Revolt in Syria by Stephen Starr - review

Ian Black on two accounts of the bloodiest chapter of the Arab revolt

will soon be the second anniversary of the events that are still known as the Arab Spring, but still do not know the meaning of what happened or the result of the bloodiest chapter of agitation, played in the daily chaos and misery across Syria.

Diet

Bashar al-Assad, who seemed to be one of the most stable Arab dictatorships, has undoubtedly been deeply shaken - not only because it is estimated that 25,000 people have already found dead. However, it is possible that Assad still rebellious follow in the footsteps of his father, Hafez, which killed as many or more in Hama in 1982, in the pre-YouTube, but he lived another 17 years before dying peacefully in his bed?

Stephen Starr provides a partial answer in his vivid account of the first months of the uprising. The book is also a fascinating account of how a young journalist based in Damascus, who had struggled to interest publishers and now he was in the right place at the right time, able to work under dangerous circumstances. It was fortunate that the Irish financial newspaper was erected a paywall accredited to the Ministry of Information to read their stories online.

significantly Syria was a different case of Egypt and Tunisia, where the army was quickly on the side of the revolution, and Libya, where a united opposition consolidated its base in Benghazi and won the Western support that led to NATO intervention, and finally, the violent death of Gaddafi. But Syria was one essential thing in common with other countries affected by Arab Spring Fever 2011: he had a sense - Tocqueville identified as a "revolution of rising expectations" - living under a brutal authoritarian instincts were more tolerable .

The spark was lit in the southern city of Deraa, where anti-regime graffiti school daubed on the walls were arrested and beaten and had their nails pulled out by the Mukhabarat secret police. This provoked a reaction from abuse challenge. A few days after Al-Jazeera, a key player in this drama was broadcast pictures of a statue of Hafez be demolished - Saddam style - that dozens lay dead in the streets. State media, of course, did not report. But Starr began receiving calls asking him to communicate with horror cover the event. It was, he said, "hard to believe".

• These origins are to be retained because the memories have faded. In these days of discussion about Western intervention in Syria, opposition divisions, role of jihadist and why the Saudis and Qataris to arm the rebels. Too often, ordinary Syrians are stripped of any organization, portrayed as pawns in a geopolitical game.
• Force

Starr was correspondent had time to get to know the man on the bus in Damascus. He describes the "culture of fear" that permeates Syrian society and how he passed the face of repression and violence - "a massive miscalculation" - track late and unconvincing promises by Assad reform. however, criticizes those who do not understand why the president has maintained the support of their own Alawite minority community, Christians, and large sections of the middle class and the Sunnis who depend on the state - a majority 'silent search of a better life. "It still seems relevant, even after the regime used artillery and airstrikes Shabiha thugs to commit sectarian killings. In a very controversial point, Starr believes that the government is known for handling extremists in Lebanon and Iraq, organized several suicide attacks attributed to Al-Qaeda.

Assad and his entourage, Starr predicted, "will not negotiate because the concept is alien to them in their daily lives ... The scheme introduced a way to run both in itself and in the world. was not giving up an inch of Syrian territory. "

Travel

Assad at this point is discussed by Lesch American scholar David Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad
(Yale, £ 18.99), including the brutal conclusion is explained in the title of his book. By his own admission, was one of the observers in Syria, in the early noughties, believed that Western-trained ophthalmologist and computer geek with a sexy woman, born in London and a taste for the music of Phil Collins was a true reformer, who was arrested by the hardline Hafez era. (Previous book called Lesch flattering

Find best price for : --Stephen----Syria----Bashar----Lesch----Starr----Assad--