The authoritarian have always been accustomed to listening to those who protect them from external or regional powers, making a foolish assumption based on their ability to maneuver and dodge with them and between them. So when countries got tired of these acrobatics, they focused their efforts on replacing authoritarian regimes with weak rule, and as the popular proverb says: A weak ruler is frightening.
Yes, the criminal Assad regime has fallen. But by hands that all Syrians know well, hands capable of reproducing the old political system in new clothes that cover the wounds of bloody internal conflicts, war crimes, and liquidations. That is why the free people in the north have always repeated, in word and deed, since the fall of Idlib at the hands of al-Nusra and those allied with it: We are facing a process of building a duplicate, not a liberated one.
Today, as regional countries have given HTS the command of the operations to liberate the Levant from the dictatorial authority, we are witnessing an operation of blackmail under the sun of those who overthrew Assad. Each party wants to secure its interests first and to ensure that the new authorities are amenable to the project of building apparatuses that are consistent with the Western-Turkish vision of the region. It is exploiting the fact that the one controlling Damascus is unable to win a popular majority in the country, since his hands are stained with Syrian blood, and he has been purged of his opponents and allies, and can be managed from abroad as they wish.
Today, we Syrians are subject to a new, weak authority, shackled by the conduct of its leaders. The state apparatus has been shattered, and the Israelis have demolished what remains of the army’s infrastructure, occupying new territories and pursuing Syrian citizens on disgusting charges. The armed militias have become the strongest party in any internal national debate or dialogue, and the Western countries are the highest supervisors of the “caretaker government.”
The Syrian state cannot be built today without the combined efforts of all its sons and their sense of ownership of the homeland. Today, no decision-maker in Damascus, or his opponent, can deal superficially with the issues that have brought us to the current tragic situation: Since 2011, the problem of politicians, armed factions, and the regime has been in each party’s search for an external ally that would give it “legitimacy” and enable it to survive.
Most parties, to varying degrees, participated in intimidating and enticing the various groups of the Syrian people to confine them to sectarian, religious, ethnic or tribal membership identities in the absence of the issue of building citizenship since Assad the father assumed power. That is, returning the Syrians to the despotic sultanic structures.
Many Islamists and secularists have slipped into the game of populism and the emotions of the moment, with a high price for that. It is time for a rational and wise dialogue, away from talk of defeats and victories. In a situation like the one we are living in, we are in dire need of being reminded of the basic principles that must be agreed upon by the largest number of Syrians:
Equal citizenship, human dignity, human rights regardless of nationality, religion or sect, women as equals to men, freedom of expression and political activity, the rule of law, balanced economic development.
And steps we consider necessary:
- – Calling on the Free Officers to form a national military council to oversee the rebuilding of a Syrian national army.
- – Calling for a general national conference that includes representatives of all Syrian national forces, excluding no one and under international sponsorship, in line with what was stated in the UN Security Council meeting on 12/18/2024 AD, in order to implement international resolution 2254, i.e. forming a transitional governing body, a constitution drafting committee, and forming an independent judicial body for transitional justice.
- – Forming an interim technocratic government whose term expires when a government is elected based on what is stipulated in the new constitution.
- – Reviving and expanding the “Syrian Network for Free and Fair Elections”
- – Guaranteeing all human rights in the country, so that women’s rights are not violated at all, which requires a meeting of Syrian human rights organizations and lawyers’ unions to form the Syrian National Commission for Human Rights.
- – All parties must declare their respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Syria ratified in 1968, in all its articles. This declaration is what separates the different parties, between those committed to a society and state of citizenship, and those seeking to reproduce dictatorship in a totalitarian, one-sided guise.
- – Issuing a special law criminalizing sectarian and religious incitement and any kind of hatred based on religion, race, ethnicity or nationality. And amending the Penal Code to double the penalty for systematic sectarian violence and killing by anyone.
We also suggest to the democratic and civil forces of Syrian society:
Leave all their differences and useless debates and conspire to establish a unified front to build democracy and freedoms without much waiting. Work together for a democratic Syria and a state of citizenship.
The “Syrian Gathering for the Protection of Citizens and Building the State of Law” will contact various forces and figures that intersect with it in the program and struggle to hold a preliminary meeting outside Syrian territory before the end of this year.
