Is the Syrian revolution over?

To understand the political reality in Syria, we must go back to its historical roots in which the tyrannical rule of a sole leader was established. Before the Baath Party took control in 1963, the country witnessed a promising democratic experience manifested in a pluralistic parliamentary system that provided space for political dialogue and expression of societal diversity. Despite the turmoil that accompanied it, authority remained based on legitimate competition and the will of the people. However, a series of military coups that began in the late 1940s transformed the authority into an arena for conflict between political and military elites, opening the door to the emergence of totalitarian regimes. This path led gradually to the weakening of democracy and the strengthening of tyranny, until the country reached the dynastic rule of the Assad family, ending with the fall of the regime on 8 December, 2024, amidst the voices of freedom and change across the country.

With the Baath Party coming to power, Syria witnessed a radical shift in governance, as nationalist and socialist slogans became a cover for the party’s absolute dominance. Power was concentrated in the hands of the higher leadership, and the role of democratic institutions, headed by the People’s Assembly, declined, becoming a symbolic facade subject to central decisions. This approach reached its peak with the seizure of power by the then Minister of Defence, Hafez Al-Assad, in 1970. He established a military security system based on the personalisation of power, and a wide network of intelligence agencies based on the Baath Party’s infiltration of the state and the army.

The regime used arbitrary arrests and violent repression to spread fear, subjugate society and fight any political or intellectual opposition.

The political transformations in Syria have established fear as a fundamental element in the collective consciousness of its people, and power has transformed from serving the people into a tool of oppression and surveillance over every detail of daily life. This reality has pushed individuals to coexist negatively with oppression, which has weakened their sense of citizenship and individual and societal responsibility. Perhaps on the social level, repressive policies have deepened divisions among people and planted mutual suspicions, so that fear of informants and spying has dominated daily relationships. It is also possible to sense how the centralisation of power has weakened local communities and fragmented traditional structures, given the spread of informants in the security state, thus increasing the political and social isolation of individuals. Fear has become part of the political identity of Syrians, making the idea of change or political criticism of the state almost impossible. This oppressive legacy is a major obstacle today to reformulating the concept of power, and it seems that we cannot overcome the past without breaking the pathological relationship between power and fear.

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Rebuilding Syria goes beyond rebuilding the infrastructure, as we have concluded from observing Syrian society in areas where the regime has fallen, until there is complete liberation from its control. Reconstruction first requires demolition through dialogue, meetings and true social communication, to ensure that these steps liberate the concept of power from the legacy of oppression and reformulate it as a social contract based on transparency and accountability. I believe that achieving this comes from liberating the collective consciousness from fear and restoring confidence that the authority can form a partnership to build a just and diverse society that understands the country’s specificity. Since the outbreak of the revolution in 2011, there has been a historic shift in the understanding of Syrians about dignity and freedom, despite the risks. However, the revolution itself faced internal challenges, and the disease of tyranny spread to some within its circles, which required continuous reviews of the military conflict and political discourse.

Throughout the days of the revolution, Syrians faced the Assad regime, factional conflicts and social challenges. Despite the dispersion and destruction, hope for the demise of the regime remained, whether through international support for a unified revolutionary force, or a popular will determined to achieve freedom and salvation. A suitable opportunity was presented in the region, fuelled by the general mood to confront a gang that had turned the Syrian state into a haven for drugs and extremism and flooded neighbouring and other countries with refugees. With the fall of the Assad family’s rule in Syria, after five decades of tyranny, the country stands before a historic opportunity to rebuild its future and reputation on new foundations. This transformation will require the overcoming of the legacy of oppression that transformed Syria from a country rich in diversity into a closed state under oppressive military rule, exporting misery and dangers to the world, and controlling the lives of its people, pushing them to levels below the poverty line.

Today, Syria faces a major challenge in building new awareness and behaviour that goes beyond the mentality of revenge and vindictiveness.

Transitional justice is the core of this transformation, as it is the just means to achieve accountability without revenge, and to heal the wounds of the past in a way that preserves the unity of society and maintains the values ​of freedom, pluralism and the rule of law. Rejecting revenge is not weakness, but rather a prerequisite for rebuilding trust and creating an environment that supports hope instead of hatred. A free Syria must be a homeland that embraces all of its people; a homeland in which the legacy of pain is transformed into a force for change and provides the seeds of reconciliation and national accord for all Syrians to grow. This also requires confronting those who change their loyalties without taking responsibility for the disasters they helped create. We must all work to liberate the collective mind from narrow ideologies and build an alternative awareness that views diversity as a valuable resource, not a threat, and the others as a partner, not an enemy.

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Reality requires a courageous dialogue that establishes a new social contract guaranteeing the rights of all, so that justice, not hatred, is the basis for sustainable peace. After decades of tyranny, Syrians need to redefine power as a service to the citizen, not a tool of oppression, and to restore their role as citizens with rights and duties. If the political and social vacuum resulting from the fall of the regime is left without conscious treatment, it may lead to chaos and destructive conflicts, as the experiences of other countries have shown. This is a direct reference to the need to build involved democratic institutions, which may be the way to avoid the disintegration of loyalties and achieve the stability that the Syrian state needs.

How can we, in the absence of a comprehensive political awareness, re-enhance the culture of true citizenship, which restores the individual’s position as a fundamental partner in building the state, rather than being subordinate to the ruling authority? We can think of strategies that enhance participatory efforts between political, cultural and civil actors, with the aim of building effective bridges of communication between the street and the elites. This requires the cooperation of cultural entities, new parties, civil society organisations and the media, to enable society to exercise oversight and participate effectively in drafting a constitution that expresses the aspirations of the Syrian people.

Moreover, peaceful competition must be backed to ensure the representation of Syrian pluralism.

The current situation requires unifying military and security efforts to achieve stability, while establishing principles of impartial and fair justice that express the will of all parties. Despite the current challenges, efforts should focus on reform, while avoiding falling into the mistakes of the past, especially since the fall of the regime revealed clearly the extent of the disaster and the violations committed, and the extent of Assad’s supporters’ involvement in vital state institutions, whether ministerial, service or otherwise. This requires time to address the situation and neutralise all those whose hands were involved in the bloodshed among them.

The greatest warning lies in being careful not to let supporters of the fallen regime join the ranks of the revolution without a true understanding of its meaning, and without offering self-criticism or a sincere apology to the victims. The revolution is not a means of replacing symbols of authority or glorifying a new leader, but rather a project for radical change that aims to put authority at the service of the people, not the other way around. Overthrowing regimes alone is not enough, as a real revolution requires confronting distorted behaviour such as thuggery, which expresses the depth of the crisis in the individual’s structure and hinders the building of a society based on justice. If this awareness is absent, the revolution will continue to be trapped within a vicious circle. The fall of the Assad regime does not mean the end of the problem if its supporters in the state agencies continue to think and work with the same mentality that destroyed the state, as the revolution will remain incomplete.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed on 1 February 2025

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