Author Archives: Jonathan Brown

Syria is free. Despite the odds, despite the indifference, despite the efforts of the ‘Global community’ to ‘freeze the conflict’ and bring ‘stability’ to a problem they wished would go away… Syrians have freed themselves. The Assad regime, rotten to the core, competent solely at oppressing Syrians, is finished. 

Across the country, Syrians from all religions, sects and ethnicities have been pulling down statues of their oppressor, but the images that probably matter most are those of people walking or being carried free from the regime’s prison network. Families being reunited with relatives they’d been told had died in captivity years ago. Children born to mothers in prison. An air force pilot imprisoned for refusing to carry out the order to bomb civilians in Hama – in 1982. Prisoners so abused that they cannot remember their own names.

Syrians are already beginning to return to their homes. From refugee camps within Syria and from surrounding countries. This is a time for optimism.

“If I can’t dance I don’t want to be in your revolution“

Sweida pic.twitter.com/CI8ykVLzLt

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) December 8, 2024

The revolution in Syria – and we can unambiguously call it that now, rather than a ‘conflict’ – has been poorly covered in the international media, with some honourable exceptions. In part I think this is down to how complex Syrian society is, in part due to how quickly and how often things changed in the country and in part because many in the media and politics fell (or worse, jumped knowingly) into the trap of seeing events in Syria as part of a ‘great game’, rather than seeing Syrians as a people with their own agency.

Over the years I’ve written a number of articles for Lib Dem Voice on Syria, in which I tried to do my part, to explain to party members what was happening, what our choices were as a country as to how we should respond. The Lib Dems for Free Syria organised briefings for parliamentarians and tried to feed into our party’s policy-making process. The most important thing we tried to do was to platform Syrians.

It’s with that in mind that I’m writing this today. Firstly, infinite congratulations to Syrians for overthrowing one of the worst monsters the world has seen. Secondly, to ask Liberal Democrats, whatever their concerns about what might come next for Syria, to please use this time to be happy for Syrians. The future is uncertain, but it is now for Syrians to determine.

Many Lib Dems will remember Junior Doctor Saleyha Ahsan’s rousing conference rally speech (37:45) in York, in which she joined the party ‘live on air’ and blasted Hunt for his attacks on our NHS. Of course, you may also recognise her from her work on the BBC’s ‘Trust Me I’m A Doctor’ or know her from the 2013 BBC documentary ‘Saving Syria’s Children’ in which, while working in Atareb Hospital in northern Syria she was required to help treat the dozens of casualties brought in from one of the Assad …

“Time is running out to save Syria’s ceasefire” warned Dr Haytham Alhamwi of the Manchester-based Syrian Rethink Rebuild Society three weeks ago “otherwise Assad will get the message that he can persist with ever more egregious violations”. Now the always limited ‘cessation of hostilities’ is, in the words of UN envoy Staffan de Mistura “barely alive“.

On Thursday one of free Aleppo’s last remaining paediatricians was killed along with colleagues and patients in the “broader pattern of systematic targeting of hospitals by the government of Bashar al-Assad”. The Syrian government is doing what it always does when dragged to the negotiating table: distract, prevaricate and take the opportunity to step up repression of non-violent activists and organise a security build-up for the outright military victory Assad promised no sooner had the ceasefire been agreed.

Note, this post contains descriptions of torture that some readers may find distressing.

Five years ago, on Friday 18th March 2011, Syrian civilians in the southern town of Deraa took to the streets to demand freedom, dignity and a fair future. The regime of Bashar al-Assad and his coterie responded immediately with deadly force, and over the following weeks more and more protesters were shot down, more and more mourners were murdered while attending funerals and more and more innocent Syrians were rounded up for torture – in many cases never to be seen again.

I opposed the government’s (and this party’s) support for air strikes against ISIS in Syria not because I think there is a credible alternative to confronting them militarily, nor because I don’t wish to stand with our allies, nor because I doubt that air strikes helped saved large numbers of Kurdish lives in both Iraq and Syria. I opposed them because while they can and ought to be part of a strategy for defeating ISIS, the government’s Syria policy is full of contradictions and I don’t think it can succeed. Largely because it does not put the protection of civilian life in Syria at its heart and so will not mesh with the priorities of the people living and dying in the country.

While a lot of the recent debate has been about UK politics, principles, pacifism, opportunism, leadership and rebellion, comparatively little was actually said about Syria and even less was heard from actual Syrians. Faith in the Vienna peace talks as being the only or at least best chance for a negotiated peace is misplaced. This statement from Syrian community representatives in the UK makes the case eloquently: