The Protests in al-Suwayda' Six Months Later: Interview
In the primarily Druze province of al-Suwayda’ in southern Syria, protests demanding political change have been occurring on almost a daily basis for more than six months now. I myself have been skeptical from the outset about whether they matter in the bigger picture, and still believe that this assessment holds. But what is the current status of the protests? Do they still have the same momentum? And what is their future direction? What are some of the different ideas espoused about the future of Syria and al-Suwayda’ in the protests? Does the ‘autonomous administration’ of the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) provide a model? What about talk of turning towards armed rebellion?
To discuss these matters, I conducted an interview recently with Aysar Morshed, an opposition activist based in al-Suwayda’. Last year, I interviewed Aysar a few months prior to the outbreak of the latest protests, and he predicted that there would be a general uprising or rebellion in al-Suwayda’ because of the deterioration in the living situation. This interview was conducted on 3 March. It is slightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Aysar Morshed
Q: We have seen demonstrations al-Suwayda’ province that have lasted more than 6 months. Can it be said that the numbers of demonstrators have decreased and if so what are the reasons why?
A: Yes, my friend. The demonstrations in al-Suwayda’ or the uprising began more than 6 months ago. We can say that yesterday it was exactly 200 days since it began. Regarding the numbers of demonstrators, at the beginning of the uprising, the numbers were truly very big, and these numbers continued to be big for a considerable period of time. On one of the days, the number of demonstrators at Dignity Square in al-Suwayda’ city reached 6000 demonstrators. This number is considered an important number relative to the number of inhabitants of al-Suwayda’, because al-Suwayda’ is considered a province with a small number of inhabitants not exceeding 350,000 people, and also especially in light of the fact that there are a large number of exiles from al-Suwayda’ who have left al-Suwayda’ and are still registered among the census of the number of inhabitants. Therefore, these numbers were big in the beginning, but yes, in truth, they have decreased. We can only say the truth: the numbers of demonstrators have decreased and have decreased in a very considerable sense recently, and they have continued to decrease.
As for the reasons that have led to this, we can firstly say, we can analyse or infer a number of reasons.