Tragedy in Syria

As the wave of refugees from Syria engulfs Europe by sea, air and land, the world is gradually beginning to ask questions about “causes” of the tragedy. Evidently, because the situation is now defined as a “European Crisis” and the victims – some of them at least – are breaking out of the anonymity of faceless “refugees”.

The image of Aylan Kurdi, the three year old toddler lying dead, face down on a beach in Turkey as he and his family tried to reach Canada via Germany, finally seemed to break a wall as it “trended” on social and mainstream media.

What it did was not to just bring home that the “11 million Syrians fleeing their country” were human beings, but that they were so “normal” and “European” looking. Aylan was wearing a red T-shirt, long shorts that went below the knee and black, velcro-strapped sneakers with no socks.

When hundreds of thousands of Syrians were being killed, with 10 million forced to flee into neighbouring countries during the last three years, they could be dismissed as “uncivilised Arabs” killing each other. The image of the burqa and the flowing, ankle length thobe made them the classic “other”.

The differing reactions of the European and other western nations to the cries of the Syrian refugees has been illuminating on their claim to the moral high ground when it comes to social problems. At one end of the spectrum has been Germany which accepted some 800,000 Syrians and on the other lies Britain which took in a mere 200. Canada had refused the application of Aylan’s family, who had relatives there, for refugee status. After the poignant image of Aylan, Prime Minister Cameron generously promised that his nation would accept another 4000. In-between would be Hungary that quickly erected a razor-wire fence.

Some may ask why would the western nations have a responsibility for Syrian refugees, after from the homily that “we are our brother’s keeper”? And the answer is that it was the Western nations that intervened to spur on the “Arab Spring of democratisation” starting with Libya under the doctrine of the “Right to Protect” (R2P).

By the time the Arab Spring swept across North Africa and reached Syria in late 2011, the Syrian Government was fortified to resist.

While one may not fully buy into the theory that the West is interested in regime change in Syria not so much for the citizens of that ancient land (but young – a mere 67 years -nation State) but to remove an implacable foe of Israel, the former bloc did move with alacrity to buttress the Opposition. In a State that was ethnically splintered, that Opposition not surprisingly soon followed the same lines of cleavage and morphed into full-fledged armies that could now be described as fighting a “civil war”.

One of those forces, supported by the U.S., captured large swathes of northern and eastern Syria in which the Sunni population predominated. Calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) they moved into Iraq and Turkey. The latter had a common interest in suppressing the Kurds of their country as ISIS had already brutally attacked the Kurds of Syria. For generations the Kurds of Syria, Iraq and Turkey had been fighting for a homeland. Aylan was a Kurd.

As the US found out in Afghanistan with the Taliban, the enemy of their enemy was not necessarily their friend and ISIS was soon declared an “enemy” of the U.S., the West and Turkey. As such the U.S. has recently opened up communications with the Syrian regime and are presently launching attacks on ISIS.

And as the African proverb observes, “When the elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled”. The grass are the refugees that are fleeing to Europe to avoid further trampling.