Rule and divide: opposition grows in Syria

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1:05The Economist

1:12Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Bloor. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the event shaping your world.

1:26Think of a protest march and I bet you envision crowds of angry youths carrying placards, chanting their demands for change. Well, you'd be right about the shouts and billboards. But in Britain, increasingly, it's not the young who demonstrate, it's pensioners. And you might remember him as General Zod in Superman, Bernadette in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, or maybe the Supreme Chancellor Finnis Valorum in Star Wars. Many characters, and he was brilliant in them all. Our obituaries editor celebrates the life of Terence Stamp.

2:05But first...

2:12In July, repeated armed clashes in the southern Syrian city of Saweda killed hundreds of people. Government-backed Sunni militias went on the rampage in a province where the majority of the population are Druze. Local men responded by massing in the streets, chanting, arms in tow.

2:33And that violence wasn't an isolated case. In March, in coastal areas, members of the Alawite minority were targeted by unidentified Sunni militias. More than 1 ,400 people were massacred. In the early months after the fall of former dictator Bashar al-Assad, Syria was euphoric. Back then, a poll commissioned by The Economist found the country's new president, Ahmad al-Shara, had an 81 % approval rating. That moment has now passed. Less than nine months in, al-Shara's regime is coming under increasing scrutiny. There have been several instances of sectarian violence which have really shaken the country, shaken the relations between Damascus and minorities.

3:20Gareth Brown is a Middle East correspondent. And I think what you've started to see over the summer months is the first sort of emergence of opposition to Ahmed Ashara's new government in Damascus. And how did the government respond to the violence earlier this year? I think the word to sum it up would be lacklustre. I think in both instances, the government was very slow to get control of the situation. And in the coastal violence, we saw Shahruz government announce this investigation, this committee, which would form a report. And the results of that report have been published. And what we see is essentially the government abdicating responsibility for the violence.

4:07Now, he has said that there'll be another investigation into the violence in Saoeda. But a lot of people are quite pessimistic that that's going to lead to any real accountability. And Syria has come through a very traumatic 50 years of dictatorship, 13 years of civil war. We can't expect the sectarianism to sort of disappear overnight. But I think the real disappointment and frustration is Shadow's government's really quite poor response to both of these incidents. And people are starting to air these frustrations. Is there any sense then that the minorities in Syria are going to find representation of any kind?

4:41I think this is the key question plaguing Syria at the minute. Back in February, March, when I was part of an economist team that interviewed Ahmed Shara, I think we really came away with the feeling that Shara was understanding of the role that minorities play in Syria. And he wanted them to be part of this new country, this new state. And he wanted to bring them in under his umbrella. But I think in the last few months, his actions, his government's actions, really haven't aligned with the words, with the rhetoric. And in the case of the Druze in the South, you now have Druze talking openly about succession.

5:18Some Druze militias flying Israeli flags. You have Alawites who really, in many cases, don't feel they have a place in the new Syria. And I think that, as well as other factors, is now starting to manifest itself in something resembling an organized opposition. So whilst the violence in Sueda was erupting, we saw the launch of the Syrian Centenary Initiative, which was, to be honest, little more than a published statement. But it had some very clear goals, and it was signed by some very credible opposition figures from across the Syrian spectrum. And they were basically demanding that Shahraha revisit many of his key decisions over the last few months, in particular, the constitutional declaration, which was signed in March.

6:01They want to see a greater role for civil society and political parties, both of which have really been, you know, sort of largely locked out of the decision-making process in Shadar's Syria. And really this is a key moment where you have Syrians going, hold on, this is not the new Syria we wanted to build. We didn't struggle for more than a decade of civil war against Bashar al-Assad only to recreate, you know, a new system that doesn't listen to us and excludes us. So Gareth, does this brewing opposition have a point? How would you rate al-Shara's performance to date? I think there have been positives and negatives.

6:34I think undoubtedly his big victories have been on the international stage. He got the sanctions lifted. He's really succeeded in bringing Syria in out of the cold, opening embassies, relations with other countries, bringing business into the country. But decision-making has been heavily centralised and real power lies in the hands of maybe half a dozen or less than a dozen officials from Heya Tahrir al-Sham, that was the rebel group he was the head of in Idlib. A lot of positions in the Syrian government are being awarded on the basis of loyalty or tribal or family links. Civil society has been shut out.

7:11And I think the Syrian diaspora, which is phenomenally educated and buzzing with ideas and diversity, also he really hasn't taken advantage of them. I think the violence in Sueda in the summer has all but wrecked the chances of incorporating the Druze into his security forces. And it also invited Israel in to stir up further instability. And he also hasn't managed to strike a deal with the Kurds in the northeast yet, which would bring them sort of under the state umbrella. And I think that's a key thing that he hasn't managed to do yet. At the moment, it seems as though al-Shadr is more interested in satisfying a Sunni revanchism among his base than forming a genuinely inclusive government and sharing power.

7:54And how does all of this play out for the ordinary person trying to live their life? I mean, I think for the ordinary Syrian, so far, materialistically, life hasn't got much better. 90 % of Syrians still live below the poverty line. I mean, there was this windfall of political freedom, which was very noticeable in the early months. But now you have people focusing on questions like, how can I get enough money to feed my family? I think when the US administration, Donald Trump, lifted sanctions on Syria a few months back, and we've had this wave of foreign companies from the Gulf and from Turkey coming to Syria and signing these big deals.

8:36Syrians haven't felt that yet. They haven't felt the windfall. They haven't felt an improvement in their quality of life. And they're starting to grumble about that. You talked about the shoots of a new opposition to al-Sharah, which is not violent. How much of a chance do you think this has of establishing itself? I think this is going to be the key test for al-Sharah over the next six months to a year. I think the emergence of a civil opposition is actually a fantastic opportunity for him. is something that could strengthen his government, strengthen the political process, strengthen the institutions in Syria that he's trying to rebuild.

9:12But that all depends on how he reacts. And I have sort of noticed anecdotally, both online and in person, the people around Shara don't really react that well to criticism. And in some instances, we've seen writers, Syrian activists, who were very strongly associated with the revolution over the years, criticising Shara and being accused of treachery. And, you know, you speak to some of them and they say that there's really no dialogue unless you're considered part of the formerly Hayatahrir Hasham clique. I don't think it's impossible that some sort of protest movement emerges, particularly if the material aspects of life don't improve.

9:50So does Shara interact with this criticism or does he try to suppress it? Shah Rukh was quite autocratic when he ran Idlib and he was willing to clamp down on dissent and opposition when he needed to. And it worked for him. Running Syria is very different to running Idlib. Idlib was an ethically homogenous governor with massive economic growth because the population had swelled. And Syria as a state is obviously much bigger, but it's also a patchwork of minorities and communities with sometimes competing, sometimes overlapping. interests and a lot more international considerations to take into place.

10:28So it's whether he can graduate his mindset from being the governor of Idlib province to being the president of one of the most diverse and complex countries and societies in the region. Gareth, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

10:58Tomorrow's episode of the Weekend Intelligence, our subscriber-only show, is by me. And it's about a story I first heard the bare bones of when I was five or six years old. My father was on the last boatload of child refugees from Poland before war broke out in 1939. That much I've long known. But like so many others of his generation, my dad never really talked about what, or who he left behind. That silence became its own inheritance, and everyone who could have told me the story is dead now. But recently I decided I needed to try and find out what happened. I went on a journey to Berlin, a northern Polish port, and a forest clearing close to the border with Ukraine.

11:46Please do join me tomorrow to listen. You'll need to be a subscriber to do so.

12:16Thank you.

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13:02There was a lot of people there. Shame on every single one of them, sister. Shame on the police. Shame on the police. Two weeks ago, there was a big protest outside Westminster. Now, protests are relatively common outside there, but there were two things that were a little bit strange about it. Duncan Robinson is The Economist's Britain political editor and Badgett columnist. It was a protest in favour of a group called Palestine Action. So you had hundreds of people waving placards saying, I oppose genocide and I support Palestine Action, which is a sort of pro-Gaza campaign group which also recently vandalised some military planes and were therefore prescribed by the UK government, which basically put them on the same footing as Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group and made showing any sign of support for them completely illegal.

13:57But the two things that were strange about it were, one, everyone was really rather old, and two, the police started arresting people for holding up what ostensibly seems like a relatively innocuous sign. Arrest the people that are selling arms, they're bombing, killing. And so police would pick up often very old people and carry them extremely gingerly away from the protest, be arrested and then subsequently charged with terror offences.

14:27and these protesters were often pretty giddy about it you could see that some photographers caught images of pensioners sort of smiling while they were being carried away everyone was having fun almost so what was really going on why were there so many old people there well there were lots of old people there because lots of people believe that there's been sort of overreach by the UK government in prescribing this organisation, labelling them as a terrorist organisation. And the reason there were so many old people there is because they have the means to be arrested. They've got the time to do it.

15:03They're relatively insulated from the consequences, and so they're prepared to pick up a terror charge for what they believe in. So of the people who were arrested, half of them were over 60, and then one in five of them were over 70, and you even had 15 80-somethings who were being arrested. And by contrast, there were only six people in their teens who were arrested. You don't normally think of pensioners at protests. Is that usual for Britain or usual elsewhere? So Britain's a bit of an outlier in that our pensioners tend to be a bit more radical and a bit less conservative than they are, say, on the continent.

15:34So if you turn up to a protest or political meeting in the UK, you will see a lot of grey hairs. You will see a lot of people who are well into their 70s and 80s often taking quite radical positions. And so this has been sort of most apparent on the right of British politics in the past few years. So when Britain voted to leave the EU, it was mainly older voters who chose that quite radical option. And at the moment, we're going through the sort of political flux where vast amounts of people, I'll say they support Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which is a very populist party. But the sort of base of that, again, is retired people.

16:09And that's very different to how voters behave in, say, France or Germany or Spain, where voters in those countries go for the small C conservative option because they're a bit scared of change, whereas pensioners in the UK sort of go, change, sign me up. And do these radical pensioners actually have any influence in politics? Oh, they certainly do because they do turn out and vote. And also, particularly on the other side of the spectrum, they do turn up to places and are prepared to get themselves arrested. So we've got the presence of radical old people. Were young people absent? No, there were still plenty of young people there, but it's sort of what you expect.

16:45The image of protest is sort of still so wrapped up with students. You expect to see people with blue hair and dreadlocks and just sort of being young and wild. And you expect it to be the sort of thing that people grow out of when it's almost becoming something that people grow into. And you've already mentioned that there were a lot of arrests at this protest. Are these radical pensioners actually more reckless or dangerous than other protesters? Well, they basically have the means to do this. So being arrested is stressful and time consuming. And being convicted of a terror offence, which is literally what these people have been charged with, is a huge problem to have on your CV.

17:25So if you are young and you want to travel to America at some point in your life, you have to tick that little box saying, yes, I have been convicted of terrorism. And funnily enough, the Americans say, whoa, you can't come in. And so that's a big sacrifice to make if you're in your 20s. That's a big curtailment of what you can do. Whereas if you're in your 70s or your 80s, you're probably not going to go to Disneyland and Orlando anytime soon. So why not give it a go? And what are politicians doing about the rise of radical pensioners? It's sort of a bit of a dirty secret in politics because every single party likes to paint themselves as sort of like young and vital.

17:56But at the same time, every single party secretly knows that it is older voters who decide elections. And so there's a little bit of denial there. So although there were hundreds of arrests that won't have sort of nipped this in the bud, the people who organized the protests said that they're going to come back in a few weeks' time. And there will almost certainly be another army of OAPs who are willing to stand up to the government and be arrested for what they believe in. Retirement's never sounded so fun. Duncan, thank you so much. Thank you.

18:38When Terence Stamp was asked which was his favourite film, he always said Billy Budd. Anne Rowe is The Economist's obituaries editor. and his favourite moment also came in that, what he thought of as a moment of transcendence. He was standing on the deck of the HMS Avenger, the waves were playing round him, the sunlight was on his hair, and a noose was gently touching his face because, as Billy Budd, an unjustly accused crewman on a 19th century British ship, he was about to be hanged. And he didn't really quite know how to play the scene because the script said that Billy was at peace. He had no idea how he could play someone facing his death and being at peace.

19:25A sort of strange otherness seemed to take over him. And he heard in his head a little ditty, little dolly daydream, pride of Idaho. And he heard his grandmother singing it as she used to sing when she made him marmalade sandwiches after school, as he lay on the rug in her house doing his homework. And he realised that he could nail this scene just by being in that space. I've waited long to have my faith. Not thinking, being beyond thought. And in fact, when he went to the premiere with his parents, there was not a dry eye in the cinema because at that moment he really had taken the audience somewhere beyond themselves.

20:17That film, which was made in 1962, also propelled him to fame.

20:28He won an Oscar nomination and a BAFTA nomination, and after that he was making a film every year. Films like The Collector, Modesty Blaze. They were films in which he played all kinds of different people, from bank clerks to psychopathic butterfly collectors to, in Far From the Madding Crowd, a caddish sergeant. But it was all a little bit of a surprise to him, this tremendous fame, and the fact that he was going out with the most beautiful women of the age, that he became an icon in London. He was going around with Mick Jagger and David Bailey was photographing him, he was one of the great 60s icons, and yet he thought he was just an East End Spiv.

21:16He was very proud of being an East Ender, but all the same he'd never thought of himself as terribly attractive.

21:26If he was going to be called the most beautiful man in the world, was this true? He thought, in fact, it was all to the credit of the lighting man on Billy Budd. and this image of him had suddenly magically transformed him and he therefore came to realise what he'd intuited very young as a child when he went to the cinema with his mum, that actually cinema itself was magic. And that sense of magic also came through to his fans. They always thought there was something rather strange and mysterious about him, an intensity, even something mesmerising.

22:13So in 1970, there came a rather difficult time in his career when the roles seemed to be drying up and agents were saying quite blatantly that as the 60s ended, Terence Stamp's ascendancy also ended. People wanted the new Terence Stamp. They wanted a different face. So he dug himself off, feeling rather miserable, to India. And there he spent seven years in an ashram which was connected to Krishnamurti. And there he wore orange robes, grew a long beard, long hair, learned about yoga and meditation, and also learned breathing techniques from Sufis. And it didn't seem perhaps at the time to be taking in an awful lot, but he realized when he got a cable in 1977 telling him that he was up for a part in the new Superman films, he suddenly felt that he could absolutely do this.

23:14And when he went for the job still in his robes and his long beard and his hair, and was picked to play General Zod, the arch villain. He went on the Superman set and thought, I'm more awake than any of these other people. They seem to be half asleep. And he thought that the very best way to play Zod was not as evil caricature, but as someone who was absolutely present in the moment, just pure terrifying presence. He wrote books too on macrobiotic cookery because he had come to believe in India that people who ate a macrobiotic diet with no wheat and no dairy could stay beautiful forever.