I think I can believe it just given the nature of the protests sweeping the Arab world during 2010-2011. There’s a lot of overeducated, frustrated, unemployed Arab youth across the region that absolutely had reason to protest the shitty state of their lives, whether than anger was directed at Assad or capitalism or imperialism or whatever was up for grabs. The median age in Syria is 25 (similar to many states across MENA), so yeah over half the population in Syria wasn’t even alive in 1982! I think the propaganda being pumped out by the West directed the anger towards Assad specifically, but I have no doubt that the anger and frustration boiling in Syria was real.