Warsaw and Damascus after the Second War

Post WW ll was the period for Poland to define its foreign policy  priorities. But giving the fact that it was occupied by the communist/socialist Soviets, oriented those priorities to ally with the similar regimes. One of those was the Syrian one where Al-Ba’ath Party took control in the 8^th of March, 1963. Earlier, directly after the end of the Second World War and the Syrian Independence in 1946, many coups took place in Syria with some governments and presidents held positions for days! Al-Ba’ath Party has a firm grip on the country and adopted“Unity, Liberty, Socialism” as its formal motto and framework. These developments in both countries led their political affiliation to meet under the umbrella of the Soviet Union, which was the occupier of Poland and the main ally of Syria. After Hafiz al-Asad, the father of the current president Bashar al-Asad, took power in 1970, he, as al-Ba’ath Party Secretary General, reached out to strengthen the bonds with communist and socialist regimes around the world, Poland was not an exception.

Both countries signed many cooperation agreements and kept good-but-not-warm diplomatic ties. On the social level, hundreds of Syrians came to study and live in Poland, and they married Polish spouses choosing either to stay in Poland or to go back home. Poland used to be known for the Syrians as a peaceful and friendly place, and vice versa. Yet, after the collapse of communism in Poland and the Berlin Wall back in 1989, the Desert Storm in 1990, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Polish-Syrian bilateral relations have changed for good. The two countries were among the coalition that aimed at liberating Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion. That very incident revealed updated pragmatic policies where Poland and Syria were sensing the close collapse of the USSR: heading-west policies. After the current president came to power in 2000, he had, regardless the media demonization of him, a progressive agenda to reconcile with the former communist states and modernize his country. Both sides signed a package of agreements: three tourist cooperation agreements, the executive program of the cultural agreement for the years 2011-2013 and the cooperation between Federation of the Syrian Chambers of Commerce and the Polish employers. But, as usual, the war had the final word.

The Polish-Syrian Relations Today.   

After the war started in Syria in 2011, all of those cooperation agreements between both countries got frozen, and Poland closed its embassy in Damascus in 2012. This act was severely criticized among the Polish Community in Syria since their government didn’t alert them that it will close the embassy, didn’t try to evacuate the Poles from the hotspots and send them back to Poland, and didn’t organize, as many other states had done, joint flights for the Poles to take them back home; they simply closed the embassy assigning no one as a caretaker! Yet, Poland had outstanding stands during that crisis: it refused to illegalize the legitimate Syrian Government, refused to recognize the opposition exile government as the only legitimate representative of the Syrian people- as many Arab states have done, didn’t agree to take part in any military action either to join the former coalition the USA was threatening to form to depose al-Asad or the current one which targets the ISIS, and finally didn’t close the Syrian Embassy in Warsaw.

For any formal documents, the Syrian Ministries’ authentications are the only ones accepted in Poland. On the formal level, both sides still keep lukewarm connections due to the distinguished position Poland had in dealing with the Syrian Crisis. Yet, on the public level, Poland has witnessed warm and enthusiastic waves of compassion with the Syrian people, especially Christians, who are being slaughtered everyday at the hands of, not the government and its loyalists, but the Islamists who are fighting the regime there. The Churches in Poland have dedicated many prayers to show solidarity with the Syrian people, and the Poles donated some belongings and even money, to the Syrians in campaigns organized by Caritas and other charities. Clearly, Polish people, who know more than any other nationality about the atrocities of war, can’t silently watch a new genocide takes place during the very modern and technological era!

The Future of the Bilateral Relations          

Two factors will define the shape of the Polish-Syrian relations in the future- unfortunately both related to war: the Ukrainian and the Syrian Crises. On the one hand, Poland has her hands busy with confronting the Russian reckless adventures in Ukraine, and its expansive policies. If the situation at hands escalated more, the coming years may witness a military confrontation between the NATO, with Poland on board, and Russia. In such unlikely expectation, diplomatic ties are the primary victim where they get into a nearly coma situation. Moreover, the Russian support of al-Asad during the Syrian crisis with a veto against the military intervention to depose the president has put the Syria in an unwanted side of the alliance against the European interests. On the other hand, if the Syrian Crisis continued further and the Islamists, who are exterminating minorities, including Christians, took control, the Syrian foreign policies will change forever.

The IS, the new shorter version of the ISIS- the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, has proclaimed its Islamic caliphate on two cities in Syria and Iraq and trying to expand. Their far goal is toIslamize the neighboring countries and the whole world later. Christian countries like Poland are regarded as infidel entities by such extreme group which proclaimed war against the whole known world, an ideology the Poles have suffered for decades from. If both crises faded with Ukraine is left alone to decide its future and Syria is out of radicalism grip, diplomatic, social, cultural and economic ties between Poland and Syria can resurrect and flourish again. Syria boasts a history of authentic diversity and harbors the only city in the world which still uses the Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ.

The Christian existence there is rooted since remote history, a fact that kept the secular/modern part of the country able to survive four years of vicious attack of hardliners who have received billions of dollars and tons of weapons from many countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and ironically, the USA and France, which had some backlash of its policy in the recent Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. This very factor, multiethnicity, has been the Syrian escape goat so far and may become the exit for the country for salvation and rebounding with Poland. As Poland came stronger from its ordeal, the future can hide such a destiny for both Syria, and both countries can resume their normal warm relations.

As been argued before, the Polish-Syrian relations have never been cordial, but have never been severed or cut too. Both countries resemble each other in many aspects, yet the main are the tendency towards peace and the post-catastrophes resurrection. That could be the magical formula for some distinguished relations in the future.

By: Assef Salloom