29th of July 2011 witnessed the formation of Free Syrian Army with the release of a web-video featuring a group of uniformed men claiming to be defected Syrian army. The sole purpose of this organization, as its founders claim, is to protect Syrians protesting against Assad government. Regardless of the fact that this militarized presence among protests contradicts the peacefulness protesters have been embracing and chanting for a long time, the Free Syrian Army represents, according to its advocates, the armed self-defense component of a nonviolent movement.
Hardcore supporters of FSA explain their stand by stressing on how the presence of the FSA militants at demonstrations actually preserve the nonviolent character of the Syrian uprising. Defending nonviolent protesters against brutal repression encourages protesters to remain peaceful with the knowledge that they will be defended, rather than give up nonviolent protest in frustration and take up arms against the regime. This wishful and idealistic explanation sounds perfect on paper, unfortunately, reality begs to differ sharply and violently.
If you have been following the news lately, you would have definitely noticed the drastic change in FSA ”self-defense” presence.The FSA soon has begun to do more than defending unarmed protesters against security forces. Rather than simply having an armed presence at protests, the FSA brigades started conducting attack operations against the Syrian army in non-protest scenarios.Thus, the Free Syrian Army evolved from being a “protective” organization to one that reacted to the regime’s offensive operations.
Today, however, the Free Syrian Army plays a major role in determining the directions to which the uprising may or may not go. The revolution looks now more than ever to have become militarized as it adopts the Libyan scenario gradually. The FSA is now conducting its own operations against the government forces, and so, rather than directly defending against attacks,is pre-empting them. This can certainly be interpreted as self-defense by FSA supporters; however, no one can deny that it certainly looks less like self-defense for it has escalated the struggle with the government and the increased the number of Syrian martyrs.
What complicates things even more is the radical Islamic side that the FSA brigades adopts. With names like Alfarouq, Moawiyah Bin Abi Sufian, Shield of Islam, you can not but predict a religious and sectarian discrimination in goals and methods. Those who argue in favor of FSA say that those names mean nothing for there are brigades named after Syrian heroes and martyrs. This argument would have been correct if it wasn’t for the Jihad declaration calls adopted by radical sheikhs like Al-Arour, Al-Qardawi and Al-Luhaidan, and also the ultimate support the FSA has from Alqaeda in Alzawahri’s statements and the formation of Alnusra Front of Alqaeda jihadists in Syria. Jihad declaration in Syria attracted not only Alqaeda jihadists and terrorists, but also fighters from Libya, Bosnia, Afghanistan and other countries who managed to sneak into Syria’s boiling zones to fight with FSA militants and rebels. The existence of Alqaeda terrorists was the perfect recipe for disaster; organized crimes, rapes, kidnaps and tortures against religious minorities increased rapidly, terrorist explosions became the norm in Syria’s major cities and above all hate speech and sectarianism against the Alawis, Assad’s sect, were adopted by FSA militants and some revolution activists and leading figures like Abdul Basit Alsaroot, Haytham Almaleh, Omar Tellawi, Mulham Aljundi and many others.
In short, the uprising in Syria has become fully militarized, especially as a response to the recent massacres in Homs committed by the regime. After the events in Homs, revolution fanatics have come to the conclusion that to defeat the regime in a nonviolent, peaceful movement is foolish and impossible, and the only way to carry on is through armed resistance to regime forces. This line of reasoning is extremely dangerous and has catastrophic results.
Even though I’m a pacifist, I believe in people’s right to defend themselves against oppression. We should not judge the oppressed morally for choosing to arm themselves for the sake of self-protection. As many liberals believe, I think nonviolent always has superiority over armed movements, but there is indeed a space for armed resistance. However,in the Syrian case, I do not believe it will be effective, in fact, I believe it will ultimately be detrimental to lead the country to a long and devastating civil war.
The Free Syrian Army cannot compete with the Syrian state. It is always extremely difficult to compete with a state that has superior weaponry,training, and greater numbers of armed fighters and soldiers. it is extremely naive and immature to let the revolution descend solely into the military sphere, because this is the Syrian government’s specialty. Some claim that foreign powers can secretly arm the FSA, especially after many countries in Friends of Syria two conferences encouraged arming the rebels and John McCain’s calls for Obama’s administration to arm FSA like it did with Libyan rebels. However, no matter how many Saudi, Turkish or US channels are opened up, the weaponry that the FSA can get their hands on will never match those of the Syrian army, in number or in strength.
The other major issue that many FSA supporters seem to ignore is the aftermath of the militarization of Syria’s uprising. I don’t recall any country in our modern history that witnessed armed struggles or civil wars which ended with the fighting sides dropping their weapons after the wars were over. We don’t have to go back in time to talk about the Lebanese civil war and how long it took the Lebanese people to get rid of the post-war armed militias, Libya’s case is the manifestation of the crisis armed movements bring. Libya’s transitional council still can not control the expansion of armed militias in post-Qaddafi’s era, the country is torn by terrorism, hate crimes, racism and fights among the militias that once fought together against Qaddafi. Try to apply the Libyan scenario on Syria and you will see what I mean and why I sharply oppose the idea of anti-government armed movements.
Many have concluded that the revolution must become armed now and it has no other choice. But is this “feel good” or “do good” politics or just juvenile, short-sighted attitude? I’m in no place to question the man who decides to get revenge for his dead family, he has every right to do so. What’s the use of revenge if it ends up with him being simply killed? We can’t really say that it was a beneficial act, as morally justified as it may be. I believe that the decision to rely on arms will result in even more state violence than we have already seen and this will keep the bloodshed going till it reaches the state we all have been dreading, a civil war. What’s the alternative? I think the answer is to focus on a political solution for the Syrian crisis. People say too many have died using nonviolent methods, but many more will die if we rely solely on violent methods. The only available choice is to work in making Kofi Annan’s plan succeed in implementing an immediate cease fire. We lost thousands of Syrians from both sides and we can not afford to lose more. If some of you think Syrian blood is cheap and those martyrs are just inevitable statistics and numbers, they are not to me. The Syrian blood in my veins is so precious, that’s why I don’t want it to be spilled anymore.
In a crisis like this, you find yourself, consciously or subconsciously, forced to choose a side.I was and will always be on people’s side; people who are oppressed, tortured, killed, impoverished and degraded. People who strive to get their voices heard when everyone chooses to act deaf, people who prefer to die than to live in humiliation.
