“The grievances that sparked the uprising are even more pronounced today,” says a Syrian lecturer
suffered through nine years of civil war, leaving hundreds of thousands dead, in some ways Syria is back where it started. Protesters in the south-east have been chanting anti-regime slogans, the same ones that triggered the fighting. “God, the nation and freedom,” they cry, dropping Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad , from the official trinity. A reporter on state television, covering a sparsely attended counter-rally, struggled to find bystanders willing to praise Mr Assad.
When Mr Assad inherited the presidency from his father two decades ago, Syria was a middle-income country. Now over 80% of its people are poor. Last yearwas thought to be about a third of what it was before the war. This year it will be even lower. A covid-19 lockdown is partly to blame. Then there is the situation in neighbouring Lebanon. Syria’s biggest foreign market and main supplier of dollars is mired in a financial crisis.
Other former supporters are also turning their backs on the regime. Hundreds of members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam from which Mr Assad hails, have protested along the coast. The Druze, followers of a small esoteric religion, have taken to the streets of Suweida. “The regime’s problem is with its loyalists, not with the opposition,” says Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian journalist.
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