Syria’s transition: gains abroad, questions at home

An illuminating journey

On the journey from Damascus to my home city of Tartus, I asked the driver, whom I had known since his father used to drive me from Tartus to the American University of Beirut, how he saw the situation. He is Alawite. His answer startled me somewhat: "What more could we want?"

Half joking, I replied, "Bidna nroua, easy now!"

He said that it was enough simply to be able to speak our minds without fearing a neighbour or a colleague.

He told me how the city had preserved its character, and how coexistence there had endured despite the relentless incitement of remnants of the Assad regime, both inside the country and beyond its borders. With a mixture of irritation and ridicule, he spoke of people who had once ranked among al-Assad's most fervent supporters and who had now grown beards to advertise their loyalty to the new authorities. In Syria, we call such people mukawi'een, turncoats. 

As we left Damascus, passing through Jobar, Harasta and other devastated areas, we saw what Bashar al-Assad had done to Syrians.

The young man said he hoped Bashar would be handed over and tried in Syria. He comes from a family that refused to join the army or the security services during the Assad years. His father sold everything he owned to send his sons to Lebanon so that al-Assad could not take them away to kill other Syrians.

And yet, only a year ago, when I was in Tartus and needed to go to Damascus for a few hours, I called and asked him to drive me. He refused. "I do not dare leave the boundaries of Tartus province," he told me. That day, I could not persuade him that no one would harm him.

This citizen's journey over a single year tells, in miniature, the story of the new Syria. Our fear of one another has begun to recede. The road ahead remains long, yet no reasonable person who loves this country can fail to acknowledge how much has already been achieved.

The lifting of sanctions, Syria's removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the agreement with the SDF, Syria's return to its natural place at the heart of the Arab world, and the rebuilding of good relations with its Arab neighbours have all come in rapid succession. Yet the road ahead remains long.

Unresolved issues

Sweida remains outside the framework of the state, even as it remains at the heart of the nation and in the conscience of its patriots. Transitional justice continues to raise many questions. The economic situation remains suffocating, and the US-Iran war has made it even more severe.

The economy is no detail that can be overlooked or deferred. It may prove a ticking time bomb that urgently needs to be defused. Syria needs imaginative solutions because its circumstances are exceptional, shaped by decades of Baathist rule, Assad rule and war waged against Syrians themselves.

There is also much to examine in domestic politics: the return, in some quarters, of the old trappings and mannerisms of the Syrian "official", the very figure against whom people once revolted; attempts by some to silence dissent, which have failed and will continue to fail; blurred lines of authority and conflicting mandates; the increasingly blatant personal ambitions of others; and the continuing uncertainty surrounding key questions of the political transition.

Syria will soon complete the foreign-policy phase of its political transition, closing the chapter of the Assad dynasty and the consequences that era imposed on Syria itself and on its relations with the world. The legitimate questions surrounding the internal transition will then become more pressing: what Syria do we want, and towards what Syria are we heading?

What has been achieved in 20 months has surpassed our expectations, but has yet to fulfil our aspirations as Syrians, a people who, over 14 years, wrote an epic of courage, sacrifice and steadfastness in pursuit of their freedom.