The Syrian novelist Fawaz Haddad did not exaggerate when he titled his novel “The Republic of Darkness,” in which he summed up the state of Syrian terror and summed up the reality of everyone who has lived at the mercy of the Syrian regime for more than fifty years. No one disagrees that the Assad regime brought an entire people into a dark and blocked tunnel, after the revolution against his regime in 2011 AD, during which violence became the regime’s only lever, as it was practiced in various ways: mass graves, the displacement of millions, the annihilation of entire cities, villages and farms, and the summoning of the Iranian occupier. And the Russian, in addition to practicing the most horrific types of torture in terrible detention centers, while violence follows other levels of force and arrogance; Such as media propaganda, conveying pain in a falsified way, and falsifying facts to improve one’s image before the world. Therefore, the amount of pain burdened the minds of Syrians, shattered their dreams and hopes, and turned their lives upside down.

• A murderous leader at the head of the Third “Dark Republic”!

The French magazine LODS presented the documentary film (3 parts), which was directed by British director Nick Green, in a documentary series in October 2018, in which it shows the story of the development of Bashar al-Assad, that boy who did not feel confident, and who was not expected to reach power, to become a mass murderer. . The third part, titled “What is left of humanity for him?” presents; It begins with an interview with the Syrian doctor Zaher Sahloul, who attended medical school in London, Britain, with the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, and knew him well, in which he says, “This is ridiculous; We were colleagues, and today one of us is bombing hospitals, and the other is treating bombing victims.”

The murderous leader who was presented by the French magazine as being so shy that he lowered his head when anyone spoke to him, and so clumsy that he almost slipped away the papers he was reading during the funeral of his brother Maher al-Assad in 1994. He was also not, in the eyes of his father, a reliable keeper. To be president, how did he turn, after wanting to become an ophthalmologist, into a tyrant with the blood of nearly a million Syrians on his hands?

• On the Verge of Death: Citizens of the Third “Dark” Republic

At the end of 2010, the average government salary in Syria was 8,000 Syrian pounds (170 US dollars). At the beginning of 2024, the average salary no longer exceeds 250 Syrian pounds (only $16). The cost of living for a Syrian family of five individuals “in Assad’s areas” rose to more than 12 million Syrian pounds, which made the regime work to relieve some of the pressures of its supporters through a policy of militarizing society, which was actually done by facilitating contracts with them as mercenaries within the Russian forces in Ukraine, Armenia, Africa and others.

Daily life in the “Third Republic of Darkness,” or as the head of the regime called it, “useful Syria,” has turned into an almost paralyzed life, as the regime no longer has anything to offer to more than 10 million Syrians under its authority. People can barely survive, and the percentage of the poor is increasing every day, in addition to the severe shortage of bread, cooking gas, and the absence of electricity and heating means, during the harsh winter this year, while the Syrian currency, the “lira,” continued to decline, which is… Which led to a minimum increase in prices thirty-fold between 2011 and 2024 AD. The birth rate decreased, and abortions increased in Assad’s areas, in light of the deteriorating living conditions. One of the specialist doctors confirmed to the “loyal” newspaper Tishreen that two to three cases of women who want to abort the fetus come to her clinic on a daily basis. This reality was summarized by the former American envoy to Syria, Joel Rayburn, in a tweet on the “X” website: “The areas of the Syrian regime lack fuel, energy, and trade, and their streets are empty, while the regime continues to print currency only to pay salaries.”

The cries of some pro-Assad artists in response to the state of living misery did not bring any results, and when the artist Wadah Halloum called out to the head of the regime, pleading: “Only you have the power to solve it,” he himself, Assad, announced from the beginning of his accession to power in 2000 AD that he “does not have a magic wand.” It solves all problems, and this was the time of the “Second Republic of Darkness, which was more powerful and stable,” so how today in a country where 90% of the people are below the threshold of hunger and on the brink of death?

Adhering to the principle of not bowing to the storm, the Assad regime continued to try to promote an optimistic view among the residents of its areas by talking about the arrival of some Arab investments, the start of Chinese financing for reconstruction projects, and the easing of American sanctions, but none of that happened, and it does not seem that it will happen. Soon, as long as he is immersed in the policy of intransigence, corruption, and indifference.

The Caesar Act or the boycott of the West did not cause this state of poverty, unemployment, inflation, crimes, and injustice, but rather the corruption of the regime’s apparatuses, the influence of the war merchants who enriched the “nouveau riches,” and the dominance of the Iranians and the Russians, is the first and last reason. Before the salary increase approved by the head of the Syrian regime, the salary of a Syrian teacher would buy two cans of milk for an infant, apart from any other basic needs. If he wanted to do without the two cans of milk, this amount could buy him the basics of one dish consisting of “one kilo of… Lamb, 2 kilos of rice, a box of ghee, a kilo of potatoes, a kilo of tomatoes, and a bag of bread.” What is the solution to the mystery of death? The current solution is the “expatriates,” who were displaced by Al-Assad, his thugs, and his allies to Europe and neighboring countries, and whose remittances into his regions amount to about 5 million US dollars daily (approximately).

• Underground hell for those who say “no”!

After the Syrian revolution, the Assad regime’s prisons turned into human slaughterhouses, where mass crimes and executions were committed, and the regime’s followers did not differentiate between the elderly, youth, and women. In the book “The Syrian Gulag: Inside the Detention Centers of the Assad Regime” by the Dutch researcher Ugur Umit Angur (professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute), and the Syrian human rights activist Jaber Bakr, who was arrested between 2002 and 2004 in the Saydnaya Military Prison, hell is summarized, as it derives The book’s name is from the horrific Soviet concentration camps, and it reveals the tragedy of the prisons during the rule of the two Assads, father and son. The book relies on sources that include interviews, reports, memoirs, drawings, maps, and photos, in addition to publications on social media. About this hell, a gravedigger (a dissident civil servant who was He buries the bodies in secret places) in his shocking testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying: “He buried children who died under torture, and that three trucks came to him every week with hundreds of piled-up bodies, and their numbers ranged from 300 to 600 bodies, coming from the intelligence branches. And military hospitals.” Arrest and physical liquidation have become the fate of all those living in his dark republic who protest against the corruption of the Assad regime.

• Al-Assad’s philosophy: The Republic of Darkness or the Republic of Destiny!

The Syrian regime wanted to gather a people loyal to it (according to its security vision: a republic of colonies). Al-Assad and his militias, in cooperation with Iran and Hezbollah, established an empire of Captagon. The circulation of drug-related news became an almost daily occurrence, and shipments leaving his republic (areas of his control) to the borders were seized. Arab and international airports and ports are regular news. Recently, in Jordan alone, nearly 20 million drug pills were seized, and more than 15 smuggling operations were thwarted during a short period of time on the Jordanian border alone.

Medical reports indicated the spread of tranquilizers and narcotic pills in its areas, especially among war victims and university and school students, at low prices not exceeding half a dollar per gram. The most lucrative income for Assad is drugs, as there are 15 factories within Assad’s areas that produce: Captagon, amphetamine, crystal meth, and others. Der Spiegel newspaper published in its report (June 2021), that the head of the regime, Al-Assad, personally supervises the drug industry and trade, through his cousin Samer Al-Assad, through four parties: “the palace, the Fourth Division affiliated with Maher Al-Assad, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and Hezbollah.” The damage was not limited to the Syrian individual, but rather affected society, shaking its spiritual and moral fence, and because of it, crime and violence rates increased, and contributed to further impoverishment, as a result of the exploitation of drug users by promoters.

• Prostitution in the “Dark” Republic

The worsening economic crises in Syria led to the spread of the phenomenon of women being exploited in “prostitution,” as they now have their own businesses and investors whose activities cross borders. The facilitation of prostitution and its promotion among university and school students, and displaced men and women to Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, and Homs has increased. Forced and raped by Assad’s officers and his thugs, or in the open prostitution market in designated homes, beauty salons, and cafes, all with the goal of staying alive, in exchange for pennies to make ends meet ($10-15 a day).

• The Dark Republic regime with an “Iranian” and “Russian” flavor

The Assad regime’s position as a hostage in the hands of the Iranians and Russians has strengthened, and its economy has become more closely linked to Iranian interests, along with its Russian counterpart. Assad became more weak and less independent, and Iranian influence became more powerful and ferocious at the beginning of 2024 AD. Syria became “Al-Assad,” with an Iranian and Russian flavour. Culturally, educationally, ideologically, socially and economically, the aim of all of this is to change the Syrian demographic and religious reality to create a state of popular harmony called for by the head of the regime in its third republic.

Rehabilitating the Arab regime for Bashar al-Assad did not help, as he not only turned Syria into a ruin on the verge of bankruptcy and famine, but also handed over an entire country to the Russians and Iranians, and exported tons of drugs daily to the Arab countries of normalization, most notably Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Egypt.

Thus, Al-Assad turned Syria into a republic of terror and darkness, in which his gangs and allies wreak havoc, through a policy of terror and oppression, dismantling and displacing society, and spreading financial and moral corruption. When the Syrians – in light of their ongoing tragedy – look at what is happening in Gaza at the hands of the Zionist enemy in terms of destruction, killing and displacement, they realize more than others the extent of the suffering that the Gazans are experiencing, and this is the situation they have lived under the mercy of the Assad regime for many decades, especially in its last decade. To the point that the great similarity between the genocide of Israel and the Assad regime has made some not distinguish between them, and they publish pictures of the destruction of the rebellious Syrian areas, video clips of the devastation of the cities of Daraya, Homs and Idlib, and the crying of the children of Aleppo during the siege of the Assad regime and its allies as scenes in Gaza. May God help the Syrians and Gazans.

the reviewer:

1. The Most Notable Human Rights Violations in Syria in December 2023, Syrian Network for Human Rights, January 4, 2024.
2. Ahmed Baghdadi, prostitution in Assad’s honest state! Syria TV, October 19, 2018.
3. Khaled Al-Mutlaq, How Al-Assad Fortressed the Kingdom of Terror, Harmon Center for Contemporary Studies, February 6, 2021 AD.
4. Samir Abdel Malik, Syrian Gulag: Assad’s prisons…it’s hell! Elaph website, December 23, 2023 AD.
5. Abdel Hafeez Bin Jalouli, The Wound of Life and the Tragedy of Man in the Novel “The Republic of Darkness,” Al-Quds Al-Arabi, September 17, 2023 AD.
6. With revenues amounting to $5.7 billion in 2021.. “The Captagon State” in the areas of the Syrian regime, Al Jazeera Net, September 27, 2022 AD.
7. Joel Rayburn.Assad,s economy & stste are collapsing.” 08 December 2022, look in: https://x.com/joel_rayburn/status/1600816041474785280?s=20

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