nation due to its intrinsic wealth and its strategic geography. Historic and trendy empires – from Greece, Rome, Persia, Byzantium, and India to Britain and France, to not point out Russia and the US – have fought to manage Syria so as to safe entry to its sources and necessary cross-continental routes that traverse it. If you wish to get a really feel for a way that works, go spend just a few days within the Damascus Sheraton Lodge.
Greater than another Arab land, together with trendy Egypt and energy-rich Gulf states, Syria can be consequential as a result of it emits throughout the area waves of emotion and identification that mirror what odd Arabs search so as to fulfil each their human and civic aspirations. At varied moments up to now century, these sentiments emanated from the realms of pluralism, constitutionalism, Islamism, anti-colonialism, and Arabism.
Syria can be necessary for individuals world wide to understand as a result of its expertise reminds us in a single stroke of your complete trendy Arab area’s strengths, weaknesses, failures, identities, and aspirations.
For millennia, “Syria” meant the larger Higher Syria, or Bilad-el-Sham (“The Land of Sham”), which comprised many of the Levant and elements of the Fertile Crescent territories that at the moment are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and elements of Turkey and Iraq.
It was truncated after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by Franco-British imperial militarism that prevented the delivery of a constitutional monarchy anchored in an elected meeting in 1920. The next colonial-engineered state predictably suffered the identical troubles and vulnerabilities that outline most Arab nations as we speak.
These embrace: anti-colonial resistance and a battle for independence that by no means achieved full sovereignty; continuous overseas navy interventions; makes an attempt at consultative and participatory decision-making that all the time resulted in dictatorships and navy rule; bouts of real improvement in schooling, healthcare, infrastructure, and financial development that in the end stagnated and deteriorated, attributable to corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability; and pluralistic societies that always succumbed to sectarian wars, stoked by exterior forces.
In the present day, many Arab and different residents throughout our area comply with Syria’s transformation with hope and admiration. All of us need Syria to develop into the trendy Arab world’s first self-determinant, citizen-validated, and actually democratic and sovereign state.
It isn’t misplaced on any of us that Syria’s present management emanates from Islamist teams who had been battle-hardened in US-occupied Iraq and overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad with US, Israeli, Turkish, and different non-Syrian help. This solely heightens our cheering on Syrians to realize their formidable objectives.
Regional and worldwide powers that work extra time to affect the brand new Syrian management will use bribes, weapons, and subterfuge to make sure that the brand new Syria that emerges will align with them. If the brand new authorities resist, they’ll definitely face foreign-inspired and funded makes an attempt to overthrow them, as has occurred so usually up to now throughout this area.
In a means, Syria’s battle for dignified, secure statehood as we speak is the delayed fruits of the historic however quashed decade of mass Arab rebellion for democracy, pluralism, and equal rights for all. As in 1920, Syria as we speak additionally exams whether or not exterior powers can enable its residents to outline themselves, and set an instance for the remainder of the area. If there’s any Arab citizenry that may obtain this, it’s the Syrians, as a result of they’ve been practising for this second for five,000 years.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
