Cú Chulainn

2- What follows will in no way try to explain the uprising. Arguably, long list of ingredients were thrown into a toxic cocktail mix that produced what we have come to know as #Syria ‘s uprising This, however, must not distract us from studying the Eco backdrop leading into 2011

3-Official comprehensive and up-to-date statistics was always hard to come by in places like #Syria . Those who wanted and tried to study the Eco backdrop had to rely on less than ideal sets of data on demographics, GDP, unemployment or inflation. Important to keep this in mind

4-One thing that there is little disagreement on is that #Syria experienced Sub-Saharan standards in population growth rates between early 1950’s & mid 1990’s. Why is this important? Fast forward & Think Job generation needs as those age cohorts are now in their mid 20’s

5-Putting those numbers in perspectives, #Syria ‘s fertility rate (number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to end of her childbearing years) was nearly 7.5 from the late 50’s till early 1980’s. This is stunningly large number w profound implications

6-If Avg Syrian woman had fertility rate still near 7 by 1982, this age cohort grew to be 25 years old as 2007 drew close. By this time, country was in need of creating nearly 275,000 new jobs year in and year out for this age cohort

7-Also by 2007, nearly half of #Syria ‘s population was classified as rural. Since the above fertility rates are average, it meant that for nearly half the population those fertility rates were even higher than average. Think so where around 8-9 children per rural family

8- Rural #Syria ‘s tsunami was the drought that started around 2007. This was the final blow that destroyed any chance for nearly 10 million people counted in the rural bracket by then. Migration to urban centers picked speed & new challenges were now brewing

9-With this background, what was #Syria ‘s Govt up to? What was Eco policy? The fall of the Soviet Union in early 1990’s dealt a blow to most socialist Eco systems. Consensus opinion then was that such systems have failed and they need to be “reformed” to survive