Ahmed AL-Ramdan _ Euphrates Post
Even though I was born outside the Eastern Province, which is famous for its tribalism. I lived there only after the revolution of 2011, but I loved everything about the tribes, and I had a passion for everything related to it: its lifestyle, secrets, customs, Its history, and its future.Because of that, I was better sitting with those who were older than me. This preoccupied my attention and concentration. I often sat with my father or mother to inquire about a word I did not understand in our dialect because of our distance from our mother country.I was very happy when we were visited by relatives from Deir Ezzor, I loved their dress, their behavior, their words. So much so that I tried to imitate them several times.I was born in the old AL-MIDAN district, my family do not go to Deir Ezzor except on occasions or holidays, and perhaps the year and two years between the visit and the other.
With my youth, I used to go to Deir Ezzor every six months. I went to the countryside and its villages, It brings me to the simple lifestyle of the people of the region. In my visits, I find an opportunity to practice some tribal rituals in addition to their participation in their joys, sorrows and social occasions.
A year after the start of the Syrian revolution, in mid-2012, I was forced to leave the capital Because of my appendices by the branches of the security Regime to participate in the peaceful activity of the revolution in and around the neighborhoods of Damascus. When I came to Deir Ezzor, the Free Army factions controlled most of the eastern countryside, after the expulsion of the regime’s forces.
At this stage, friction with tribal life began to take place more and more, to show me their way of life based on the pillars of generosity, valor, honor and good morals, and the love of each other. But what seemed to me at that time was that tribal sheikhs were divided into two parts:
Section I: The sheikhs loyal to the regime, openly declaring this, and some of them resorted to arms to counter the elements of the free army, and before that used the weapon in the suppression of peaceful demonstrations. Some of the positions and events associated with one of the known clan figures prompted some of my previous convictions to be reconsidered.Perhaps the most prominent of these incidents, what happened in the battle of the AL-MIADIN in November 2012, when the FSA left only a few meters, to reach the castle squares, and continue to expel the forces of the regime, which was bombing the eastern countryside on a daily basis To come one of Sheikhs tribal, and says: “I will not allow anyone to expel the elements of the regime. If you want to expel them, you must kill me first.”When one of the rebels of the same tribe of the Sheikh himself set aside, and said to him in one letter: “What remained the role of Sheikhs ,so the sheikh goes and sitting his house to death. ”
Section II: Tribal persons in favor of the regime, and waiting for the right time to see where the cuff tend to stand in the row, and of these tribal sheikh in the eastern countryside as well,, He had declared to everyone that he was committed to neutrality, and when the Free Army took control of 80 percent of Deir Ezzor, armed his children and relatives became the number one rebel, according to the claim of his loyalists.
This is for the Sheikhs inside the province, while the elders of the outside, they are several sections, some of them fluctuate between the Free Army, then AL-NUSRA, and then to ISIS, and then “SDF”, and finally the Assad regime.
And some of them remained in the Regime, and some of them sat in the Gulf States, and some of them sat in Turkey manages the affairs of the clan on his own.
Returning to Deir Ezzor, the Syrian tribes in general are the best people I have met in my life, and they are willing to offer their blood if you become their friend Moved In the eastern and western countryside and Albukmal during the two years I spent in Deir Ezzor, I did not find the best of its people, but fell into the problem that most speaking on their behalf, or those who lead them, personalities of the owners of “Ba’athism” as described by some residents of the region,Or other personalities fanatical to its origin and its clan, and there are three personalities each of them follow an agenda, trying to serve and achieve its goals at the expense of the people of his .ISIS submitted to Deir Ezzor after six months of fierce resistance. With the first days of its control, loyalty to the organization began, and loyalty to the caliph was announced. Some of them even reached the stage of gifts and gifts, hoping for a new position in the new force. Controlling the region.Many of the videos for “Loyalty to ISIS” featured prominent tribal figures for ISIS, and kept another section for viewing in a timely manner
After a month of the organization’s control, I had to leave Deir Ezzor. The facts began to appear, and I began to hear tribal sheikhs keen to spread their loyalty between the regime, ISIS and even the SDF at the same time. . All in order to preserve personal and clan interests.Arrived To Turkey in late 2014, to complete the practice of media work, and identified within the new kind of resident Chieftain who had not been a tribal activity with the Syrian interior for years, yet they played the role of representatives of their tribes, in order to benefit from this representation materially and morally, and gets At a time when members of the same clan are starving, and many of their children are suffering the bitterness of displacement or asylum.
Of the seniors whose features have been revealed to me in recent years, I love to lead and lead in all things, but when he found no place among the “rebellious sheikhs,” he decided to resort to Regime,This is what happened, for example, with the elder of Syria’s largest clan, when he left the “revolution” to find his need for the regime, noting that he had spoken openly to tribal and opposition figures in Turkey, and weeks before his return to the “bosom of order” To Russia, without opposition or condemnation, for reasons that many of us may not be ignorant of. Perhaps what I mentioned in the previous lines bears the answer.Now, the joy of self and heart is that all educated and young people are known to have lost all they had previously, or rather the revolution has shown that they do not deserve what people have given it over decades.Although some still cling to the “tribal” in which he is prepared to support the “sheikh” or his relative, even if it was wrong, but the favorably in the matter, the majority forgot this “lie” and no longer believe the owners, or those who go.The new community, the new leaders, or the “new Sheiks”, so to speak, are the sons of the conscious and educated clans who know what they want,Who gave all they have for a revolution that seeks a country of social justice, freedom and dignity for its people,And strive to get rid of negative beliefs, lifestyles and living conditions, especially the “Baathist tribal”, and her sisters: “tribal ISIS” and “tribal SDF”.
.