Daily Dispatch

Aleppo’s stark lesson for SA

ONE would almost have to be on the moon not to know about the grim situation in Aleppo. And one would have to be fairly emotionally alienated not to be moved by the images of tiny bloodied children coming out of that city.

But beyond the basic human response of compassion and outrage at atrocious and unnecessary human suffering, why should South Africans beset by so many of their own survival challenges think too much about Syria’s long and complex civil war?

For a reason that is quite simple: The war in Syria began, not because of religious tensions as one might think, but it was actually triggered by more basic survival issues, ones to which South Africans can surely relate.

It started with a small spat between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and a community over access to water.

That fed into the protests of the Arab Spring which were about rising poverty, corruption, unemployment and state brutality.

Assad’s response – a harsh crackdown blew wide open the ancient schism between Syria’s Sunni and Shia populations. And everything unravelled from there. The regional powers – also similarly divided – stepped in, igniting a proxy war.

That was heightened by the emergence at that exact moment of the militarily savvy Islamic State. When its jidhadis rolled across the countryside executing anyone perceived as being outside their particular ideology, Assad resorted to chemical weapons and dropped barrel bombs.

That was late in 2013, just as US President Barack Obama was trying to pull the US troops out of the Middle East. But when images of children’s bodies began appearing in the media he drew a line, demanding that Assad stop.

To the world’s astonishment it was a line that Assad flatly ignored. Equally astonishing was that Obama backed down.

And into that void stepped Vladimir Putin taking Russia further than Afghanistan than it had been since the late 1970s.

Iran, the third ally in that power axis, soon followed with boots on the ground.

Both Russia and Iran are now wholly inside Syria behind Assad. In fact, without their muscle it is highly unlikely that the Islamic State and other Islamist groups would be taking such a pounding in Aleppo.

A scenario similar to the one that has brought Assad a big step closer to victory is likely to unfold in the city of Mosul, over the border in Iraq. Mosul, too, is the site of a fierce contest between the Iraqi government and Islamic State forces.

The final outcome of both these wars could be a massive shift in the Middle East’s historic power balance. Also nightmarish fuel prices. But the really important lesson for South Africans from Aleppo is the extent to which a country can unravel when unexpected events collide with a society that has deep and fundamental cracks, particularly when its members are in desperate competition for basic resources to survive.