CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE“
Since the fall of the Assad regime, things have been moving fast.
Ahmed al-Shara’a (aka Al-Julani), leader of the rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has immediately appointed a transitional government formed from the pre-existing Syrian Salvation Government in Idleb since 2017. The ministers are not military, but professionals in the fields entrusted to them. They are clearly not progressives, but rather conservative Islamists. However, no constitutional changes or decisions involving major societal changes without the consultation and agreement of the Syrians have yet been taken. At the end of its transitional mandate, the interim government is supposed to make way for a national conference representing all Syrian factions and minorities, to form the new Syrian state.
Shara’a has also appointed several warlords as provincial governors, which does not reassure everyone, but not all appointments have been made and readjustments are underway. In Suwayda, a southern province where over 90% of the population is Druze, a minority that cannot be suspected of Islamist sympathies, a regional council representing all local factions has proposed the nomination of a woman as governor, a first in the country’s history. In addition, a major meeting of the leaders of the various armed factions was held in Damascus to agree on the disarmament of all armed groups and the integration of their personnel into the future national army, on a voluntary basis. Shara’a announced the end of compulsory conscription.
Over the past two weeks, social networks have been pouring out conflicting reports of violence against minorities and extrajudicial executions on the Alawite-majority coast, but none of this has taken place in the areas liberated from the former regime by the HTS rebels. In Tartus and Latakia, on the contrary, Alawites welcomed the fall of the regime with the same enthusiasm as everywhere else. Nonetheless, many accounts claiming to be well-informed are spreading false information and unsourced, undated images on a daily basis to legitimize and incite inter-community tensions, despite the fact that the transitional authorities have done everything in their power to ensure that there are no reprisals or acts of violence against minorities.
Incidents took place, including the burning of a Christmas tree in Suqaylabiyah, on the outskirts of Hama, an act whose perpetrators were arrested by HTS, which undertook to repair the damage and declared Christmas an official Syrian holiday. Foreign fighters, in particular Uighurs, Chechens and Kazakhs, have been singled out and demonstrations have taken place (without incident) to demand their disarmament and expulsion from the country. These demonstrations come a week after a demonstration in the heart of Damascus in favor of secularism, which met with a wave of criticism because its main organizers were defenders of the Assad regime before its fall, but also because of the conspicuous absence of Syrian revolutionary flags. The necessary struggle for a new regime that guarantees secularism and the protection of minorities, including atheists, was thus discredited by this lamentable recuperation by personalities seeking to redeem themselves with Syrians. Moreover, the polemics surrounding this demonstration overshadowed another demonstration called in Homs by women’s groups in favor of secularism and the protection of freedoms.
In terms of international politics, the daily choreography of foreign delegations coming to speak with Syria’s new strongman is breathtaking. Each one seems to be keen to set conditions, demand its due or obtain guarantees, while Turkey appears to be the big winner in this regime change. Indeed, it has been quick to invest in the Syrian economy, announcing the imminent reopening of the air route between the two countries and the restoration of the railroads abandoned since 2012. There’s no doubt that this renewed interest in Syria on the part of foreign states is motivated by the lure of profit, insofar as Shara’a has announced the country’s reconnection with the market economy. Germany, in addition to being clearly in favor of the genocide of the Palestinians, was among the first states to suspend Syrian asylum applications and to rush to Erdogan’s side to congratulate him and remind us of what a first-rate partner he has been in terms of migration management… Rapacious.
For its part, Israel continues to militarily occupy villages in the provinces of Dera’a, Quneitra and rural Damascus: at present, nearly thirty villages have been annexed, affecting almost 50,000 Syrian residents. Israeli officials are delighted to have taken possession of Mount Hermon, which accounts for 30% of Syria’s water resources and 40% of those of Jordan. While Shara’a cautiously avoids criticizing Israel, the population did not wait to express its hostility towards the Israeli army, which opened fire and wounded several people before withdrawing from the village of Al-Suwaisa (Quneitra). Residents of the Druze village of Hader also publicly declared their refusal to be annexed by Israel, thereby responding to the rumors and fake news propagated by Zionists and Islamists falsely accusing the Druze of being pro-Israel.
Finally, the Kurdish question will also be decisive, depending on US decisions and the outcome of ongoing negotiations between Shara’a, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the autonomous Rojava administration. On December 14, the truce in the Kobane and Manbij regions agreed two days earlier was immediately violated by Turkey, prompting the SDF to retaliate against the pro-Turkish militias of the Syrian National Army (SNA). Let’s not forget that if the war is not over, the fault lies largely with the colonial and imperialist aspirations of Erdogan, who is neither the liberator nor the friend of the Syrians. As for the SDF, over 60% of its members are Syrian Arabs, which does not make it a Kurdish force as some claim. The simplification of power relations and the ethnocultural characteristics of the regions east of the Euphrates are partly responsible for the indifference of many Syrians to what is currently happening there, and therefore for a form of denial regarding the crimes committed by the pro-Turkish forces.
The situation therefore remains extremely uncertain, even if we are generally confident about future developments, as a number of progressive, democratic and secular popular initiatives have already been launched, demonstrating that Syrian society will not allow itself to be imposed with a new military or religious dictatorship. Whatever may happen in the coming weeks, what has been happening in Syria over the past two weeks is an unprecedented demonstration of collective resilience.