Divided and Self Destructive

"If you go to Homs now, you will find that it has become three areas: the Alawi area, the Sunni area and the Christian area.
"The head of the SARC (Syrian Arab Red Cross) branch in the Sunni area was not allowed to serve the Alawite area because they could not go there, and so on."
Dr. Abdul Rahman Attar, head, Syrian Arab Red Crescent

Dr. Abdul Rahman Attar was speaking from the head office of the Canadian Red Cross in Ottawa. The connection between himself, Syria and Canada is that Dr. Attar has dual citizenship. He is a citizen of Canada and has been since 1986, having worked as a Canadian trade officer in Syria in the 1970s.

He is urging Canada, along with the rest of the international community to apply pressure to all those involved in the conflict to respect international humanitarian law.

He would ideally like, in other words, for the West to transform the Middle East from tribal antagonisms, dictatorial regimes and sectarian bitterness -- cultural traditions that have always plagued the geography, to a reflection of the values that obtain outside the Middle East. And that is the game long played by Western powers to little avail.

It is a game, in aid of the proliferation of democracy, that has mired the West and the United States in particular for far too long in Arab/Muslim conflicts. A situation where desperate and oppressed people see immediate salvation in the removal of their tyrants, only to have the iron control of their suppressed society lifted, when the heritage of tribal antipathies spring back to life through mass slaughters.

What is playing out in Syria at the moment is precisely that sinister drama. It has been seen previously in Lebanon, Iraq and in Afghanistan; is plaguing Libya, Pakistan and Tunisia, along with Somalia, Sudan and Mali, and is destined to spread its hateful malevolence where fanatical Islamism is on the rise, and that is throughout the Muslim world.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent finds itself caught between warring factions in a cataclysm of ongoing violence that has claimed over 70,000 Syrian lives and made migrants of four million Syrians desperate to escape the spectre of death. Death strikes them through the auspices of the regime that has for so long oppressed them, and from the disparate militias that now include jihadists.

Safe passage for humanitarian aid workers like the SARC staff anxious to give assistance where it is most needed, is difficult through what are called "hot areas". "It takes us a long time because you cannot enter these areas unless you get permission from both sides. And inside the hot areas, there is more than one faction."

The north of the country is underserved by the SARC, where rebels and their Islamist partners opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's rule have staked their claim to control of the area. "Some people were a bit unhappy with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent because they have been unable to go to the north part of Syria."

And the legend of the SARC being sympathetic to the Alawite regime and working on its behalf arose from that difficulty, according to Dr. Attar. SARC staff, Dr. Attar attested, on the other hand, as a better reflection of reality, are being held in prison - including until recently the head of the agency's first aid response team.

Canada has been offering its financing of humanitarian aid for Syria within the broader international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement. Some of that $48-million does end up supporting the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and its activities. Dr. Attar would like to encourage a re-think of that arrangement. He doesn't feel peace is imminent.

"Last week I heard they have opened up a dialogue. I don't know. We must wait to see what the dialogue brings, but I don't see that", he said. The country has become too sharply divided along religious lines, he believes. As though this is a refreshingly unique and perhaps readily solvable problem that has just recently arisen.

One that the international community must respond to. So that the Arab Middle East can once again clamour their rage that they cannot be left in peace to get on with their destiny as they are meant to do, just like any other ordinary and entitled community of communities.