Druze people are keeping up with their scattered protests in southern province of Sweida. A rift inside the Druze people appears to have already undermined the move.
In order to call for President Bashar al-Assad resign, Dozens of Syrian have demonstrated in southern Syria. It is bringing to an end nearly a fortnight of protests that started out as calls for political reform but quickly turned into protests against terrible living circumstances.
According to the local media, a throng chanted “Bashar out! Syria free!” yesterday in Sweida. This was the first time after long years that a group of Syrian called for an end to Assad’s leadership.
Syria is experiencing a severe economic crisis, which has caused its currency’s value to collapse to a record level of 15,500 Syrian pounds to the US dollar. 12 years prior, at the beginning of Syria’s conflict, it was trading at 47 pounds per USD.
The war-torn nation’s failing economic system and rising inflation were initially the protesters’ primary motivators. The Sweida province, under government control and home to the Druze people of Syria, was the focal point of the protests. A small religious group in the city has mostly avoided participating in the fight between al-Assad and the Syrian opposition. These protests are unique as a result.
In places that were under government control, open criticism of the administration had remained uncommon. However, as the economy has become worse, the unhappiness has been more well known.
Druze Supports Assad!
Despite evident disagreements among the Druze managerial behavior on the rallies, a considerable crowd showed up on Friday. Several Druze sheikhs have criticized the demands for al-Assad’s resignation made by demonstrators. They argue that conversation is the only way for the economic circumstances to get better.
Yesterday, dozens of demonstrators came together in the nearby town of Daraa. Daraa was the starting point for the 2011 demonstrations that sparked the civil war. They held banners decrying Iran’s position as a crucial backer of Assad in addition to the three-star flag that symbolizes the Syrian revolt.
In 2011, those in favor of the administration violently reacted to violent demonstrations. Additionally, it sparked a conflict that has since raged on and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
In the past few years, the front lines have mostly remained calm. The Syrian administration drove the opposition back into the northwest with the assistance of foreign forces.
A day earlier, several inhabitants of the seaside region of Tartus displayed little postcards critical of the ruling party in Syria. Some of them read, “Syria is ours, not the Ba’ath party’s.”
Despite the fresh protests, most Syrian people across the country, exhausted from long years of civil war and dealing with ISIS terrorists, prefer peaceful ways of reforms under current leadership. An improvement of the dire economic condition is the main call by most groups and levels of the society that has just healed from over a decade of extremism.
