Even though the activists who organized peaceful demonstrations in the beginning were committed to their belief in the power of nonviolent protest at the time, it is difficult to remain a pacifist in the face of more than six years of unrelenting Assad regime brutality against defenseless unarmed civilians.
Unless one is willing to surrender and submit to Assad in order to bring the violence to an end that is.
But for the majority of Syria’s revolutionaries, giving up on the ideals that have driven them to risk everything for the past six plus years is not even an option. Many critics of the Syrian revolution have put the blame for the current conflict in Syria on those members of the opposition who abandoned the commitment to remaining peaceful they had made at the beginning of the uprising in 2011.
Such is the case for Ibrahim al-Assil, a Syrian native of Damascus who organized peaceful protests in his home country before seeking asylum in the U.S.
Al-Assil gave a speech at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland on April 17 about the evolution of the peaceful revolution in his homeland into an extremely complicated conflict and humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.
In an article published in The Frederick News-Post published on April 18, Kate Masters wrote: “While al-Assil believes strongly in nonviolent protest as a means to democracy, he now acknowledges that military action is necessary to protect Syrian civilians against the Assad regime.”
To help explain the shift of his original commitment to nonviolence, al-Assil told the audience that Assad was "backed by both Russia and Iran, and there’s currently no real impetus to stop him from launching further attacks against his own people,” wrote Masters.
To find solutions in Syria, you can’t compare it to Iraq, al-Assil explained. You must compare it instead to Bosnia in the 1990s, he added.
While the world has been lulled into a state of apathy as the regime’s heinously brutal crimes against the Syrian people have maintained a monotonously consistent rhythm over the past six plus years, Assad did manage to attract international headlines earlier this month for launching a chemical gas attack that killed more than 80 people.
“I don’t think there is a permanent military solution, but I do think some force is needed,” Masters quoted al-Assil as saying. “This war criminal is not going to stop killing people after half a million dead.”
That’s where the comparisons to Bosnia come in. Instead of a full-scale military intervention, al-Assil said he would like to see “proportional punishment” similar to the NATO-initiated airstrikes against Bosnian Serbs during the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Masters says that al-Assil told the Hood College audience that he personally believes that whenever Assad kills civilians, the international community should fire missiles at his military bases – and if Russia launches attacks against civilians on Assad’s behalf, missiles should also be fired at bases until Russia reconsiders its own support of Assad’s brutality.
Pacifism only works with unconscionable thugs like Assad when one is willing to suffer the consequences on a personal level, but it is difficult to watch the deliberate targeting of children and innocent civilians without wanting to come to their defense.
“That’s the duty of the world: to protect civilians,” al-Assil said.
Masters also wrote that while most audience members said they have been following the situation in Syria, some had a more personal connection to the crisis.
For example, Kristen Hillers, a Ph.D. student at George Mason University, learned to interpret the revolution and escalation to civil war through the perspective of her mother, who was born in Syria.
“There was a lot of disgust, a lot of disillusionment,” Hillers told Masters. “When ISIS took Palmyra, my mom was devastated. They had such high hopes for the revolution, and when that didn’t work out, they remembered what it was like under the original Assad regime.”
Some students also learned about the presentation through their classes, or had decided to attend to promote understanding of the Syrian refugee crisis noted Masters.
“I feel like there is a lack of empathy, not just in the U.S., but worldwide,” Asmaa Harris, a graduate student from Spain, who said she promoted the event through her Facebook page after witnessing criticism of refugees in the U.S. and Europe, told Masters. “It’s important for us to be informed, and there’s a lot of ignorance of this issue.”
Al-Assil also told the audience how his own experience of being brutally beaten during four days spent in a government detention center after being arrested by Syrian security forces for organizing a peaceful protest helped to alter his views.
As other detainees who lived to tell their stories have said, no one comes out of an Assad prison the same as they went in.
Al-Assil was one of the lucky ones. Many other activists have been mercilessly tortured or killed by the regime, he told the Hood College audience. Countless other Syrians have been driven out of their homes by either government forces or extremist groups.
“When we talk about ISIS and refugees, we need to understand these stories,” al-Assil said. “Who would make the decision one day to take their babies and cross the Mediterranean? Only people who have no homes.”
