Nonviolent fighter, a democratic and
a Peace activist, Rami Nakhla, in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the
contrary, believes in a bright future to his country, Syria. He talks to Kirthi Jayakumar about his activism,
the conflict in Syria and the kind of solution he believes it needs.
This post is written in advance to mark the Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare.
What is happening in Syria right now?
It is a very
challenging question to answer. Not everyone will agree with any one answer. It
started off as a nonviolent uprising against the dictatorship that tortured
ordinary civilians. It began as a fight for democracy, and remained a nonviolent
conflict for eight months. But with the element of regional interference and
brutal crackdowns by the government, along with external channels bringing in
weapons, the armed resistance began. It escalated into a full scale civil war
between the regime and the people. The regime is a minority one, representing
the Alawite population that is about 5 million people out of 23 million. The
Alawite sect is supported by Iran, being a Shiite sect. The remainder of the
population in Syria is Sunni. This angle makes it look like a sectarian
conflict, but it has several political and regional dimensions. That said,
right now as we speak, there are all kinds of nonviolent, liberal and secular
activists fighting side-by-side with radical Al-Qaeda affiliated wings, against
the dictatorship. It is a rather complicated state of affairs.
There is a lot of talk about how
the opposition to the regime is divided in Syria – one of the factors credited
as being the reason for the continued state of war. Do you agree? If it is
indeed true, why is unity so elusive?
There is a huge
division among the Syrian opposition. This is primarily because there was no
real opposition for the last five decades in the country. The only one was the
Muslim Brotherhood – and being a member of that group could well earn you a
death sentence. Currently, though there is a division, the slew of leftist,
secular, communist, liberal and nonviolent activists are fighting alongside
with those who follow a more radical approach and want an Islamist state after
the current regime. The sheer diversity among the opposing masses makes it
appear fragmented. There have been several attempts to bring the opposition
together – there was the Syrian National Council, then the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary
Forces – but they were all composed only of representatives that operated at
the political level with absolutely no roots to the ground. Two of them operate
from outside Syria, and there are many that operate on the ground as well.
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| Rami at a meeting in Turkey discussing the future of his country. Image (c) Rami Nakhla |
At any stage, you
simply cannot ask the international community to intervene militarily. It is
seriously unbelievable that people ask or even lobby for an external power to
intervene in a domestic realm. I believe that we certainly need an
international mechanism in place – something like an international policing
authority – that would help keep the security of the people intact. For
instance, when a dictator is slaughtering his people, such an authority could
intervene and keep such conduct in check. That said, the Syrian conflict is
very dynamic and therefore, very complicated. In the beginning itself, the
international community should have issued a credible threat to Syria, not
intervention, but a credible threat indicating that a non-adherence to certain
limits and red lines would result in an intervention. This didn’t happen.
Instead, they used a red line with chemical weapons, which, in my opinion, was
pointless. The Syrian regime had already killed 150,000 people without chemical
weapons! In effect, it was like telling the regime that they could do whatever
they wanted without using chemical weapons. The international community did not
make use of the opportunity to issue a credible threat, and the Syrian regime
exploited this. The international community has said that there will be
absolutely no military intervention to topple the regime. But the Syrian
opposition has continuously lobbied for this option. This is simply not
productive and will lead us nowhere. I believe that we need to take this out of
the equation, use international support to buttress a political solution that
we should find ourselves, and not to request an intervention.
Can you tell us about your own
story as an activist against the regime?
I have lived all my
life in Syria, and I have been an activist since 2006. I used to use a
pseudonym – Malath Aumran – and no one knew it was Rami Nakhla behind it all.
Nevertheless, for all that I was known as, as Rami Nakhla, I was interrogated
as many as 40 times by 2010, being taken for as many as once or twice a week
for questioning. They would question my activities as Rami, but they didn’t
know Malath was me. I was on their radar as an activist since then. In
2010-2011, the regimes collapsed in Tunisia and Egypt, and the government here
decided to become wiser. They began arresting activists who might possibly play
a role in creating a Syrian revolution to topple the regime. Even before things
started out, I hid in Damascus for a while, and then fled to Lebanon with drug dealers.
The uprising began when I was in Beirut, where I co-founded an initiative that
helped to coordinate protests and spread word on the regime and its atrocities.
I was their spokesperson. The initiative supported all the work it did with
eyewitnesses and pictures, rallying and networking on the uprising all the
time.
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| A testament to the Syrian pogrom: Mass Graves in Syria to mark the passing of innocent civilians and protesters Image (c) Rami Nakhla |
If you had told me
three years ago about the things I would see in the three years since, and tell
me that I could take it, I wouldn’t have believed you. But the human body is an
incredible machine. At the beginning of the uprising, the most traumatic thing
for me to see was peaceful protesters being beaten. When the conflict
escalated, it was traumatic to see them being shot. People would bend down and
pray on the streets in the face of all that violence. We changed as a people, I
know I did – I never thought I would see what I did and still sleep at night.
We are a traumatised nation, and we need therapy en masse after the war ends,
to recover from the trauma. When the pain is too great, you stop feeling it.
Understandably so. Do you see an
end in sight?
Without international
solidarity and support, I don’t think we can make it. At this moment, I don’t
see an end in the defined sense of a winner and loser divide. There is no
possibility of a military victory for either side, but only a political
solution. Every conflict comes to an end sooner or later, either with a
military victory or with a political solution. But, the current situation on
ground – considering both sides and the forces they have – this conflict can go
on for years and years. We might just lose everything, and Syria might be wiped
off the world map for all we know. It would be catastrophic. We already see so
many refugee camps on the borders – all filled with people suffering in
terrible conditions. We need a political solution to achieve peace. War cannot
be won militarily – not this one especially. This is what I am working on
currently.
What have your own personal
challenges been in this journey so far?
We face challenges in
our lives every day – it is as true for me as it is for you. In my time as an
activist in this conflict, I will say that I went through three stages. In the
first phase, I was organising protests and rallying people. I was a nonviolent
activist entirely. The second stage was when the armed conflict began.
Undoubtedly the non-violence still existed, but I couldn’t stick to the
original plan of action – my priorities had to change. It was all about
containing the armed conflict at this point. I went to Washington DC and worked
with the United States Institute of Peace – where we produced “The Day After”
document. The third stage came up when the conflict began escalating into
sectarian considerations as they played out in Syria. My focus shifted to
working on achieving a peaceful solution. Once a sectarian overtone sets in,
you need to involve all the parties to the conflict in bringing a solution
alive. You cannot ignore anyone. The key to that is to reconcile tensions and
differences, redistributing our powers in the processes. This is what I am
working on now, and I must admit that it is quite challenging. It is hard to
admit to yourself that the priorities have changed and must be accommodated. I
worked to topple the regime at one point, but that is no longer the priority –
what we need now is a sustainable political solution. It needs courage to shift
the priorities about to meet the right one at the right time.
To stay in touch with Rami Nakhla and his inspiring work, follow him on twitter as @MalathAumran
To stay in touch with Rami Nakhla and his inspiring work, follow him on twitter as @MalathAumran