Syria: Without water Revolution

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syria,  without warer  revolutionBy Thomas L. Friedman , The New York Times
TEL ABYAD, Syria — I just spent a day in this northeast Syrian town. It was terrifying — much more so than I anticipated — but not because we were threatened in any way by the Free Syrian Army soldiers who took us around or by the Islamist Jabhet al-Nusra fighters who stayed hidden in the shadows. It was the local school that shook me up.

As we were driving back to the Turkish border, I noticed a school and asked the driver to turn around so I could explore it. It was empty — of students. But war refugees had occupied the classrooms and little kids’ shirts and pants were drying on a line strung across the playground. The basketball backboard was rusted, and a local parent volunteered to give me a tour of the bathrooms, which he described as disgusting. Classes had not been held in two years. And that is what terrified me. Men with guns I’m used to. But kids without books, teachers or classes for a long time — that’s trouble. Big trouble.

They grow up to be teenagers with too many guns and too much free time, and I saw a lot of them in Tel Abyad. They are the law of the land here now, but no two of them wear the same uniform, and many are just in jeans. These boys bravely joined the adults of their town to liberate it from the murderous tyranny of Bashar al-Assad, but now the war has ground to a stalemate, so here, as in so many towns across Syria, life is frozen in a no-man’s land between order and chaos. There is just enough patched-up order for people to live — some families have even rigged up bootleg stills that refine crude oil into gasoline to keep cars running — but not enough order to really rebuild, to send kids to school or to start businesses.

So Syria as a whole is slowly bleeding to death of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. You can’t help but ask whether it will ever be a unified country again and what kind of human disaster will play out here if a whole generation grows up without school.

“Syria is becoming Somalia,” said Zakaria Zakaria, a 28-year-old Syrian who graduated from college with a major in English and who acted as our guide. “Students have now lost two years of school, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and if this goes on for two more years it will be like Somalia, a failed country. But Somalia is off somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Syria is the heart of the Middle East. I don’t want this to happen to my country. But the more it goes on, the worse it will be.”

This is the agony of Syria today. You can’t imagine the war here continuing for another year, let alone five. But when you feel the depth of the rage against the Assad government and contemplate the sporadic but barbaric sect-on-sect violence, you can’t imagine any peace deal happening or holding — not without international peacekeepers on the ground to enforce it. Eventually, we will all have to have that conversation, because this is no ordinary war.

THIS Syrian disaster is like a superstorm. It’s what happens when an extreme weather event, the worst drought in Syria’s modern history, combines with a fast-growing population and a repressive and corrupt regime and unleashes extreme sectarian and religious passions, fueled by money from rival outside powers — Iran and Hezbollah on one side, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar on the other, each of which have an extreme interest in its Syrian allies’ defeating the other’s allies — all at a time when America, in its post-Iraq/Afghanistan phase, is extremely wary of getting involved.

I came here to write my column and work on a film for the Showtime series, “Years of Living Dangerously,” about the “Jafaf,” or drought, one of the key drivers of the Syrian war. In an age of climate change, we’re likely to see many more such conflicts.

“The drought did not cause Syria’s civil war,” said the Syrian economist Samir Aita, but, he added, the failure of the government to respond to the drought played a huge role in fueling the uprising. What happened, Aita explained, was that after Assad took over in 2000 he opened up the regulated agricultural sector in Syria for big farmers, many of them government cronies, to buy up land and drill as much water as they wanted, eventually severely diminishing the water table. This began driving small farmers off the land into towns, where they had to scrounge for work.

Because of the population explosion that started here in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to better health care, those leaving the countryside came with huge families and settled in towns around cities like Aleppo. Some of those small towns swelled from 2,000 people to 400,000 in a decade or so. The government failed to provide proper schools, jobs or services for this youth bulge, which hit its teens and 20s right when the revolution erupted.

Then, between 2006 and 2011, some 60 percent of Syria’s land mass was ravaged by the drought and, with the water table already too low and river irrigation shrunken, it wiped out the livelihoods of 800,000 Syrian farmers and herders, the United Nations reported. “Half the population in Syria between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers left the land” for urban areas during the last decade, said Aita. And with Assad doing nothing to help the drought refugees, a lot of very simple farmers and their kids got politicized. “State and government was invented in this part of the world, in ancient Mesopotamia, precisely to manage irrigation and crop growing,” said Aita, “and Assad failed in that basic task.”

Young people and farmers starved for jobs — and land starved for water — were a prescription for revolution. Just ask those who were here, starting with Faten, whom I met in her simple flat in Sanliurfa, a Turkish city near the Syrian border. Faten, 38, a Sunni, fled there with her son Mohammed, 19, a member of the Free Syrian Army, who was badly wounded in a firefight a few months ago. Raised in the northeastern Syrian farming village of Mohasen, Faten, who asked me not to use her last name, told me her story.

She and her husband “used to own farmland,” said Faten. “We tended annual crops. We had wheat, barley and everyday food — vegetables, cucumbers, anything we could plant instead of buying in the market. Thank God there were rains, and the harvests were very good before. And then suddenly, the drought happened.”

What did it look like? “To see the land made us very sad,” she said. “The land became like a desert, like salt.” Everything turned yellow.

Did Assad’s government help? “They didn’t do anything,” she said. “We asked for help, but they didn’t care. They didn’t care about this subject. Never, never. We had to solve our problems ourselves.”

So what did you do? “When the drought happened, we could handle it for two years, and then we said, ‘It’s enough.’ So we decided to move to the city. I got a government job as a nurse, and my husband opened a shop. It was hard. The majority of people left the village and went to the city to find jobs, anything to make a living to eat.” The drought was particularly hard on young men who wanted to study or marry but could no longer afford either, she added. Families married off daughters at earlier ages because they couldn’t support them.

Faten, her head conservatively covered in a black scarf, said the drought and the government’s total lack of response radicalized her. So when the first spark of revolutionary protest was ignited in the small southern Syrian town of Dara’a, in March 2011, Faten and other drought refugees couldn’t wait to sign on. “Since the first cry of ‘Allahu akbar,’ we all joined the revolution. Right away.” Was this about the drought? “Of course,” she said, “the drought and unemployment were important in pushing people toward revolution.”

ZAKARIA ZAKARIA was a teenager in nearby Hasakah Province when the drought hit and he recalled the way it turned proud farmers, masters of their own little plots of land, into humiliated day laborers, working for meager wages in the towns “just to get some money to eat.” What was most galling to many, said Zakaria, was that if you wanted a steady government job you had to bribe a bureaucrat or know someone in the state intelligence agency.

The best jobs in Hasakah Province, Syria’s oil-producing region, were with the oil companies. But drought refugees, virtually all of whom were Sunni Muslims, could only dream of getting hired there. “Most of those jobs went to Alawites from Tartous and Latakia,” said Zakaria, referring to the minority sect to which President Assad belongs and which is concentrated in these coastal cities. “It made people even more angry. The best jobs on our lands in our province were not for us, but for people who come from outside.”

Only in the spring of 2011, after the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, did the Assad government start to worry about the drought refugees, said Zakaria, because on March 11 — a few days before the Syrian uprising would start in Dara’a — Assad visited Hasakah, a very rare event. “So I posted on my Facebook page, ‘Let him see how people are living,’ ” recalled Zakaria. “My friends said I should delete it right away, because it was dangerous. I wouldn’t. They didn’t care how people lived.”

Abu Khalil, 48, is one of those who didn’t just protest. A former cotton farmer who had to become a smuggler to make ends meet for his 16 children after the drought wiped out their farm, he is now the Free Syrian Army commander in the Tel Abyad area. We met at a crushed Syrian Army checkpoint. After being introduced by our Syrian go-between, Abu Khalil, who was built like a tough little boxer, introduced me to his fighting unit. He did not introduce them by rank but by blood, pointing to each of the armed men around him and saying: “My nephew, my cousin, my brother, my cousin, my nephew, my son, my cousin …”

Free Syrian Army units are often family affairs. In a country where the government for decades wanted no one to trust anyone else, it’s no surprise.

“We could accept the drought because it was from Allah,” said Abu Khalil, “but we could not accept that the government would do nothing.” Before we parted, he pulled me aside to say that all that his men needed were anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons and they could finish Assad off. “Couldn’t Obama just let the Mafia send them to us?” he asked. “Don’t worry, we won’t use them against Israel.”

As part of our film we’ve been following a Syrian woman who is a political activist, Farah Nasif, a 27-year-old Damascus University graduate from Deir-az-Zour, whose family’s farm was also wiped out in the drought. Nasif typifies the secular, connected, newly urbanized young people who spearheaded the democracy uprisings here and in Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia. They all have two things in common: they no longer fear their governments or their parents, and they want to live like citizens, with equal rights — not as sects with equal fears. If this new generation had a motto, noted Aita, the Syrian economist, it would actually be the same one Syrians used in their 1925 war of independence from France: “Religion is for God, and the country is for everyone.”

But Nasif is torn right now. She wants Assad gone and all political prisoners released, but she knows that more war “will only destroy the rest of the country.” And her gut tells her that even once Assad is gone, there is no agreement on who or what should come next. So every option worries her — more war, a cease-fire, the present and the future. This is the agony of Syria today — and why the closer you get to it, the less certain you are how to fix it.

First published in the New York Times

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29 responses to “Syria: Without water Revolution”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Finally, a true perspective. Aside from grasshoppers, even the rats become appealing. The refugees have nothing to return to which can sustain them anyway, but where they are is being depleted as well now. Somalia-effect aside, there IS a world food shortage when a whole country can’t feed itself.
    Or, a world just needs to turn it’s back and try not to go down with it.
    The massive drought and eventual dessert of Ethiopia was also man-made. The nomadic life worked fine with the weather, but forcing people into one location created the dessert – which couldn’t sustain the extra populations also created – which then couldn’t withstand the sectarian idiocies.

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Finally, a true perspective. Aside from grasshoppers, even the rats become appealing. The refugees have nothing to return to which can sustain them anyway, but where they are is being depleted as well now. Somalia-effect aside, there IS a world food shortage when a whole country can’t feed itself.
    Or, a world just needs to turn it’s back and try not to go down with it.
    The massive drought and eventual dessert of Ethiopia was also man-made. The nomadic life worked fine with the weather, but forcing people into one location created the dessert – which couldn’t sustain the extra populations also created – which then couldn’t withstand the sectarian idiocies.

    1. sunniWAbass Avatar
      sunniWAbass

      i wonder how small beasts like fruit-flies can convert a huge beast like you into a fat bag

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Check the word ‘putrefaction’ and research in Wikipedia. It’s not fruit flies that do it.

        1. SunnaRepublicOfLebanon Avatar
          SunnaRepublicOfLebanon

          inna lillah wa ilayhi ragi3oun; sadaka allahou al 3azeem

          1. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Your problem, sunnadickhead, is that as much as you want to, no-one can make something which is true become untrue. All you can do is try to obviscate it, or kill people who note the fact and state it. It would be better for your blood-pressure if you opened that small mind a little and allowed some thoughts in. 😉
            Facts are facts. I had talked about overpopulation and food being a problem long before there were over a million ‘instant’ refugees from Syria, who now begin to prove the fact rather quickly.
            Each country has production for a given population. Some have excess. Some do not. You may not agree with all the methods used, but food has been ‘shared’ around the world by various means from very ancient times.
            ‘World Food’ ties in to ‘World Economy’. (If it didn’t, then the Lebanese would have nothing to offer refugees but pine-nuts and olives. And some calamari which the Greeks left behind. ;-)))
            Making babies meant making more food … somewhere. Food means nutrition also – and this article talks about something you should have had – an education. So … nutrition, education and food production also go hand-in-hand. Assad and various other idiots have removed food production for 20 million people – and they can’t live well on wild grass and weeds.
            (In Jordan they used the trees up trying to keep warm last winter. Isreali idiots burn olive trees. And those famous Cedars seem to be going somewhere.)
            So as the article points out, now in Syria there is no education, AND no nutrition to help brains develope … and that is an uncomfortable FACT but it exists (we can note the results of that with yours, perhaps) , and this has NOTHING to do with any religion. A fact is a fact. Truth may hurt, but you will accept it, or die trying to eat dirt. (For your information, I will say that clays are not as gritty as beach-sand, may sustain you longer, and pass more easily out of holes – if you can find a lot of clean water to drink.)

            You don’t need religion and sects and various other stupidities invented by ‘man’ to kill off overpopulations, you see. You just need FACTS.
            And one more note for the underdeveloped brain – write it down – it takes a hell of a lot of fruit flies to make up the nutritional value of a grasshopper.

          2. SunnaRepublicOfLebanon Avatar
            SunnaRepublicOfLebanon

            wzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, wake me up at the end

          3. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Sorry to overload the grey-matter. Bottom line then:
            ‘it takes a hell of a lot of fruit flies to make up the nutritional value of a grasshopper.’

          4. SunnaRepublicOfLebanon Avatar
            SunnaRepublicOfLebanon

            dont worry you will never overload your grey matter, it will fume way before excess load; further you got plenty of liquid and lacunae as well as wide spaces between gyri that any grey matter space occupying material will push these wild useless spaces

  3. Matthew 24:7……….

    For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places………….

    Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, will be saved…….

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      CrossWinds …. Is that another way of saying that history repeats itself? 😉

  4. CrossWinds Avatar
    CrossWinds

    Matthew 24:7……….

    For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places………….

    Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, will be saved…….

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      CrossWinds …. Is that another way of saying that history repeats itself? 😉

  5. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    I did like this one …. “Religion is for God, and the country is for everyone.”

  6. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    I did like this one …. “Religion is for God, and the country is for everyone.”

  7. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Forget the flying bullets, folks. THIS is Lebanon’s food. !!!!
    (Star Report)
    “In the last few months findings indicate that farmers have reverted to chaos [in their free use of pesticides], and the Lebanese should be warned,” a statement from the Consumer Protection Department said.
    The most recent tests were conducted at the Agriculture Ministry’s pharmacology laboratory in Kfarshima in Baabda, with samples including strawberries, arugula, swiss chard, parsely and chicory.
    The produce was gathered from different neighborhoods in Beirut, such as Raml al-Zarif, Zaidanieh and Burj al-Barajneh, as well as Shoueifat in Aley, and the Baabda towns of Mreijeh, Hadath, and Kfarshima.
    Results indicated that of the 15 samples tested, seven contained pesticides, with four exhibiting dangerous levels. Two were found to contain deposits from the pesticides carbendazim and cadusafos, which are banned in Lebanon because of their toxicity.
    The department said in a statement that its officials have observed persistent smuggling of banned pesticides despite bans. They also expressed alarm at the growing quantities of imported pesticides available in the market.

    Well, THAT should keep the tourists at bay for sure. !!!

    1. MossadAgent Avatar
      MossadAgent

      you seem to lead (rather be lead by) a boring life

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Especially when reading you … but now I’m certain you’ve been eating the fruits. 😉

    2. MossadAgent Avatar
      MossadAgent

      when our tanks will bring agha khariri and tzar geagea back to power, the daily star will make the same study but with excellent results; this is your democracy

  8. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Forget the flying bullets, folks. THIS is Lebanon’s food. !!!!
    (Star Report)
    “In the last few months findings indicate that farmers have reverted to chaos [in their free use of pesticides], and the Lebanese should be warned,” a statement from the Consumer Protection Department said.
    The most recent tests were conducted at the Agriculture Ministry’s pharmacology laboratory in Kfarshima in Baabda, with samples including strawberries, arugula, swiss chard, parsely and chicory.
    The produce was gathered from different neighborhoods in Beirut, such as Raml al-Zarif, Zaidanieh and Burj al-Barajneh, as well as Shoueifat in Aley, and the Baabda towns of Mreijeh, Hadath, and Kfarshima.
    Results indicated that of the 15 samples tested, seven contained pesticides, with four exhibiting dangerous levels. Two were found to contain deposits from the pesticides carbendazim and cadusafos, which are banned in Lebanon because of their toxicity.
    The department said in a statement that its officials have observed persistent smuggling of banned pesticides despite bans. They also expressed alarm at the growing quantities of imported pesticides available in the market.

    1. MossadAgent Avatar
      MossadAgent

      you seem to lead (rather be lead by) a boring life

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Especially when reading you … but now I’m certain you’ve been eating the fruits. 😉

        1. AbdallahBenAbdelAzizLebnanKing Avatar
          AbdallahBenAbdelAzizLebnanKing

          honestly you are boring to read; are you by any chance a drug addict!

    2. MossadAgent Avatar
      MossadAgent

      when our tanks will bring agha khariri and tzar geagea back to power, the daily star will make the same study but with excellent results; this is your democracy

  9. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    A few weeks later …. Still women and kids starving in places … even in Tripoli.
    The ‘mighty soldiers’ are the only ones getting food … how long that can last is debatable … and when ‘mighty soldiers’ become hungry, they hunt.

  10. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    A few weeks later …. Still women and kids starving in places … even in Tripoli.
    The ‘mighty soldiers’ are the only ones getting food … how long that can last is debatable … and when ‘mighty soldiers’ become hungry, they hunt.

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