Bashar Al-Assad was sworn in a few minutes ago...

[Gesundheit2]

After successfuly winning the recent elections by a landslide, Bashar Al-Assad continues his administration in his fourth term. He performs the constitutional oath in front of the parliament and gives an hour long speech discussing the last 10 years, current circumstances, and future plans and projects. Very construct-aware speech.

Here's the full video on Facebook (without translation):

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4365268756829443&id=208881799134847&anchor_composer=false&__tn__=*W-R

Watch his entrance and the ceremony.

P.S. The slim blondie is the first lady.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Gesundheit2

[Gesundheit2]

@Husseinisdoingfine First time I hear that song. You must be too invested in the Syrian politics lol.

[Seeker531]

After the war is more or less over now they should lift the sanctions to relieve the country of it's poverty and rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. 

I know that won't happen because it's about the princeples but so this country remains a spot of instability and corruption. 

[Gesundheit2]

@Seeker531 In his speech, he said that the sanctions are a reality that he's going to have to keep dealing with to the best of his ability. He emphasized on moving on to renewable energy sources for producing electricity because of the lack of oil (stolen by the US). He talked about his economical plans in general and how he's going to improve the situation for the citizens regardless of the sanctions and the stealing. I'm not expecting much, tbh. But that's because there's very little you could do in these situations, especially when you're faced with so much corruption on the inside and so many enemies and propaganda on the outside. The truth is, if it wasn't for him, the country would have had turned into a hole of radicals and terrorists, like Iraq. He managed to prevent that despite everything, and I highly respect him for that. He kept the country together (he lost some parts, but he keeps emphasizing on regaining them sooner or later), he preserved the government and protected the law. He's a national hero, imo. But even then, he didn't get my voice lol. I remained neutral.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Gesundheit2

[Gesundheit2]

@Husseinisdoingfine You're just a victim of a racist/ethnic propaganda.

Bashar won the elections fair and square every single time. Everybody worships him down here and they all voted for him voluntarily, and will vote for him anytime, and all of it is according to the Syrian constitution. So those memes aren't actually directed towards Bashar. They're directed towards the Syrian people and their free choice. That's why they're racist/ethnic.

If the people didn't truly love him, do you think he would have lasted that long? Even America couldn't take him down. Obama, then Trump, and now Biden. And whoever comes next will not be able to take him down. They will all go and he'll stay still lol. They're all just jealous of how much he's loved by his people.

[Seeker531]

@Gesundheit2

IMO this is a very controversial topic. I've followed the revolution and the following war from 12-17 through different media.  On the one hand he has a lot of blood on his hands due to using violence against mostly peaceful protesters. But I see that it is a complexer issue. On the other he keeps, as you said, this corrupt country with all its differences together. I guess he'd rather stayed a doctor

I'm not  sure if he is really so well loved since many people who were against him had to leave the country. Were I live there a most of the refugees against him. however, I can't say how big the proportion of those people is. 

I think that he has become so popular during the war because it has polarized the people and after some time there was no other reliable alternative and source of stability left. Moreover, I believe he's had at least 2/3 of the population behind him because the leverage due to outside sponsors would have been sufficient to tople him. If I'm wrong please share your pov.  

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Seeker531

[Gesundheit2]

4 hours ago, Seeker531 said:

@Gesundheit2

IMO this is a very controversial topic.

It is controversial only because of the propaganda. The reality is very clear for anyone on land.

4 hours ago, Seeker531 said:

@Gesundheit2

I've followed the revolution and the following war from 12-17 through different media.

It was not a revolution. If it was, I would have joined in. It was riots and violence from the beginning, and many of the people involved were paid and low consciousness. I knew some of them. My family was threatened because we didn't participate in the protests. And many families experienced the same. There were several bombings as well. Then, after all that didn't work, armed militias (including Al-Nusra, ISIS, and others) entered civilian areas, and we had to move out in order to avoid their evil and the mortars and air force of the government. The government declared that everyone should move out and stay away from the armed groups because there's no way to deal with terrorism other than that. At the same time, everyone on the opposite side had to endure mortar attacks all the time from those armed militias. Naturally, every city has governmental agencies, these were targeted by the armed militias as they were occupied by army forces to protect them from terrorist attacks, but mortars aren't really accurate, so a lot of civilians died and got injured in the name of revolution. There are a lot of details to the war that it's hard to write them all. But that's basically what happened. I will answer if you have questions.

4 hours ago, Seeker531 said:

@Gesundheit2

On the one hand he has a lot of blood on his hands due to using violence against mostly peaceful protesters. But I see that it is a complexer issue. On the other he keeps, as you said, this corrupt country with all its differences together. I guess he'd rather stayed a doctor.

There was violence against peaceful protesters. The Syrian government is not a democratic one. It never was. And during the war, Al-Assad was responsible for the deaths of many civilians, too. I and my family had to actually move out under air strikes. But there's a difference between that, and between what I anticipate would have been a total destruction and fragmentation of the country caused by terrorist groups coming from everywhere, followed by country-wide American intervention on land. That would have been a total disaster and millions could have died easily, and the war would have not likely stopped. If you think about it this way, Al-Assad actually saved hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives.

There are conflicting stories about his desire to rule to begin with, anyway. But in his latest speech, he said that Syria is in a spot that makes it impossible to be neutral, and so you have to take a position and a cause to die for. Otherwise, you'll become a slave and a doormat for others. He said there's no running away from trouble, and one has to face it head on. Basically, he doesn't have a choice but to fight, because he has integrity.

4 hours ago, Seeker531 said:

@Gesundheit2

I'm not  sure if he is really so well loved since many people who were against him had to leave the country. Were I live there a most of the refugees against him. however, I can't say how big the proportion of those people is.

He is loved by the majority. There's not a single doubt about that. There are of course certain groups that don't like him, but they're minorities. Namely, people who have affiliations with the Muslim brotherhood have different agendas, and they have a history of blood with his father. Other than that, most people support him, some out of fear to be fair, but most out of love. If I had to give a number, I would say 60+% of Syrians support and follow him blindly (out of fear/love). The number was even higher before the war (because many families have experienced direct damage caused by his forces). About half of the other 40% (more rational people) don't really mind him being president, they say it doesn't matter who rules as long as there's stability. The other half is divided between people who actually hate him explicitly but can't do anything against him expect talking about him (with a risk of getting arrested and tormented), and others who hate him in secret but show support or neutrality out of fear.

People who left the country moved out for various reasons. Right now, most people who leave the country do it for economical reasons. I wanna leave as well, and I'm working towards that for this particular reason. During the war, people moved out to avoid the mortar attacks launched by either sides. Some areas were heavily targeted by multiple armed forces, so civilians had to move out trying to escape death. Many Syrians youths move out regularly to avoid the mandatory service in the army, and many of them are educated and have PhDs. The list goes on. But the point is that I don't think there's a relationship to draw between the number of immigrants and the supporters of Al-Assad. I, for example, don't support him, per se. But I live here anyway because I couldn't move out yet. I wanna move out mainly because of the poor economy.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Gesundheit2

[RareGodzilla]

The elections defenitly have some bias towards assad. Just the way the booths are decorated is clearly favoring him. Obviously it's wartime, in this conditions Western-like democracy is impossible. But regardless its reasonable to assume that he has the support of the majority. It makes sense for the wartime situations, most vocal opponents have probably already either directly opposed him or left the country. 

I definitely wish most adbove all that the war ends. Be it assad or anyone else, the most important thing for economic and personal development of Syrian people is peace. 

[Gesundheit2]

7 hours ago, RareGodzilla said:

The elections defenitly have some bias towards assad. Just the way the booths are decorated is clearly favoring him.

Elections here are 100% staged. We don't actually need them because the results are always well-known already.

It's pretty funny, really. You'd actually laugh if you saw the campaigns. Empty words written on street billboards. That's it, and I mean all of it. There's nothing else to it. I wish I took photos of them to show you. It's blatantly obvious that the designer of the billboards for all three candidates was the same person. The billboards had the exact same layout and general design. The only difference was the content/slogans and the theme/color. Obviously, the other two candidates were just two dummies hired by Al-Assad to fill a temporary useless role in order to make it look like there were elections. Elections here are a joke and a play in front of the international community.

There's only one major party here (Al-Baa'th), the rest of the parties essentially exist as a formality and nothing more. They're completely inactive and useless. In other words, the ruling party is the only party here. And therefore Al-Assad will be the only president for as long as possible. If Al-Assad were to step aside, someone else from his family or from his close circle would rule, and nothing would change. I don't have a problem with that per se. I'm not really that involved or invested in politics in the first place. And so are most Syrians. We are very underdeveloped politically.

It's also very funny to watch the national news from time to time.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Gesundheit2

[snowyowl]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit2 said:

If Al-Assad were to step aside, someone else from his family or from his close circle would rule, and nothing would change.

And Bashar took over from his father Hafez in 2000, so effectively Syria is becoming a monarchy with the The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party as his royal court. (An interesting aside I just read is that all 3 parties in the election have Socialist in their name). 

In the media here, much was made of the Russian involvement to help Al-Assad win the civil war. Do you think he could have without their help, and what (if anything) does Putin expect in return? 

Edited July 20, 2021 by snowyowl

[Gesundheit2]

53 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

And Bashar took over from his father Hafez in 2000, so effectively Syria is becoming a monarchy with the The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party as his royal court. (An interesting aside I just read is that all 3 parties in the election have Socialist in their name).

Haha! Correct! Syria has never been anything other than a monarchy. When Hafez became president, he removed a lot of people from sects other than his (Shiite, Ali-sect) from the most crucial positions in the government, and then inducted people from his sect in order to dominate the government and secure the presidency.

Like I said, all the parties here are inactive and useless, including Al-Baa'th itself. The only function (at least inside Syria) of Al-Baa'th is to control the government, not much anything else, like improving it or anything.

Syria is not an industrial country, therefore I would guess communism/socialism makes more sense than capitalism. But I'm not very erudite in these discussions.

53 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

In the media here, much was made of the Russian involvement to help Al-Assad win the civil war. Do you think he could have without their help, and what does Putin expect in return? 

Please don't call it a civil war. It was anything but that. Syrians had almost nothing to do with it. We were just victims of it. We have always lived in harmony with all the different religions and sects and ethnicities, and we're still in perfect harmony with them. And we (the majority) never had major problems with the government. It's a lot more complex than a civil war, especially when terrorist groups have participated in it. A continuation of the cold war between the east and the west could be a much better description, which answers your last question. Putin basically wants to limit the American influence in the area, so that's mainly why he and Iran are friends with Al-Assad, because Al-Assad is one of the few opposing forces to America in the middle east. Actually, he's mainly opposed to Israel, but Israel and the US are allies, so. And yes, the Russian & Iranian support has been definitely a game changer. The Syrian army could never endure all the terrorist groups on its own. Also, I've heard rumors that Putin has owned the western port a few years ago because of the debt. And it makes sense, so I think it's reasonable to assume that it's true.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Gesundheit2