Why Bashar al-Assad Resented the 'Damascus Spring'?

The policy that seeks to silence all voices and break all pens has been the government's policy in Syria for over half a century. After the end of the French mandate and the declaration of independence in 1946, Syria experienced a long period of political instability, marked by successive coups and various constitutional proposals. The birth of numerous nationalist parties in Arab countries, including Syria, was a response to years of foreign domination; among them was the Ba'ath Party, which, inspired by socialism and aided by its military branch, seized power in Syria in 1963. The new government implemented the emergency law that had recently been passed, severely limiting the individual and collective freedoms of citizens. The enforcement of this law created an atmosphere of censorship and terror throughout the country, suppressing any dissent under the accusation of 'disturbing national security.' During these years, Ali Ahmad Said, known by the pen name 'Adonis,' a great Syrian poet who had been imprisoned for a time, left the country and went to Lebanon. Nizar Qabbani, a famous Syrian poet and one of the most modern poets in the Arab world, who was a cultural advisor in Syrian embassies abroad during this period, settled in Beirut. He, who dreamed of creating a 'Republic of Love,' opposed the Arab governments, which, according to him, degraded human relations to maintain their survival and hindered any progress. Qabbani was one of the few Arab poets who did not praise Arab leaders and inspired other poets, especially his compatriots, to the extent that poets said: 'Nizar Qabbani is as essential to our lives as air.' The sudden death of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, in September 1970, dealt a significant shock to the nationalist military in the Arab world. Hafez al-Assad, who was then the Minister of Defense in Syria, took advantage of this situation and on November 16 of that year, staged a coup against Nour al-Din al-Atassi, the then Prime Minister, and seized the main power in the country. This coup, which was later referred to in official Syrian literature as the 'Corrective Movement,' had actually begun three days earlier when Assad, with the support of the army, arrested his rivals in the Ba'ath Party, including Salah Jadid, the then President. Salah Jadid, who had been in power since 1963, was imprisoned for 23 years during Hafez al-Assad's rule and died in that prison. In the same year, 1970, Nizar Qabbani wrote in a poem: 'Let me be loved / Away from the land of oppression and repression / Away from the city full of death / Away from prejudices / Away from constraints / Let me be loved / Away from our city / Where love does not tread / And God does not come.' In 1973, the new Syrian constitution granted almost all powers to Hafez al-Assad, and he established his rule based on torture, government propaganda, personality cult, censorship, and control of society through a police system. In 2000, when Hafez al-Assad died at the age of 70, everyone knew who was going to take power in this country: Bashar al-Assad, the second son of Hafez al-Assad. According to the constitution, the Prime Minister was supposed to temporarily manage the affairs of the country as the acting president for a few weeks to pave the way for Bashar al-Assad to come to power. The short interval between Hafez and Bashar's presidency became known as the 'Damascus Spring' due to the cessation of prevailing political violence, and some writers took the opportunity to address topics that had been forbidden until then, including 'prison.' Mustafa Khalifeh, a Syrian writer who spent thirteen years in Hafez al-Assad's prisons, wrote his memoirs of that period but was only able to publish them years later. Khaled Khalifeh, another Syrian writer, wrote the novel 'In Praise of Hatred' about the Hama massacre by Hafez al-Assad during this period, which was published years later and received critical acclaim. During this fleeting period, many Syrian intellectuals and political activists issued statements calling for the opening of the political space in the country and the abolition of the state of emergency that had been in place since 1963. However, one month after Hafez al-Assad's death, Bashar al-Assad held a non-competitive and single-candidate election and, in the manner of all dictators, announced that he had obtained over 97 percent of the votes and became the new President of Syria, leader of the ruling Ba'ath Party, and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. At that time, a new generation of ruling families in Arab countries had come to power; in Jordan, King Hussein, and in Morocco, King Hassan had recently passed away and handed power to their children. Bashar al-Assad was also 35 years old at that time and was considered a young leader. However, the difference between him and other young leaders in Arab countries was that he showed no inclination to modernize the country or adapt Syria to the global community and quickly dashed hopes. In the 2000s, Bashar al-Assad arrested Syrian writers and intellectuals in several waves, including in 2001 and 2007. When the protests known as the 'Arab Spring' reached Syria, many Syrian poets and writers called on Bashar al-Assad to resign. For example, Adonis directly held Bashar al-Assad responsible for the crimes in Syria and called for his resignation. However, Bashar al-Assad's ears were deaf to such messages. His government claimed to provide freedom of expression for writers with around 400 publishers, but Farouk Mardam-Bek, a Syrian historian, stated that Bashar al-Assad's statistics regarding books and reading in Syria were always 'misleading.' In addition to censorship and a police atmosphere, the arrest of writers and the widespread emigration of elites, the exhaustion of the publishing industry, and the poverty of bookstores and libraries were other signs of the deplorable state of culture, especially books, during Assad's era.