Abigail Fielding-Smith (Guardian Utd): Long road to reform in Damascus

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Monday March 21

Long road to reform in Damascus
The Syrian regime has used the US invasion of Iraq to burnish its image as a defender of the Arab world
By Abigail Fielding-Smith

"The smell of freedom is in the air," announced a Newsnight correspondent in a recent report from Lebanon. The overthrow of the Iraqi regime and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon have led to talk of a domino effect in the Middle East, and all eyes are now on the ancien regime in Damascus.

Anyone expecting to find the Syrian people on the verge of overthrowing the government will, however, be disappointed. Old men sit at cafe tables drawing pensively on their sheesha pipes. The younger crowd meet in mixed company in the city's burgeoning collection of bars and cheerfully dance off a week's work. In contrast to a pro-government demonstration last week, which drew thousands of people, only 100 gathered to protest at the government's abuses of power.

The Ba'athist regime in Syria has been very effective at suppressing opposition. As the dissident writer Yasseen Hassalah says: "When you put a complete society in a bottle for 25 years, you cannot expect people to get out of the bottle strong and ready to fight."
The government of Bashar al-Assad has also passed just enough reforms that the police state no longer looms quite so ominously in Syrians' lives. In contrast to 10 years ago, people are reasonably comfortable talking to western journalists. The availability of satellite TV and the internet has opened up space for a greater diversity of views than would have been tolerated under Bashar's father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, although the state still blocks certain websites.

Read more.