‘Your turn, doctor’: Teen’s ‘warning’, which sparked Syria war, comes true after 14 years

The 14-year-old would have never imagined that an anti-government graffiti he sprayed on a school wall in 2011 would end up sparking a civil war that would ultimately oust long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Mouawiya Syasneh was a young teenager in February 2011 when he and his friends scrawled an Arabic slogan which soon became a war cry on the streets of Syria: “Your turn next, Doctor.”

The reference was to now-ousted president Bashar al-Assad, a doctor by training who was studying medicine in London when his father and Syrian president Hafez al-Assad called him home after his other son died.

Also read: For US, Israel, fall of Syria’s Assad is biggest in slew of victories

Like father, like son

Bashar took charge of Syria after Hafez died – and turned out to be another brutal dictator – imprisoning, torturing and killing thousands of opponents.

This is what led Mouawiya to author the graffiti.

“If we had known what would happen, we’d never have written that graffiti,” Mouawiya, now a fighter with the Free Syrian Army, told news channel Al Jazeera.

A brutal crackdown

The boy had been impressed by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and felt that Syrians needed to be free too.

“So, we got together at school, took some paint and sprayed the walls.”

The police cracked down with a viciousness known and feared in Israel. Mouawiya and his friends were rounded up – and brutally tortured in prison, notwithstanding their age.

Also read: As 54-year brutal rule ends, 4 priorities for Syria to avoid yet another war

Jailing sparks protests, uprising

Syrian authorities showed away the boys’ parents when they enquired about the children.

Fearing for the boys’ safety after a month in police custody, thousands started taking to the streets demanding freedom for them.

This triggered more repression. At the same time, the protests fuelled more protests and eventually turned into a full-blown civil war that lasted until 2024 when anti-government troops forced Bashar to quit Syria.

Bashar flees Syria

By then, however, some half a million Syrians had been killed, including Mouawiya’s father. Much of the country has been ravaged by decades of fighting in which foreign countries took varying sides.

Now a young man fighting on the frontlines for the Free Syrian Army, Mouawiya told Al Jazeera that if he had known the consequences of his action, he would never have provoked President Bashar.

The Free Syrian Army was born July 2011, comprising defectors from Assad's military. But it now plays second fiddle to the bigger groups that are rooted in Islamic ideology.