Hard Power and Soft Power; Assad and Ordinary People's Resistance

Human rights groups have reported that more than 1300 protestors have been killed since the demonstrations broke out in Syria in mid-March. At first, Syria’s militaristic, harsh, and stubborn dictatorship seemed to be immune to the wave of unrest that swept through most of the Arab world, specifically after the successful Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of January and February 2011. However, in mid-March, demonstrations broke out in several Syrian towns and cities such as Homs, Dar’a, Banias, Latakia and suburb of Damascus.

Despite the unsuccessful responses employed by the Egyptian and Tunisian governments, Assad’s regime insists on responding in the same way. He has employed repressive 19th century tactics in response to the Syrian people’s legitimate 21st century demands.

In order to halt the brutality of the Assad regime some approaches can be effectively utilized. The International Criminal Court should investigate the government’s abuses. The United Nations should condemn the Assad regime for persecuting and killing its own citizens; They can start with multilateral and unilateral penalties such as issuing asset freezes and travel bans against Mr. Assad and his top supporters, which the United States took the lead today. Additionally, an absolute arms embargo should be implemented. The United Nations Human Rights Council should also bring attention to the Syrian regime’s abuses during their upcoming session this Friday.

Bashar al-Assad, the son of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad who ruled with an iron fist for three decades, belongs to the Alawite sect. The Alawite sect is a minority religious group whose members occupy high level military and government positions in Syria. Alawites account for about 10% of the population while the majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims (74 %). Druze and Christians make up 10% of Syria’s population.

The human rights situation has deteriorated significantly over the past few years and there have a number of concerns about Syria’s human rights performance with regard to arbitrary arrests, intimidation, torture, travel bans, freedom of expression, and lack of respect for the rights of Kurdish minority.

Although Bashar al-Assad has taken some steps towards political, economic and social reform, his regime remains one of the region's most repressive. Protests broke out in Daraa when citizens were outraged by the arrest of more than a dozen school children for spraying anti-regime graffiti.
The regime has chosen to protect itself with varying degrees of force, at the expense of thousands of people’s lives. When the regime felt threatened it vacillated between offers of concessions and crackdowns. However, as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt, it was too little, too late.

The Assad regime seemed reluctant to learn from the recent revolutions that further violence could have been avoided if the regime listened to the grievances the first wave of demonstration rather than respond by firing at them. They demonstrators were initially asking for jobs and better living standards but after people witnessed their relatives being killed after the governments brutal crack down their demands shifted. Today’s demonstrators are demanding the fall of the regime and the Baath party.

Today, the people are chanting, “The people want the fall of the government,” a slogan which made famous in both Egypt and Tunisia. As the 23 year-old protesters Abu Ahmad said, “There is no more fear. No more fear. We either want to die or to remove him [Assad]. Death has become something ordinary.”

Since 1963, Syria has been under Emergency Law, which enables the autocratic regime to effectively suspend most constitutional protections. Moreover, this law allows the president to enact, suspend or abolish any law when he feels that his regime is being threatened. This law legitimized regime violence against any opposition groups and democratic movements in the country. The president also has the right to appoint ministers, to declare war and a state of emergency, to declare amnesty, to amend the constitution, and to appoint civil servants and military personnel as he pleases.

Ultimately, Assad’s government as well as other authoritarian regimes appears to be reluctant to recognize that their people are making legitimate 21st century demands which cannot be met with 18th century tactics of pure sovereign power. There is a need for the use of soft power. As we witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt, the collective action of non-collective actors can quickly turn into demands for revolution by millions of people. If the Syrian regime examines these events closely it will realize that no matter how much hard power and violence they use against their own people, history has shown that people power always eventually prevails.