The Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, but when it comes to the suppression of tyranny it takes a community of like-minded individuals to keep liberty intact.
Syria doesn’t have a Second Amendment enshrined in their laws, though under the Assad regime citizens were permitted to possess some firearms. The new Islamist government, however, has taken steps to take control of all privately-owned arms, though they’ve hardly succeeded in their goal. And in one suburb of Damascus, those privately-held arms have been put to use this week as Druze residents of the town of Jaramana have been forced to fight back against gunmen loyal to the new regime.
On Wednesday morning, an AFP correspondent saw hundreds of armed Druze, some of them just boys, deployed across the town.
Druze fighters handed out weapons and ammunition behind mounds of earth piled up as improvised defenses.
“For the past two days, the people of Jaramana have been on a war footing,” said local activist Rabii Mondher.
“Everybody is scared — of war… of coming under siege, of a new assault and new martyrs.”
Like many residents in the confessionally mixed town, Mondher said he hoped “peace will be restored… because we have no choice but to live together.”
Mounir Baaker lost his nephew Riadh in this week’s clashes.
“We don’t take an eye for an eye,” he said tearfully, as he received the condolences of friends and neighbors.
“Jaramana is not used to this,” he went on, holding up a photograph of his slain nephew, who was among a number of young Druze men from the town who signed up to join the new security forces after Assad’s ouster.
“We’re brought up to be tolerant, not to strike back and not to attack anyone, whoever they are,” he said. “But we defend ourselves if we are attacked.”
The paper reports that on Tuesday evening, Druze leaders and representatives from Syria’s government reached some sort of accord on Tuesday evening that would put an end to the fighting, but based on the AFP reporter’s account of what he saw on Wednesday morning it looks like the Druze aren’t going to be giving up their guns as part of any agreement.
Nor should they. Who knows how long that brokered peace will last, and if the Druze of Jaramana don’t maintain their ability to protect themselves then any clashes that follow will be a one-sided slaughter. Baaker and other Druze want peace, but if that’s not a possibility then armed conflict beats genocide. Self-defense is a human right, after all, and that applies just as equally to a single mom defending her home in South Dakota as it does to a religious minority defending their community in Syria.
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