Nir Rosen explique désormais, de manière totalement caricaturale, exactement le contraire de ce qu’il racontait il y a deux ans. #on_a_les_experts_qu'on_mérite
Sa position actuelle : Rewriting Syria’s War
►http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/18/syria-assad-ceasefires-surrender-nir-rosen-hd-centre-report
Rosen, who has likely spent more time than any other researcher interviewing regime officials and supporters, attempts to partially rehabilitate the image of the Syrian regime. “While the Syrian state was not the most attractive one even before the 2011 uprising, it also was not the worst regime in the region,” he writes. “It has strong systems of education, health care and social welfare and compared to most Arab governments it was socially progressive and secular…. It had a solid infrastructure and a relatively effective civil service.”
Such a description is dramatically at odds with most U.S. officials’ and independent analysts’ assessments of the regime. In the years before the uprising, the Assad regime stands accused of organizing a campaign of terror in Lebanon against its critics, building a secret nuclear power plant with North Korean assistance, and facilitating the flow of jihadis into Iraq to combat the U.S. occupation — to say nothing of its repression of dissent at home.
Rosen also argues against the assumption that Assad presides over an Alawite-dominated regime. “Most of the regime is Sunni, most of its supporters are Sunnis, many [if] not most of its soldiers are Sunni,” he writes. “The regime may be brutal, authoritarian, corrupt and whatever else it is described as, but it should not be seen as representing a sect.”
The sectarianism that does exist in Syria, Rosen argues, is preponderantly on the side of the anti-Assad opposition. The regime’s brutality toward the Sunni opposition, he writes, “was done more out of a fear of Sunni sectarianism than as a result of the regime’s own sectarianism.”
For this reason, Rosen argues, the conventional wisdom that the Assad regime is dedicated to oppressing Syria’s Sunni majority is fatally flawed. “It is more accurate to view it as a staunchly secular regime ruling a sectarian population with an Alawite praetorian guard.”
Et sa position il y a deux ans (février 2012) : Q&A : Nir Rosen on Syria’s armed opposition
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221315020166516.html
The regime and its supporters describe the opposition, especially the armed opposition, as Salafis, Jihadists, Muslim Brotherhood supporters, al-Qaeda and terrorists. This is not true, but it’s worth noting that all the fighters I met - in the provinces of Homs, Idlib, Hama, Deraa and the Damascus suburbs - were Sunni Muslims, and most were pious.
They fight for a multitude of reasons: for their friends, for their neighbourhoods, for their villages, for their province, for revenge, for self-defence, for dignity, for their brethren in other parts of the country who are also fighting. They do not read religious literature or listen to sermons. Their views on Islam are consistent with the general attitudes of Syrian Sunni society, which is conservative and religious.
While the resistance is becoming increasingly well-armed, some groups complain they don’t have enough weapons
Because there are many small groups in the armed opposition it is difficult to describe their ideology in general terms. The Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood ideologies are not important in Syria and do not play a significant role in the revolution. But most Syrian Sunnis taking part in the uprising are themselves devout. Many fighters were not religious before the uprising, but now pray and are inspired by Islam, which gives them a creed and a discourse. Many believe they will be martyred and go to paradise if they die. They are not fighting for Islam but they are inspired by it. Some drink alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam, and do not pray. And their brothers in arms do not force them to pray.
Of the sheikhs who are important in the revolution, many are actually Sufis. I have met Sufi sheikhs who had established their own armed groups. Some fighters are also influenced by a general sense of Sunni identity, but others do not care about this. I encountered one armed Salafi group in Idlib. I also found some groups that indirectly receive financial assistance from Islamist exile groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, though this has seemingly not yet influenced their ideology. Some fighters are the sons or nephews of people who were jailed during the 1980s for alleged membership of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(Première partie via Angry Arab.)
