February 1982 is associated with the anniversary of the bloody Hama massacre, during which the Syrian regime - led by President Hafez al-Assad - brutally crushed a revolution that derives its roots from the rejection of the rise of the Syrian Baath Party, which - after its founding in 1947 in the midst of the Arab nationalist movement and the fight against the French mandate Gradually seizing power, following a coup led by the party's military leaders in March 1963.
In these terms, Orient XXI opened an article by Clement Blizon - a French researcher at the Institute of Political Studies in Rennes - noting that after this coup, clashes began quickly between the executive authority led by Major General Mohamed Amin Al-Hafiz and the opposition factions, led by the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria, which was founded in 1946.
The latter branched out into local factions, most of which were concentrated in a governorate in Hama, the fourth largest city in the country, and clashed with other factions in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo. One-party secular ideology.
In this context, the April 1964 protests erupted in the city, to which the regime responded with repression and tanks, and one of its defining moments was the bombing of the Sultan Mosque.
One of the prominent figures who led these protests - according to the website - was the leader Marwan Hadid, who was influenced during his studies in Cairo by the thought of the students of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, led by Sayyid Qutb, who supported the approach of armed struggle against President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Hadid called for jihad against the Syrian regime, which he considered an atheist regime, and decided to establish an armed organization called "The Fighting Vanguard" after being disappointed with the inaction of the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
And since 1977 - that is, 7 years after Hafez al-Assad came to power - the attacks of the "fighting vanguard" accelerated, targeting the civilian structures of the Baath Party (local and professional branches) and figures from its repressive security apparatus, as well as officers from the Alawite sect to which the president belongs, as happened in June June 1979 at the Artillery School in Aleppo.
In the face of the repression it was subjected to, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood - in turn - decided in 1979 to establish an armed branch of it, and declared jihad against the regime.
Since then, the Brotherhood has found themselves trapped in an endless military escalation and militia violence, and in July 1980 the Assad regime - in response to a failed assassination attempt by the "fighting vanguard" - executed more than 500 prisoners in Palmyra prison.
The escalation reached its climax in February 1982, when the Syrian regime decided in January 1982 - months after a coup attempt launched by army officers with the complicity of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Fighting Vanguard - to attack the latter's bases in the city of Hama.
appalling outcome
The vanguard chose to carry out a counterattack despite a rift in the decision-making body within the Muslim Brotherhood, which was afraid of a disproportionate response.
In view of the great disparity in the balance of power, the regime suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood and the residents of Hama, who were suspected - as it claims - of sympathizing with the group with blood and fire. For more than 3 weeks, the regime bombed the city's neighborhoods and sent ground forces into it, and the toll of damage and deaths was appalling. By all accounts, between 10,000 and 40,000 people were killed, 5,000 were raped, and a third of the city was completely destroyed.
These numbers - the French website concludes - indicate the true nature of the Syrian regime, which is a regime that rules a "savage state", according to Michel Seurat, a French researcher and sociologist, who was assassinated by the Lebanese Hezbollah, and has since turned into a "kingdom of silence."