One of the things I’ve noticed about the war in Syria is the complete failure of the media and the U.S. government to successfully establish Assad as the official bad guy. This is likely in part due to the fact that he’s the guy fighting the people who are beheading Westerners on YouTube.
We talked to Michel Mizah, a 25-year-old citizen of Russia and Syria, who recently returned from Damascus, where he fought in the “Shabiha” pro-government paramilitary units.
He told us what the Syrians think about the war, President Bashar Assad, the Islamic state, and the future.
Why did you decide to go to Syria?
My father is from Syria, and there we still have a lot of relatives with whom we talk to on a daily basis, basically living in two countries at once. We are Christians. My second cousin is fighting in the Syrian army, my uncle and aunt, civilians, were killed in 2012 in Kalamun.
So, each time I saw the news, I was plagued by vague uneasiness… For three years, I wanted to go there, but something always got in the way – wife, job, etc. Only now, everything came together, and I was able to go.
When the “Arab Spring” had just begun, how did your family react?
At first, my family sympathized with the protesters. But then it became obvious that the hardliners among the secular opposition work in the interests of Turkey and the Arab monarchies. Plus the course for Islamization was visible early on, and that was a concern.
Like pretty much all normal people, my family, my friends and everyone I know in Syria are strongly against Wahhabis and religious extremism in general.
In Syria, the war is not against Assad, but against civilization itself. ISIS literally keeps slaves, crucifies people, introduces medieval taxes for Christians and kills Shiites and Alawites on the spot…
Do you, personally, want to live according to Sharia law, where you would be killed for smoking or alcohol, and beaten with sticks in the town square for wearing narrow jeans? Neither do we!
And we know that would happen, if Damascus falls. In Raqqa, it’s already like that, the locals tell us. There are still buses traveling, so we know the alternative to Assad very well.
In Damascus, I met a girl, she was only 20 years old, and she spent the last three months in ISIS slavery. One of their commanders bought her as a concubine, and when he died, she was “inherited” by his successor … Relatives barely managed to buy her back.
Did you know where you’ll be going to in Damascus, was there someone waiting for you?
Of course. About two months before departure, through a friend of the family, I got in touch with my future unit commander in “Shabiha”. This is the same “Shabiha”, which the UN in 2012, accused of “crimes against humanity”.
In general, over two months, I told him about myself: Who am I, what can I do, why do I want to come, and so on … And he explained what is going on over there, what I would do, and lots more.
I would have joined the army, but my turn for mobilization comes last, since I am the only breadwinner in the family, and you can’t simply go there for a short time. My cousin is there for three years, and he can’t even see his family, because the frontline is constantly very hot.
Your militia, did it include only Syrians, or was it an international team?
People come from Lebanon and Iran, because they understand that if Syria falls, they are next. They send us military advisers and weapons … The whole “Shiite axis of evil” supports us!
As for the rest of the world, I have not seen fighters from there… It seemed to me that the Embassy of Syria in Russia does not approve of such things. Perhaps this is due to the rumors about the so-called “Russian Legion”, which a few years ago was hired by some company in St. Pete to fight for Assad [officially, to guard some pipeline or other – ed.]. But when they arrived in Damascus, the Russian diplomats protested, and the “legionnaires” were sent back home, a few were prosecuted for mercenary activities [it’s legal by Russian law to fight in a foreign war, but not to make money from it – ed.].
In general, joining the fight for Syria is only possible if one has Syrian citizenship, or there is some agreement between governments. But the Islamists – they flock to attack Syria from all corners of the world.
It’s also informative in how it punctures the illusions of the multiculturalists. This is a young man who is second-generation “Russian” by their definition of ground-defined identity, and yet he was willing to go and fight and risk dying for Syria, his true nation, rather than fight for Russia. This suggests that the European nations that make the mistake of permitting the current “refugees” residence in Europe will find that their new residents imported the Middle East’s wars with them.
This is something that those who think 50 million Hispanics are going to become Americans in the U.S. sense should keep in mind. They’re not. And indeed, they’re already claiming Los Angeles as the northern capital of Latin America.