âThe current situation led to a desperate feeling of no hope for the futureâ, said Adel Toukan and his wife when I interviewed them on June 29, 2017 at the Zaatari camp in north Jordan, ten kilometres east of Mafraq, almost at the tri-junction between Syria, Jordan and Iraq. His wife added, âif not the Syrian army, then one of the militant groups would have taken him away. If that happened, I was scared of rape! The country-side is extremely unsafe!â.
The camp, set up in 2012, has gradually evolved into a township, housing nearly 80,000 refugees, in this inhospitable area.1Adel and his wife fled with two little children from the Daâraa region in south-west Syria, where the anti-Assad rebellion, initially peaceful, started on March 15, 2011. They have spent four years in the camp already and have added two more children.
A family of four, comprising the pater familias, his wife, and two young adult sons echoed Adelâs sentiment. They had fled from the Ghouta area near Damascus, when the father witnessed a third son killed by an aerial bomb. They sold their share of rich family agricultural land and left. They run a grocery shop in the camp and intend to do so until they can return. Over the years, they have brought appliances that help them to stock ice cream and other refrigerated goods. Rather unexpectedly, all of them with one voice said they would return home when conditions allowed the Syrian government to take charge of their future! None of them wanted to migrate to a third country. The old man was clear that outsiders must stop interfering in their country. âFor the time being we suffer the âunknownâ state which prevails, nothing is certain in the political situation. Till Syriaâs days of crisis are resolved we live day-to-dayâ said the head of the family.2, 3 They refused to give their names fearful of the long reach of the Syrian government.
The Zaatari camp, on a barren sandy stretch is a township of small homes constructed of tin with thermocol sheets reinforcing the roofing. Some families have been in the camp ever since its inception. According to the Jordanian camp commandant, apart from those in the camp, Jordan had more than a million refugees outside, majority in Amman. Similarly during the Iraq war, a neighbourhood of Amman was conurbated by Iraqis, mostly well to do, who have become a permanent part of the city. No doubt, a good number of Syrian refugees will stay on even after a resolution in Syria. The UN High Commissioner (UNHCR) has done yeoman service in provisioning the camp and providing food, medical services and free electricity. The last has been a major draw in keeping the refugees within the camp and enabling them to pursue some trades. Echoing the sentiment of the refugee families, the Camp Commandant was hopeful that one day, at least those in the camps would return home.
As it enters the tenth year, there is no sign of an end to the continuing conflict in Syria. Its most visible impact is the huge refugee flow; the accompanying humanitarian crisis is comparable with that caused by the Second World War. Since March 2011, more than 465,000 Syrians, including 55,000 children, were killed in the fighting and over a million injured; over 12 millionâhalf the countryâs pre-war populationâare displaced4 of whom almost 5 million are refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. As the civil war has continued Turkey has used the situation to seek geopolitical advantage by seeking to control of the Syrian province of Idlib as a buffer often offering the spurious reason of wanting to settle the refugees there.
Syria in History
Traces of human civilization since the seventh millennium BC at Ugarit (1800 BCEâ1300 BCE),5 six miles north of Lattakia (then Latonia), on the Mediterranean coast, have yielded rich archaeological finds which attest to uninterrupted human habitation. Since millennia, âSyria was always an enigma: being variously described as âmysteriousâ, âpuzzlingâ or âstrangeâ reflecting the many facets it has presented to the world. Starting with the Chaldeans, going through the Egyptian and Persian dynasties, with Macedonia and the emperors of Greece and Rome, and the European emperors, Syria has historically provided the ground for intellectual ferment and unending conflict that shaped the region.
Its geographical position coupled with Syriaâs history of nurturing three world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, has endowed the country with a unique place in the march of human civilization. It sits at the civilizational confluence of four cultures: Arab, Persian, Turkish and Hebrew. The links of ethnicity, family and tribe, forged over generations, have continued to play an important role in the evolution of the country and its people. They provide the historic roots of tensions that have led to recent developments.
True to its history, Syria, once again, has provided a battleground for competing ideas and beliefs. âSome countries seem destined from their origin to become the battlefields of contending nations which envision them. Into such regions, and to their cost, neighbouring peoples come from century to century to settle their quarrels and bring to an issue the question of supremacy which disturbs their little corner of the earthâ.6
Throughout history, notwithstanding its relatively small size,7 Syria, with its multifaceted character, became pivotal in influencing the direction of the region. Historically Syria has been the trigger, and the base, for forces determined to upset or destroy the existing order. It has held true from the Crusades coming down to the Islamic State(ISIL) which launched a Jihad against its opponents, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Syriaâs neighboursâJordan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Israelâcontinue to experience internal strife linked with the Syrian situation. It is beginning to resemble the nearly 16-year long civil war in Lebanon that had reverse effects in Syria, eventually degenerating into everyone fighting everyone else.
The consequent effects of the ongoing Syrian insurgency have radiated religious, societal and governmental instability in a devastating impact on all its neighbours, the region and on international peace and security. It reinforces the contention that Syria remains a âpivotalâ regional state.
A Pivotal State
Historically, Halford Mackinder saw a âpivotal stateâ through an imperialist lens in his Heartland theory.8 It was incumbent to control such a country in order to dominate a region.9 During the Cold War, United States most often applied the epithet of a âpivotal stateâ to countries susceptible to communism. In this definition, uppermost was the ability of a particular state to swing a country, and hence, a region, towards collapse leading to trans-border mayhem: migration, communal violence, pollution, disease and economic degradation.
While population and size are important determinants of the âpivotalâ nature of a state, they are not the only factors that determine its character. It is a function of the inward and outward linkages embedded in its national DNA. It comprises a mix of size, population, ethnic and religious diversity, linguistic affinity, economic strength and vitality, social structure and political organization. The proportions in which these various elements exercise their influence vary. Rather what is crucial is the potential impact of the interplay of these elements on a countryâs national temper.10 Syriaâs mix of minorities, and its credo of a secular ethos inspired by the Arab Baath Socialist Party,11 has made it unique in a region that has moved towards an Islamic character in its political organization.
Syriaâtogether with Jordanârepresents the modern-day Levantine crossroads that link Europe with Iraq/Iran, the Gulf and Northern Africa. Thus, control over Syria gives the ability to secure political advantage through control over the flow of goods, people and activities between several (sub) continents. Rule over Syria also provides the power to expand or reduce the Kurdish and the Palestinian conflicts through sanctuary, material support and diplomacy, to exercise significant influence on Lebanon until the IsraeliâLebanese conflict remains unresolved.
Syriaâs current situation is due to both internal and external pivots: internally, the most important factor has been the continuous contestation within Islam that has exposed hitherto latent sectarian divisions; and those between the Islamic and non-Islamic population of the country. With two-thirds of the population being Sunni Arab, the resurgence of an aggressive stand by them, against the long surviving Alawi-dominated power structure, was inevitable. More so, in the context of a similar transformation in political power, that took place in Iraq, in favour of the long-oppressed ma...