Fence-sitting by minorities

The position minorities took towards the Arab Spring by remaining neutral, or even fearing change, sends a dangerous message to the majority that their comfort belies in the anguish of their compatriots, and threatens to further disconnect them from their communities.

Their stance, which they justify by voicing fear from what the future could have in hold for them, is segregating, as they rally behind dictators for the sake of a delusional margin of stability. In addition to being a merely self-centred one, this choice creates tensions within the Arab societies that expect minorities to substantiate their affiliation to the citizens of the countries where they claim to be rooted.

No revolt in history has ever offered prior assurances. Uprisings are spontaneous acts aimed at uprooting oppression, where all components of the society benefit from change, except for those whose interests would be negatively affected by it.

It is quite difficult to understand why the vast majority of Yemen’s southerners, Libya’s Amazigh and Egypt’s Copts, who had always struggled to put an end to the marginalisation they had suffered from for decades, decided to rally behind dictators who had oppressed them using the same old excuse of “fear from the unknown”.

Based on this, Yemen’s separatist Southern Movement allied with remnants of former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime whom they had always accused of “massacres.” Similarly, Egypt’s Copts who had always complained of the former regime’s exclusion, chose to vote for the candidate they believed will keep them secure — a minister in Hosni Mubarak’s last government. Libya’s Amazigh also preferred to remain in the back rows of the revolt, even though the iron-fisted regime of Muammar Gaddafi had long treated them as second-class citizens.

In Syria, supporters of the PKK’s political arm in the country, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, reacted towards the revolt in a way that cast much doubt among Kurds, and Syrians in general, over the movement’s role throughout the uprising. It is repeatedly accused of collaborating with the regime that has always dashed its dreams of forming the ‘Greater Kurdistan’.

Alawites and Al Assad

Meanwhile, Syria’s Alawites have more reason than any other group to join the revolt as they constantly claim to be victims of a regime that uses them to fuel its war against the rest of the population, mainly the Sunni majority. But most of them have voiced, with much persistence, their support to Al Assad’s regime, while their Al Shabiha militias are even deeply involved in massacres taking place in opposition strongholds.

Syrian Christians have, amidst this political storm, distanced themselves from the turmoil that hit their country, leaving many question marks on the strategy the regime had followed for more than four decades summarised in dividing citizens against each other, by poisoning relations between various sects within the society to declare itself the “sole protector” of the minorities. Syrians still remember how their secular Christian statesman Fares Khoury stood up to the heresies of French General Henri Gouraud when the last claimed that the French mandate was inevitable to protect Christians of the East.

Khoury responded to this by ascending to the Umayyid Mosque’s platform in Damascus and declared that Christians and Muslims were together to reiterate his position on national unity. At the present, it is the Sunni majority that fears being crucified for the sake of the ruling Al Assad family, mainly due to the negative stance taken by their compatriots who claim they fear Islamist extremists seizing power.

Consequently, it would have been more commonsensical to shed the light on the real reasons behind minorities’ negative stance towards change, instead of questioning the Arab revolts and their driving forces. Thus, resulting in ‘minorities’ extremism’ that threatens national unity, due to the absence of patriotic leaders among those segments.

Rauf Baker is a Dubai-based journalist who specialises in Eastern European Affairs.