Point is, the nonviolence movement insists on a state that is democratic, not theocratic.
The nonviolence movement also insists on the fall of the current regime in Syria, while remaining open to exploring all nonviolent avenues that may lead toward genuine regime change. They are not to be confused with the “soft oppositionists” of those using the language of nonviolence in Iran, for example. Syria’s nonviolence movement people want the fall of the regime, not reform under the regime ceiling.
Many of the groups and individuals comprising Syria’s Islamic nonviolence movement have engaged in a broader study of nonviolence traditions in other cultures, including Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Buddhist thought, as well as Gene Sharpe.
The city of Daraya, otherwise a rather conventional suburb (say its own residents) known only for its grape harvest, is an epicenter of nonviolence thought in Syria. Nonviolence puts it on the map of Syria, say Daraya nonviolence organizers.
From 1999 to 2003, this Damascus suburb had a coherent group (of about 25 men and 25 women in their teens and twenties) who met regularly to study nonviolence and to promote social change and individual empowerment by organizing civic actions. They were called the Daraya Youth.
Their activities in 2002 and 2003 included opening a small public library, the first of its kind (immediately closed by security), campaigning against bribery and other widespread practices of financial corruption in Syria, cleaning the streets of Daraya, and marching silently in protest -unlicensed by the government – against the US invasion of Iraq. Even though the group officially disbanded after nearly half its membership was sentenced to prison terms in May 2003 for exercising freedom of speech and assembly, the former group members have remained influential in Daraya. They played a leadership role in Daraya protest activities since March 2011, when the Syrian uprising began. Their ethic of personal empowerment, civic responsibility, embrace of religious pluralism, and most of all profound (not just tactical) nonviolence, have informed nearly all protest activity in Daraya. Daraya protested early in the Syrian revolution, and protests often.
Daraya has been particularly targeted by the regime. Over 600 of its nonviolence movement activists are currently imprisoned, incommunicado, according to triple-verified human rights agencies. Daraya sources say the actual figure is over 900.
Other towns where groups of people are known to have held focused, regular study of Islamic nonviolence prior to the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011 and where nonviolence groups continue to be active include Namar, Dara (and surrounding towns); Damascus; Qamishlo; and Homs.
Note that there HAS been some attempt to co-opt the language of nonviolence by the Hay’et al-Tanseeq, the soft opposition with the low ceiling inside Syria, which wants compromise with the current regime.
The activities of individuals and groups using nonviolence methodology effectively working together are turning Syria’s cities into sites of nonviolent resistance. The past few weeks’ activities have included:
a) Dying the fountains of public plazas in Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs a startling red, to symbolize the blood of those being killed by the regime.
b) Releasing freedom balloons in the air with freedom messages, in a dozen locations: They have been doing this since June.
c) Placing speakers blaring a loop of the sitting president’s voice saying “help! I’m the president; get me out of this trash can!” then protest songs, in about seven or eight locations in and around Damascus. The speakers were programmed through timers to begin after the people who planted them were safely away. Security forces assembled and hopped around, mystified, unable to shut it off, even with the bomb squad was called.
d) They leafleted for and executed, a symbolic “lights out on the mountain” – that is, the heavily populated Mount Qasyoon, which overlooks Damascus.
e) They similarly achieved a “silence in the city” in one of the busiest markets in Damascus, 7-9pm.
People may think balloon releases, lights out hours, and silence campaigns are sentimental ineffectual small acts. In a police state where the citizen has been stripped of efficacy for 48 years, such collective actions help to restore a sense of empowerment in ordinary people, and give them the nerve to do more. Such acts transform consciousness. They are powerful.
They are only the beginning. The movement is producing new leadership and there is a push toward “unifying efforts” that would take the nonviolence movement to new levels.
These groups that are involved in these acts have as a touchstone the word “democracy” rather than “nonviolence” – but nonviolence certainly has a presence in their intellectual landscape.
And while the religious nonviolence camp’s thing is personal awakening and taking your destiny in your own hands and individual civic responsibility and inalienable rights tied to spiritual-personal awakeness to a full humanity, it could be said that this is comparable or parallel-able to the secular side’s notions of individual freedoms, civic participation, and civil liberties.
The nonviolence movement described in some detail here is mainly Islamic nonviolence. This trend has a universalistic take on Islam. The approach to religion of the Islamic nonviolence cluster contrasts with the religious approaches of the traditional ulema and the sufi groups of Syria, as well as with the political Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that of the salafist and jihadist Islamists.
Background note: Syria’s modern nonviolence movement is three generations deep.
Its oldest major living figure is Jawdat Said, 80, born to a Circassian family in the small southern village of Bir Ajam (in Syria’s region of Qunaitra, the rest of which is in the occupied Golan Heights). He is a longtime resident of Mount Qasyoon, Damascus, but still spends time regularly in Bir Ajam. Jawdat is the author of fifty books, starting with The Doctrine of the First Son of Adam in 1964, based on Abel’s unwillingness to kill his brother Cain, even when Cain was bent on killing him. Shaikh Jawdat is a friend of the Dalai Lama.
Said’s nonviolence thought is not to be confused with that of Mousavi in Iran, a “soft oppositionist.” Said wants the fall of the regime, not reform under it. Nor is he to be confused with Khomeini-style Islamism. He is from a different end of the Islamic thought spectrum. For example, he has said that no woman should ever again be told by a man what to wear, and that men have done this for too long in our history.
Laila Said, d. 2005, another major teacher in Syrian nonviolence, was a cultural icon of Damascus in the 1970s. She was Jawdat’s sister.
Hanan Laham, 68, of Medan, Damascus, is another teacher of nonviolence thought. She addressed a rally in Daraya, April 25, 2011 – “Human life is the holiest of holies with God,” she began! There are different styles and takes within the Islamic nonviolence set, and she is in her own distinct corner of it. (She also happens to be my paternal first cousin.)
There are others following in this line of thought and action but to list them would place them at further risk so let’s jump to someone safely (sadly) abroad… Afra Jalabi, 40, is another promoter of Syria’s Islamic nonviolence thought, living in Canada. A signatory of the 2005 Damascus Declaration calling for gradual nonviolent democratic change in Syria, she is currently a member of the Syrian National Council.
