The Truth about Syria
More than ten years since the start of the Syrian uprising, the situation facing the mass of the population is catastrophic. More than twelve million people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, while more than 5.6 million Syrians are living as refugees across the Middle East. Overall poverty rates are over 85 percent.
The Assad regime now rules over 70 per cent of Syrian territory. Assisted by Russia, Iran and the Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Assad defeated the initial uprising and largely won what had then evolved into a regional and international war.
It is time to assess the lessons of the Syrian uprising. It had begun as part of the “Arab spring” with an initial call for democracy, social justice and equality, and in opposition to racism and sectarian division. Why did it lose? What is the situation within Syria today? What hopes are there for the future?
These questions will be addressed by Joseph Daher, a socialist and an academic. He is the author of Syria after the Uprisings, The Political Economy of State Resilience (Pluto, 2019), and Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon's Party of God (Pluto, 2016), and the founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever.