Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, 60, is one of the greatest Syrian intellectuals of his generation. A committed man – his communist activism earned him sixteen years in prison (1980-1996) under the dictatorship of Hafez Al-Assad – he took up the cause of the revolution in March 2011. He then went underground. In December 2013, his wife, Samira Khalil, was kidnapped with human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh and two other activists, probably by an Islamist group, in Douma, in the suburbs of Damascus, then under the control of the rebellion. . At the same time, two of his brothers are kidnapped in Rakka, their hometown, by the Islamic State (IS) organization. One of them is still missing. Yassin Al-Haj Saleh went into exile in Turkey in 2014, then moved to Germany in 2017, where he joined the Institute of Applied Studies in Berlin. In France, some of his writings have been the subject of a collection, The Syrian Question (Actes Sud, 2016).
How to conceive of Syria, a country fragmented by ten years of war?
First, there is the Russian-Iranian protectorate of Bashar Al-Assad. Then the protectorate of the Syrian branch of the PKK [parti kurde armé sécessionniste, interdit en Turquie] under American protection, where the “European Guantanamo” is located [où sont détenus les djihadistes, notamment européens, et leurs familles]. There is the Turkish protectorate, in the North and the North-East; and the Idlib pocket, where an al-Qaida branch is trying to normalize. There is still the region occupied by Israel since 1967 [le Golan], not to mention the Syrian skies, shared by the Russian protector of the regime and the Israeli aggressor who targets Iran and its Shiite supporters. The longer these de facto divisions persist, the more they will crystallize in a de jure division of Syria.
Finally, there is a sixth Syria: diasporic, deterritorialized, but plural and independent of the dynastic and genocidal regime which has ruled the country for fifty-one years. This Syria is fighting to live and have a political existence.
Are the refugees a homogeneous group, sharing the same views?
No, homogeneity only exists in the mind of Bashar Al-Assad, who prides himself on having shaped a “Homogeneous society” – despite the countless human lives and destroyed infrastructure. Some refugees support the regime but have left their country not to be drafted into the army. Others went into exile because of their commitment, to escape death. Finally, many are ordinary, depoliticized people who have fled for a better life. A wide range of opinions are expressed within the Syrian diaspora: 5.6 million people [selon le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés], that’s almost a third of the population! But – I insist on this point – it is they who form independent Syria.
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