CIVIL WAR
<This article was firstly published in Thailand's newspaper in 2016>
Although we are no strangers to the term ‘civil war’, most of us think of it as a tale from a distant land. Typically, an English dictionary defines a civil war as ‘a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country’. The English term is rooted in Latin’s ‘bellum civile’, which describes the turmoil during the first-century Roman Empire. On Wikipedia the definition is further expanded to a ‘war between organized groups within the same state or republic. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.’
Most of the time a civil war erupts as a result of differences of religious beliefs, social statuses and races, as well as a number of other factors. These root causes have a history that spans hundreds and thousands of years. They are deeply engrained in the belief system of the peoples and of society-at-large and are passed down from one generation to the next, taking root in the human mind. They easily transcend other aspects of life such as socio-economic growth and changes, as well as technological advancements.
Syria is one of the countries plagued by civil war, which has affected millions of people in Syria itself and in the neighbouring nations. Over the past couple of years, we have seen news of this particular civil war every day. Much like the civil war in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, the Syrian Civil War sprang from the people’s disagreement with their leader’s rule. The Western media call it the ‘Arab Spring’. In these instances, the people rose up against the oppression of a semi-dictatorship that has long been in power and has exploited that power by limiting the rights and freedom of the people.
After only hearing about the Syrian Civil War through news outlets, I finally had an opportunity to witness its impact first-hand this past February when I travelled with UNICEF to Lebanon, an Arab state neighbouring Syria that has taken in refugees fleeing the cruelty of the deteriorating war. I spent two days at the temporary refugee camp on the Lebanon border, where I learned much about the change in living conditions that these refugees had endured.
According to a UNICEF official, Lebanon itself has a population of about 4 million. Although it has already accommodated about a million Syrian refugees, tens of thousands of these refugees continue to arrive at the border daily. Most refugees are the elderly, women and children because most of the Syrian men, some of whom are fathers and husbands, have stayed behind in Syria to fight or have already succumbed to death as a result of the war.
These Syrian refugees have options of going to Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey or Lebanon. I have learned that the Syrian refugees, at least in Lebanon, are not at all what I have imagined or like other refugees I have seen in the news. Back in Syria, they were neither at the bottom of the social strata or discriminated against because of their ethnicity. In fact, they were ordinary middle-class folks. They were merchants, businesspeople and office workers. Their children went to regular to high-end schools. They had good quality of life before the war. UNICEF has estimated that about 5.5 million Syrian children have been affected by the civil war, about 4 million of whom are still stuck in Syria while 1.2 million of them have become refugees on foreign soil. Among these, about half are 5 years of age or younger.
Syrian refugees in Lebanon are faced with an even more dire situation as the Lebanese government has refused to acknowledge their refugee status. (As a country of 4 million, the temporary government and the newly formed government are not willing to bear the political risk of having to officially support over 1 million refugees because it would require a tremendous amount of resources, including a chunk of the government’s own budget.) That is why the refugee camp has been set up as a temporary camp without adequate infrastructure required of a standard refugee camp.
Lacking official support from the government, both the locals and the newcomers attempted to find their own solutions, resulting in conditional commercial assistance instead of unconditional humanitarian aid. For instance, local landowners have allowed refugees to set up temporary camp under the condition that each community, under its respective leader, provides free labour for their farmland. Some of these labourers include children, whom UNICEF provides assistance and support in several ways.
With this opportunity from UNICEF to personally experience the lives of these refugees, I have come close to truly understanding the harsh reality of the effects of a civil war, especially on children. What had happened in Syria over the past two years has flipped their lives upside down without so much as a warning. Before my return, I received a souvenir from the children. It was an oil painting of a pigeon with a short poem that translates to this: ‘It is difficult to cry when there is no more tear to shed. It is difficult to return home when there is nothing left.’ The painting and the poem convey a pure and innocent thought about war and conflict from a child’s perspective. I can see that the children don’t look at this war with hatred or anger. Instead they look at it with a longing for what should have rightfully belonged to someone without any role to play on this stage of hatred and separation.
As I returned home and had a chance to contemplate what I had experienced, I began to think of recent developments in Thailand. I was reminded of a BBC documentary made and broadcast in 2001 called ‘5 Steps to Tyranny’. A number of amateur writers and bloggers have mentioned it recently. If you have time, you should watch it.
As previously mentioned, a civil war is a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country. The said documentary illustrates that the social and psychological complexity, as well as beliefs and thoughts, are susceptible to stimulants that may easily and quickly divide the same group of people into opposing groups. It is so quick and easy we sometimes do not realise exactly when we have switched to the dark side.
What we should all be cautious of is the moment when the citizens of Thailand are pulled into that dark side without realising it, resulting in what I have just talked about — a civil war.