Baladi News
Syrians who remained loyal to Bashar Assad throughout the past eight years of war are increasingly expressing discontent with the Assad regime as living standards in the country continue to deteriorate even as the conflict winds down.
Conditions are dire for most of the 19 million Syrians living across the ravaged country, including in the roughly one-third that remains outside regime control. Whole towns and villages have been depopulated and destroyed, and an estimated 89 percent of the population is living in poverty and dependent on international food handouts, according to the United Nations.
But for the first time, those living in the pro-regime areas that were spared the worst of the violence are experiencing some of the harshest deprivations, including in the capital, Damascus.
Acute shortages of fuel, cooking gas and electricity have left citizens shivering in darkness through an unusually cold winter. The Syrian currency, which had plunged and then stabilized after the war broke out, is sliding again, sending prices soaring.
Many thousands of men who fought on the front lines for years are returning home without hope of finding jobs. The wartime economy has fueled corruption on an unprecedented scale, compounding the daily challenge of lining up for long hours to secure basic necessities with the indignity of having to pay multiple bribes to layers of officialdom, according to Damascus residents.
The cafes and bars of Damascus are packed at night, creating the impression of a city on the path to recovery. But the revelers represent a tiny elite that has profited from the war, and their conspicuous consumption only fuels the resentment of the vast majority of people for whom life is a daily struggle to survive, the residents say.
“What is being touted as a big military victory has not translated into the improvement of quality of life that was expected,” said Danny Makki, a British Syrian analyst and journalist living in Damascus. “You’ve got 3 to 4 percent of people with the vast majority of the wealth, and for the rest, life is just a struggle.”
“It’s such a depressing mood, and it’s been such a harsh winter,” he added. “Even when we had militant groups on the doorstep of Damascus, we never had such big issues from the quality-of-life perspective.”
The unhappiness is reflected in an unprecedented torrent of complaints on social media by Assad loyalists, including some of the celebrities and television personalities who have used their stature in the past to rally support for his regime.
“We won, but there is no meaning to victory if we no longer have the homeland we knew,” Ayman Zedan, a prominent actor, wrote in a public post on his Facebook page, reflecting the sense of disappointment that Assad’s allegations of military victory over his opponents has brought no respite for his supporters.
“We are tired of promises and pledges on the TVs and radios,” Shoukran Mortaja, a renowned actress, complained in a public posting on her page addressed to “Mr. President.”
“Are we really going to let those who didn’t die in the war die from misery, cold and inflated prices?” she asked.
Scores of people among her 54,000 followers expressed support in comments on the post, which was shared more than 2,000 times.
Assad has apparently heard the complaints. In a February speech in Damascus, he was unusually defensive, acknowledging that some people are genuinely suffering and that corruption among local officials has contributed to the hardships people endure.
But he shrugged off responsibility, accusing expatriate Syrians of leveling the strongest criticisms and attributing the shortages of vital products to US sanctions.
Most Syrians, nonetheless, place blame for the shortages squarely on the Assad government, according to residents, reflecting the depth of the building embitterment.
“People don’t blame America, or at least they don’t put primary responsibility on America. The biggest blame they place is on the government,” said the Damascus-based writer. “They know the government is incapable and corrupt.”
Assad himself remains off-limits to the criticism. The generally expressed view, the writer said, is that Assad is not involved in the day-to-day running of the country and that corrupt, inept officials and local warlords empowered by the conflict are responsible for any failures.
Source: Orient Net.