From Atrocity to Prosperity: Syria 2025 and The Road Map
By Ola Rifai
Since the toppling of Bashar Assad earlier in December, Syrians are caught in between joy and sorrow, they are jubilant while bringing down countless statues of the Assad family across the country, in a such symbolic moment of eliminating personality cult that Hafiz Assad crafted fifty-four years ago. Amidst this joy, Syrians are sorrowful while searching for their loved one who vanished under the Assad regime, they look for names on a pile of ID cards, a drawing on prion’s walls or any personal belonging that might indicate who left it behind, moving between body bags inside morgues and collecting bones buried in mass graves. Such pictures are beyond the imagination of human beings, and beyond Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil.
After the horror of living under the rule of Assad family who transferred the country into a massive prison, Syria and Syrians need a process of healing. One that should be embedded in state-building to mitigate the various challenges facing Syria and to ease the painful legacy of Syria’s Assad. Peacebuilding and state-building are interrelated processes in post-conflict situations where threat of ferocious conflict looms.
In essence, state-building defines powers and limits of the ruling authority and denotes an endogenous political process that is situated in the context of state-society relations, the evolution of state-society relations lies at the core of state building. In the Syrian context, state-society relation is deeply fractured due to the totalitarian nature of the regime and hence it should be reconstructed carefully in order to promote inclusive political processes that strengthen state-society interaction and accountability at all levels. State-building in conflict-affected places like Syria is a lengthy process that can be riotous and driven by internal and external turmoil, because in the absence of a state, people most likely would lean towards local groups to obtain some forms of security and protection within their community. In Syria, many local groups are affiliated with a particular sectarian identity, and consequently, relying on them might provoke sectarian clashes. Hence, it is extremely crucial to embark on a state-building process in order to deter the lethal threat of anarchism.
There are three pillars of state-building in fragile situations like that in Syria; constitutional reforms, institutional reforms, and the implantation of transitional justice.
Constitutional reforms
Constitution is the main authority and the foundation of a solid state-building, it serves as a power distributor across all government levels and should be the guardian of social contract in a post-conflict situation. Certainly, drafting a new constitution won’t happen overnight, it is a critical process that needs to be formulated carefully and might fairly take years.
To this end, the current leadership in Syria should establish new constitutional committees and avoid building on the previous UN sponsored Committees which to a large extent were influenced by external powers (USA, Russia and Turkey). The new constitutional committees should include representatives of the various groups inside Syria (Arabs, Kurds, Islamists, secularists, feminists, etc.), further, the de facto new ruler of Syria should ensure the transparency of this process at all stages. Such like involving members of civil society in workshop sessions which should be open to public, educating people about articles and charters, and putting forward a series of referendums on thorny issues like for instance whether to keep ‘Arab’ in the official name of the country, and also the articles defining religion and gender of the president, decisions concerning these issues require public opinion.
Institutional reforms;
The state, as a political body, relies on institutions to govern and to enforce authority, however, Assad’s 50-year monopoly on power resulted in fractured bodies, from the militant to educational and Juridical institutions. In the aftermath of Assad fall, the power vacuum existing in a chaotic context poses fatal challenges. Therefore, reforming state institutions to reinstate legitimacy, ensure security and provide services is crucial for the country.
Mr. Ahmad al Sharaa, the de facto ruler of Syria, seems to be very aware of this and hence he emphasized his determination to protect and reform state institutions in every media appearance, yet this mission is not easy. Although unlike in Libya or Iraq, there was no all-out destruction to state institutions after the collapse of Assad, reforming institutions, particularly military institutions, is very challenging. The dissolution of Hayet tahrir al sham HTS and integration of rebels from various factions into one armed force cannot be considered part of the reform process as long as it is employed in a vague manner. Rather, the new authority in Damascus should develop strategies to restructure the military as an institution not as a unit of a larger armed force. In parallel, there is a critical need to restructure institutions of Security and Police as vital tools to maintain order on the ground. Besides the Military institution, reforming educational institutions and cultural ones is crucial in state-building, since education and culture play key roles in constructing identities and building national concord. Thus, drafting a new curriculum should be a priority for the new administration in Damascus.
Transitional Justice and Accountability,
Attaining accountability is a main step toward state building, reconciliation and peacebuilding as it addresses grievances and prevents revenge in the community. However, in many cases, transitional justice may serve as an instrument of polarization and manipulation by external powers, hence, the process of transitional justice in Syria should be domestically owned, context specific and regulated by the constitution. There are many examples of international trials in the region that were manipulated by state and non-state actors for realpolitik gains and resulted in a further escalation rather than reconciliation.
The new leadership in Damascus should bear this in mind and ensure that transitional justice is protected by the Syrian constitution and enforced by Syrian institutions, this can take place in the form of both judicial and non-judicial measures, including criminal prosecution, truth commissions, and memorialization efforts. Memorizing those affected is essential to address the legacy of grievance, and to guarantee that such crimes cannot be committed again. In the few weeks following the regime collapse, some former regime officials who have committed war crimes were killed during confrontations with rebels like Shuja al-ali , a high ranking official who was responsible for killing, kidnapping and torturing Syrians in Homs. Although al Ali was killed during clashes with members of the new armed forces, such incidents fail short to address transitional justice and might escalate security dilemma. Thus, there is a crucial necessity to develop mechanisms to enforce transitional justice in order to promote reconciliation and prevent further abuses.
Here in, these three pillars of state building; constitutional reforms, institutional reforms and the implantation of transitional justices are interrelated and go hand in hand in drawing a road map for the post-Assad Syria. Most importantly, state-building process should not be imposed on a top-bottom approach, rather it should be underpinned by state-society relation.
In this light, a solid State-building prevents a security dilemma to take place in a post-conflict context. As Stathis Kalyvas notes, the security dilemma “occur when a breakdown of order creates a situation in which individuals coordinating around focal points, ethnic identities, resort to preemptive violence […] because of security fear”[i] Consequently, a security dilemma drives ethnic groups into a self-help situation where no government or a third party is able to guarantee the security of each group. Therefore, each group becomes trapped in a cycle of mistrust in which each group attempts to prevail over the other and, despite the consequent activation of defensive and offensive strategies, no group reaches a state of absolute security. In the absence of state authority, the security dilemma would trigger clashes and impair the nation and its people. Therefore, there is an urgent need to start the process of state-building.
Shortly after the ousting of Assad, members of civil society were active on the ground, particularly, youth from the so-called generation Z, who lived most of their lives during the conflict, are playing significant roles in everyday life, maintaining civil peace, countering sectarian discourse, and questing to restore order. Few hours after toppling Assad, videos of males and females in their early twenties, cleaning streets in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and other cities painting graffiti about national unity, distributing flowers and food for members of armed forces provided a glimpse of hope. For half a century, civil society in Syria was controlled from above and manipulated as a tool for soft power. Today, civil society is functioning in a productive manner and are keen to take part at this historical moment/
During the past three weeks, civil activists on the ground launched initiatives and campaigns with a motto which says bel hob bedna na’merha, we will build [Syria] with love. Although it might sound utopian, Syria and Syrians need love whilst recovering from sorrowful decades. December 2024 brought back Syria to Syrians, who are determined to reshape their relationship with the homeland, and to build their imagined watan. Rationally speaking, love cannot solely build a resilient society, but it will undoubtedly enhance the three pillars of state-building and pave the way towards prosperity.
[i] Stathis N Kalyvas The logic of violence in civil war, (USA: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.61