Arabs have different attitudes toward the Syrian crisis. Some stand with Bashar al-Assad’s regime but others denounce what this regime is doing against its people or say that it has no future in Syria. Some reluctantly accepted the regime according to their objective considerations while a fraction supports the Syrian regime to vex others. There are those who consider this system as a necessary evil in a transitional period, in order to preserve Syria which was ravaged by terrorist organizations. Arabs vary in their attitudes toward the Syrian regime, but I think none rejects the recent United Nations assessment on what is happening in Syria. Prince Zeid Bin Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations, said that “Syria has become a torture room and a place of brutal and absolute injustice”. A few words that proclaim panic and worry about what is happening in Syria.
Prince Zeid appealed to the warring parties to stop the torture and executions, and release the detainees or at least provide basic information about them, especially their names and whereabouts and the burial place of those who died. He also pointed out that the ongoing conflict began when security officials in the regime of Bashar al-Assad arrested and tortured a group of children because they wrote anti-government slogans on the wall of a school in Daraa city. The prince called the conflict, which will reach its seventh year by mid-March, “the worst human-made disaster since World War II”.
I do not believe that this international call could be a wake-up call to alert the world since the whole world was looking the other way this whole time. The world failed the Syrian people, who have internally fled and about 12 million of them became refugees. There are about 8.2 million Syrian civilians trapped in inaccessible areas, as well as about sixty thousand people who have died under torture or due to harsh conditions of detention in government prisons.
Syrian children are also among the victims of this tragedy. The UNICEF reported that children in Syria were “in the worst conditions” in 2016, which has known the killing of a huge number of children compared to any other year since the beginning of the civil war. The organization stated that at least 562 children were killed during the last year, of which 255 were killed in or near their schools. It is an increase of 20 percent compared to the number of children killed during 2015. This number is limited to those who have been officially reported, which means that the number of victims could be much higher. UNICEF Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa Geert Kappalari said that six million Syrian children, including 280 000 people who are living under the siege, relied on humanitarian aid for six years.
These are some of the disastrous facts about Syria. The Arab summit, which will be held in Jordan at the end of this month, can save the situation, can’t it? Expectations are lowered amid the situation of Arab division. The challenges facing the summit are huge.
I do not mean to address the reality of Arabs and the Syrian crisis with a tone of frustration and pessimism, but the situation has gotten worse and we must be honest about it, in the hope that the Arab World starts facing its reality.
Jordan saved the situation by taking responsibility to host the Arab summit, after Yemen was not able to do so in October because of instability. The host of the summit does not assume its success or failure since the general Arab situation no longer provides any opportunity for collective action.
The Syrians may wait for a long time because a way to escape from the torture room was not found yet. The dream of millions of Syrian refugees abroad of going back home seems far-fetched as their country has turned into an arena for conflict between the major powers in the absence of any international will to stop it.
Despite the tragic Syrian scene, there is hope that the walls of the Syrian torture room will fall down one day, and that security will come back to people. I am very confident that the love of life and the strong determination of the Syrian people can yield miracles when the devastating conflict will stop and the Syrians will find their way back home.
