| Majhool | Student | United States |
Re: ‘If you had the choice what would you change in Syria?’
We Syrians are often exposed to the meaningless blaming rhetoric by the Syrian leadership that the Syrian society bears the main responsibility for the lack of reform or its slow pace forward. In other words, we are supposed to blame the victims. The Syrian government and political leadership neither govern nor lead effectively. They cover up their failure to move forwards with the country by blaming the current and past failures on their citizens whom they claim to have a dull way of thinking.
Life experience tells me that the success of any organized effort is a function of effective leadership. The role of the leadership in government is to set the goals for the country that have sufficient public commitment, facilitate (energize) the performance of the public and private sectors to reach these goals, and offer sufficient feedback and motivation. These leadership tasks can take the form of reform laws that are committable and enforceable, and contain adequate incentives.
The other widely circulated myth is that Syrians are excessively cautious and lack initiative This is not true. Over the years, Syrians have simply become more pragmatic in the way they run their day-to-day business in order to ensure their survival Unless the leaders of the country encourage creativity in schools, initiative at workplace and public life, and legal accountability, the Syrians will remain rightfully skeptical. Without accountability, boldness often meant increased risk of imprisonment, impoverishment, and favoritism.
Reform is the gradual societal change towards specific goals. To reform, we have to define two sets of assumption that would be grounded in favored ideologies. The first set of assumptions is ā??the goalsā? and the second set of assumptions is ā??the limitationsā? imposed on the freedom and performance of operator of change. No matter the ideology, (socialist, religious, or utopian) we can safely assume that the well being of the Syrian individual is a reasonable goal that we can agree on. Despite its vagueness, we can also probably agree that ā??well beingā? is comprised of a good standard of living, access to money, goods, and resources, freedom, happiness, and good health. Once we put specific numbers to these variables we are left to define the limitations (or barriers) between the operators of change (the people and the government) and the goal of the reform effort.
The main limitation to reform that I see is the limitation of will, i.e. the lack of it. The reason for this lack of will is that the well being of the regular lad walking the street of Aleppo will infringe on the well being of the ruling class. It will infringe on their standard of living, on their access to money, goods, and resources, and on their freedom to plunder Syria . Once the well being of the ruling elite ceases to become a limitation, we can definitely aspire for a system where a power is shared and legitimacy is asserted through representation. That would be a great alternative to emotional and often manipulated ā??pulse of the streetā?. If such a system exists reform will come easier than cake.
Keeping realistic, power sharing is not something that the Syrian government is willing to do at this moment. And assuming that violent change is not an option, the reform agenda has to accommodate the ruling elite if a sustainable positive change of the lives of Syrians is allowable.
Syria ā??s recent relative openness in the economy and education was driven by the survival instinct of the ruling elite basically ā??doing the right things for the wrong reasonsā?. Even that modest change shows that they can impose positive change and that the public can ride the wave. With the way Syria is heading today (minimal reforms) big expatriate money could eventually find its way to the Syrian economy and generate much needed jobs; it will be a long painful process before the average person can see the benefits.
As for majority of expatriates who unfortunately are not millionaires, the question brewing in the minds of many is how they could possibly influence positive change from afar. The only productive way in my mind is to help someone from the inside have a better life, one could possibly help pay for a relative through school or giveaway money for a worthy charitable cause. This could be made easier if the Minister Buthaynah Shaaban is replaced by someone who does not hold that much hatred for the expatriate community made up mostly by the families of once middle class of the 60s, 70s, and 80s that escaped systemic impoverishments and suffocation. People left Syria because Syria did not offer them the opportunities they sought and to ask of them to wait 12 years and pay $ 8000 to be exempt from serving the army is highway robbery and disguised exile.
Syria ā??s productive class has always worked in silence with incredible flexibility. I donā??t see any other way around it; Syrians will have to rely on change dictated by the regimeā??s own survival and use it when possible to enhance their lives. Also, nagging is also a powerful tool that the Syrians have to master.. They should keep asking for more.
So far the government neither talked the talk nor walked the walk when it comes to well intentioned genuine reform agenda(s). The talk of reform and the lack of it is merely propaganda. Having said that, I am very optimistic that the Syrians have the capacity to find goodness and hoop in the worst of situations, until then I am not going to waist a second waiting or hoping for ā??well-intentionedā? ā??make-senseā? reform.
(6 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)
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