By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

DAMASCUS: President Bashar Assad has said there was no chance the political upheaval shaking Tunisia and Egypt might spread to Syria adding that the Middle East is diseased with stagnation.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Monday, Assad said that Syria’s ruling hierarchy was “very closely linked to the beliefs of the people” and that there was no mass discontent against the state and no need to change policies.

“This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people’s beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance,” Assad said, adding the priority was stability and a gradual opening of the economy.
“So, security becomes first; how can you stabilize your country, how can you prevent your society from extremists … Second, economy, this is the second urgent priority.”

Assad refused to address events in Tunisia and Egypt directly, saying it was too early to judge their impact on the region, but he said the situation in his own country was stable.

“Syria is stable although it has more difficult conditions than Egypt, which enjoys financial support from the United States, while Syria is under embargo by most countries of the world,” he said.

Assad urged Mideast leaders to “upgrade” themselves and their societies to keep up with the demands of their people. “We have to keep up with this change, as a state and institutions,” Assad said.
“Real reform is about how to open up society and how to start dialogue.”

Decades of political and economic stagnation, ideologically weak leaders, foreign interventions and war have driven the discontent that exploded in the streets of Tunisia and Egypt, he said.

“If you have stagnant water, you will have pollution and microbes, and because you have had this stagnation for decades … we were plagued with microbes,” he said. “So what you have been seeing in this region is a kind of disease. That is how we see it.”

A revolt in Tunisia toppled Zine al-Abidine bin Ali three weeks ago and protesters in Egypt held a seventh day of demonstrations to end the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, whom many believed was grooming his son Gamal to succeed him.

“It is a new era,” said Assad, “but it did not start now. It started with the Iranian Revolution. What is new is that it is happening inside independent countries in the Arab world.”
He said Arab societies had become more closed-minded since the 1980s, leading to extremism and less development and openness.

“If you didn’t see the need of reform before what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, it’s too late to do any reform,” he said, cautioning however against rushing through reforms in response to events in those two countries.

Assad, who succeeded his late father 11 years ago, said that the government had started “to involve the people in decision making” by allowing private universities, opening the banking sector and allowing private media.

“It is better than six years ago, but it is not the optimal situation. We still have a long way to go because it is a process,” he said. “To be realistic, we have to wait for the next generation to bring this reform.”

Assad said a draft media law could further relax control on the sector, but he did not say whether Internet bans, including Facebook and scores of news sites would be lifted.

Assad did not address the issue of thousands of political prisoners in Syria and government controls including travels bans on hundreds of his critics, emergency law and a ban on any opposition that have been in force for 50 years. – AFP, Reuters