In March of 2011, after the eruption of the Syrian Uprising against the tyranny of the Assad regime, Alawites in Tartus, an Assad stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, were documented as going into the streets and chanting, “Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”.
In Arabic, the chant rhymed, “Al Assad, Aw Nihrek al Balad”
A Stratfor correspondent alluded to this chant in an article he/she wrote entitled, “Syria’s Tartus, the Mother of Martyrs“. Today, as the Alawites of Syria burn the country, Tartus receives an average of 20 dead Alawites a day.
Did the Alawites not think setting the country on fire might also burn them?
Syrians gave the Alawites the chance to rule for 45 years and they failed Syria miserably with their violent tendencies and uneven justice. Like the Nazis paid for their crimes, so shall the Alawites pay for theirs.
Honestly, no one feels sorry for them. Not even the Israelis who champion the causes of all Middle Eastern minorities.
Most of the Alawites of Syria are people of extreme violence; and as the U.S. imposed its will on Germany and Japan after WWII because of the violence of Hitler and Tojo, so should we on the Alawites of Syria because of Assad and their past history of 45 years of sheer terror.
With their chant “Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”, the Alawites were telling the Sunni majority of Syria that they have the right to tyrannize, torture, and kill at will in their inhuman jails.
“Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!” is another way of saying to the Sunnis, you have no human rights and you are at the mercy of our extreme Alawite violence. Wonder no more why extremism flourishes.
No people, no matter their identity or background, can accept this kind of arrogance and humiliation. This is not the dark ages even though many Alawites have acted like savages.
The Alawites chose to rule with an iron fist when it was unnecessary. The Sunnis of Syria are mostly moderates like the Sunnis of Lebanon. Only the tyranny of Assad has turned them into monsters responding with equal violence to those who chanted “Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”
“Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!” will go down in history as the dumbest slogan ever. Wonder if the citizens of Tartus are willing to go down in the streets today and chant “Kill Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”. Twenty Tartussian dead every day in a city of about 120,000 makes you change your mind rather quickly.
Statistically speaking, that’s over 24% of all able bodies, represented by 25% of the total population, if calculated on an annual basis. Tartus is running out of men rather quickly.
Any regrets chanting “Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”?
If this is demonstrative of one thing, it shows that the Alawites of Syria are not fit to govern. “Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!” is as dumb and careless as their governorship. How did the Christians of Syria fall for their violence, Syrians will never know.
What we know now is that the Christians and the Druze and all the other minorities of Syria should not be paying the price for “Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”.
It is neither fair, nor right.
“Al Assad! Or we set the country on fire!”
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