Protest in the City of Al-Bab: A Reading into the Factors and Lessons Learnt
Analytical report produced by the cohesion and shared identity unit
Introduction:
The issue of governance and administration of various files of liberated areas has been surfacing for a while, as the thematic and individual contexts relating to the factions controlling various liberated regions have contributed to the rise of popular movements at more than one point, perhaps the main of which was in the recent timeframe. The popular protests against the raising of energy prices in the areas of Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch, as well as around the areas of Tadef and protests relating to teacher wages, have all revealed the growing disparity between the local populous and governing institutions. That is mainly due to the lack of any real transparency tools and the weakness of tools enabling participation in decision-making on all levels due to individual and thematic reasons. It is predicted that popular protests will become the main tool to exert pressure on institutions, and to display the anger of the streets due to deterioration of services and living standards, as well as a tool to refuse practices and decisions that can affect the security of the region. That is especially exacerbated due to the popular mood of the residents of such regions, due to their participation in protests that accompanied the Syrian revolution in 2011, a mood that is skewed towards using this tool as a way to display their rejection of incorrect practices practiced by the local administrations. Not to mention the fact that said administrations are afraid of repressing such protests and facing them with force, as was the case with Assad’s regime.
In this context, a wave of protests with a “revolutionary flavour” has erupted in the last few days to face the practices and actions of the military police institution in the city of Al-Bab. This was in response to the release of some participants in the crimes committed by Assad’s militias, a wave that differs from previous ones on many levels.
All that was aforementioned highlights the importance of identifying the factors contributing to the formation of the movement, its tactics and the way it mobilises as well as the building of its demands up to the point of achieving them. It also calls to the analysis of how the official institutions reacted to the popular movement, which had a political nature rather than economic or living standards one, and finally the extracting the main lessons learnt.
مؤسسة بحثية سورية تسعى إلى الإسهام في بناء الرؤى والمعارف بما يساعد السوريين على إنضاج حلول عملية لمواجهة التحديات الوطنية المشتركة وتحقيق التنمية المستدامة
