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Yeah, this mirrors my impression. It was unequivocally a controlled society : one simply didn't speak about the regime in anything less than absolutely glowing

Yeah, this mirrors my impression. It was unequivocally a controlled society : one simply didn't speak about the regime in anything less than absolutely glowing terms. The threat of the secret police was persistent. As far as the people go, your odds of being hustled in Syria were pretty high (but not any worse than, say, Thailand) - other than that I totally agree wrt the westernization and general pleasantness. I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. I don't want to trivialize the experience of living in a police state, but there are worse things in this world.

ido 9y ago
I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. The question is then, what would have been a better solution? Surely as long as Assad was ruling they were stuck (at best) at a local maximum and would have never transitioned to a free democracy without overthrowing the current government.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  But aren't they stuck in abyss now? If that's the choice, maybe it wasn't a good plan after all.
  - ido 9y ago
    The current situation is not a stable state, at some point one of the combating sides will win or the country will split into several independent states.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      I don't think it will ever recover to pre-war levels. Not in our time.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      The combating sides include outside parties, so the war could continue until every Syrian is dead and then beyond even that.
- mafribe 9y ago
  as long as Assad was ruling Assad's secular dictatorship is massively preferable to ISIS rule, especially to the 25% of the Syrian population that are non-Sunni.
  - jansho 9y ago
    Sigh, it seems so surreal now that the Arab Spring was once cheered on by the whole world. Edit: word
    - varjag 9y ago
      The less Arab revolutions were stomped on, the more favorable was the outcome. The progression from Tunisa through Egypt and Lybia to Syria is quite evident. What's really surreal is so many people in the (still relatively free) West denying basic agency to their fellow human beings in the Middle East.
      - jansho 9y ago
        > so many people in the (still relatively free) West denying basic agency to their fellow human beings Because there's a lot of cynicism with charities and foreign aid. There is an active campaign here in Britain to reduce the latter and anecdotally, I have friends and relatives who refuse to donate to aid agencies because they believe that the whole thing is a sham. Sure there's bureaucracy, but most of them are genuinely hardworking and already operating on shoestring budgets...
        wavefunction 9y ago
        You could point them to clearinghouses like CharityNavigator [0] (which is probably US-centric) that rate the charities on things like how much of their donations go to administration. The short of it is that one can donate to Oxfam, Save the Children or Medecins san Frontieres and remain confident that >95% of funds raised go to direct relief efforts. [0]https://www.charitynavigator.org/ https://www.charitynavigator.org/
        9y ago
- mercer 9y ago
  I suppose this kind of question can only be answered in hindsight. If indeed there is a transition to a free, stable democracy, I suppose we could argue that what happened was ultimately worth it. But I don't know if such a thing is likely to happen. It seems quite possible to me that all this turmoil will lead to another local maximum that isn't much better, and perhaps even worse, than the previous one.
  - ido 9y ago
    So basically they're eternally condemned to live in either a failed state or a harsh dictatorship?
    - hasenj 9y ago
      Afghanistan used to be a normal country in the 70s by Middle Eastern standard. Not too different from Iran, Iraq, or Syria of those days. It hasn't recovered for over 40 years. Iraq doesn't seem like it will recover any time soon.
- jameslk 9y ago
  If it's a free democracy we're after, we should get rid of the western double standard provided to other states that had Arab Springs which were violently suppressed by their undemocratic governments. Such as Saudi Arabia[0], Bahrain[1] and Yemen[2]. I don't remember hearing about rebels being armed, no fly zones being established and missiles being launched by western states in these countries. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Saudi_Arabian_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Saudi_Arabian_... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahraini_protests_of_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahraini_protests_of_2011 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93pr...
  - hackuser 9y ago
    Generally I agree, but the West's double-standard does at least benefit some countries, such as Tunisia. Also, even support for Syria is based to a great degree on the Western nations' own interests and not those of the Syrian people. Most of the West's involvement is to destroy ISIL and to contain Iran and Russia. There was no credible possibility that the Saudi Arabian government, for example, would be overthrown; there was nobody for the Western nations to support. If there was a credible possibility, of course the Western nations might have decided supporting the Saudi rulers was more important, as they have many times in the past, and portrayed the rebels as terrorists. Finally, it all begs the question: Revolutions are very risky; often the outcome is worse than the starting point, with many dead, a generation in ruin, and no improvement in government. When are they worthwhile? How can they be made more likely to obtain worthwhile outcomes?
mgbmtl 9y ago
I was in Syria in 2010 (backpacked around Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra, also hitchhiked across the border from Baalbek/Lebanon to Homs). At the time, I found it rather similar to experiences in South-Eastern European countries around 2000 [1]: friendly, curious, cynical, indifferent, defiant, ambitious. You could feel something was about to change, but I never expected this :( [1] I lived in Bulgaria 2003-2006. Sorry to generalize so broadly.

ido 9y ago

I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. The question is then, what would have been a better solution? Surely as long as Assad was ruling they were stuck (at best) at a local maximum and would have never transitioned to a free democracy without overthrowing the current government.

thriftwy 9y ago
But aren't they stuck in abyss now? If that's the choice, maybe it wasn't a good plan after all.
- ido 9y ago
  The current situation is not a stable state, at some point one of the combating sides will win or the country will split into several independent states.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    I don't think it will ever recover to pre-war levels. Not in our time.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    The combating sides include outside parties, so the war could continue until every Syrian is dead and then beyond even that.
mafribe 9y ago
as long as Assad was ruling Assad's secular dictatorship is massively preferable to ISIS rule, especially to the 25% of the Syrian population that are non-Sunni.
- jansho 9y ago
  Sigh, it seems so surreal now that the Arab Spring was once cheered on by the whole world. Edit: word
  - varjag 9y ago
    The less Arab revolutions were stomped on, the more favorable was the outcome. The progression from Tunisa through Egypt and Lybia to Syria is quite evident. What's really surreal is so many people in the (still relatively free) West denying basic agency to their fellow human beings in the Middle East.
    - jansho 9y ago
      > so many people in the (still relatively free) West denying basic agency to their fellow human beings Because there's a lot of cynicism with charities and foreign aid. There is an active campaign here in Britain to reduce the latter and anecdotally, I have friends and relatives who refuse to donate to aid agencies because they believe that the whole thing is a sham. Sure there's bureaucracy, but most of them are genuinely hardworking and already operating on shoestring budgets...
      - wavefunction 9y ago
        You could point them to clearinghouses like CharityNavigator [0] (which is probably US-centric) that rate the charities on things like how much of their donations go to administration. The short of it is that one can donate to Oxfam, Save the Children or Medecins san Frontieres and remain confident that >95% of funds raised go to direct relief efforts. [0]https://www.charitynavigator.org/ https://www.charitynavigator.org/
      - 9y ago
mercer 9y ago
I suppose this kind of question can only be answered in hindsight. If indeed there is a transition to a free, stable democracy, I suppose we could argue that what happened was ultimately worth it. But I don't know if such a thing is likely to happen. It seems quite possible to me that all this turmoil will lead to another local maximum that isn't much better, and perhaps even worse, than the previous one.
- ido 9y ago
  So basically they're eternally condemned to live in either a failed state or a harsh dictatorship?
  - hasenj 9y ago
    Afghanistan used to be a normal country in the 70s by Middle Eastern standard. Not too different from Iran, Iraq, or Syria of those days. It hasn't recovered for over 40 years. Iraq doesn't seem like it will recover any time soon.
jameslk 9y ago
If it's a free democracy we're after, we should get rid of the western double standard provided to other states that had Arab Springs which were violently suppressed by their undemocratic governments. Such as Saudi Arabia[0], Bahrain[1] and Yemen[2]. I don't remember hearing about rebels being armed, no fly zones being established and missiles being launched by western states in these countries. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Saudi_Arabian_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Saudi_Arabian_... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahraini_protests_of_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahraini_protests_of_2011 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93pr...
- hackuser 9y ago
  Generally I agree, but the West's double-standard does at least benefit some countries, such as Tunisia. Also, even support for Syria is based to a great degree on the Western nations' own interests and not those of the Syrian people. Most of the West's involvement is to destroy ISIL and to contain Iran and Russia. There was no credible possibility that the Saudi Arabian government, for example, would be overthrown; there was nobody for the Western nations to support. If there was a credible possibility, of course the Western nations might have decided supporting the Saudi rulers was more important, as they have many times in the past, and portrayed the rebels as terrorists. Finally, it all begs the question: Revolutions are very risky; often the outcome is worse than the starting point, with many dead, a generation in ruin, and no improvement in government. When are they worthwhile? How can they be made more likely to obtain worthwhile outcomes?

mgbmtl 9y ago

I was in Syria in 2010 (backpacked around Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra, also hitchhiked across the border from Baalbek/Lebanon to Homs). At the time, I found it rather similar to experiences in South-Eastern European countries around 2000 [1]: friendly, curious, cynical, indifferent, defiant, ambitious. You could feel something was about to change, but I never expected this :( [1] I lived in Bulgaria 2003-2006. Sorry to generalize so broadly.