Yassin al-Haj Saleh: Syria 1979 - The Long Crisis

Mittwoch, 26. Juni 2019, 19.00 bis 21.00 Uhr
Landesstiftung Berlin (Bildungswerk), Sebastianstraße 21, 10179 Berlin

From Assad's Appropriation of the State to Appropriation of Society

In most accounts on the year 1979 as a historical watershed in West Asia, Syria, curiously, is missing. However, also in this country, 1979 is highly significant. This ninth year of the reign of the tyrant Hafez Al-Assad is one of crisis: of a brutal massacre of sectarian nature in the city of Aleppo.

The massacre and the regime's reaction left a significant mark in the social and political development of Syria. Simultaneously, professional associations, students and leftists went on protest to demand democracy, a constitutional state and citizen rights and were confronted with brutal violence and mass detention of dissidents – amongst them the speaker of this lecture.

The meaning of the events of 1979 has not been seriously examined – not at the time, nor subsequently in academy. However, it is likely that the development of the regime into a “dynastical neo sultanate” was in part a response directly related to the challenges signified in the 1979 Aleppo massacre. Thereafter, several massacres took place all over Syria. All of them had genocidal elements, argues Yassin Al-Haj Saleh.

The year 1979 hence also lead the way for the extinction of any organized political opposition in Syria, and therefore formed the very nature of political life for the years to come. Thinking of what happened 40 years ago can be helpful in analysing the Assad family rule and the tragedy that has been unfolding in the country for the past 99 months.

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