Counting on a Democratic Future

The popular uprising that began in Syria in 2011 and soon descended into a years-long armed conflict often had a bad international reputation: once parts of it became militarized and Islamized and the counter-revolutions decimated progressive forces, the once-prominent progressive components became largely obscured. Consequently, the 13-year conflict was ultimately ended only when the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, took over the capital and overthrew Assad last December.

And yet, left-wing forces originating in Marxist reading circles from the 1970s had been key to the Syrian Revolution’s emergence. In the areas outside of regime control, they continued to work despite the ongoing counter-revolution and war against them. Now, after the fall of the regime, the Syrian Left is for the first time able to work openly, focusing largely on organizing workers’ resistance and building local committees.

During a recent trip to the country, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Ansar Jasim spoke with Ziad Wannous, a left-wing activist from the newly founded National Democratic Rally, about the challenges facing the Left in Syria’s post-Assad era.

The Syrian Revolution was characterized by grassroots organizing, first through mass demonstrations, then the neighbourhood groups of the Local Coordination Committees (LCCs), as well as the Local Councils. How has the Left been involved in these forms of organization both historically and during the 2011 revolution?

During the rule of Syria’s first dictator, Hafez al-Assad, the Left was split into two factions. The official Left was inside the National Progressive Front.[1] These were the Communist Khalid Bakdash’s Syrian Communist Party and Yusuf Faisal’s Syrian Communist Party (Unified). Then there was the left-wing coalition that formed the official political opposition to Hafez al-Assad’s government.

Syria’s streets were full of leftist and Communist activists — all of them, without exception, were sent to prison. The most important actor here was Al-Rabita (the “League”), which later became the Communist Action Party (or Communist Workers’ Party) and the Communist Party (General Bureau), which split from Bakdash’s Syrian Communist Party in the 1970s. Then there was also Hizb al Shageela (The Workers’ Party). Between 1988 and 1990 there were no Communists left in the opposition against Hafez al-Assad — they were all either in exile or in prison.

The uprising of 2011 clearly showed that the Syrian people had long felt that their dignity was being degraded and their freedom restricted.

Around the year 2000, all political opposition forces were released from prison under a general amnesty, Communists as well as Islamists. All of them had been arbitrarily detained anyway. Most of the political opposition forces went on to play an active role in the Damascus Spring. They sought to revive political life, as there had been no room for it due to the suppression of the regime, and demanded that the state of emergency be lifted and freedom of speech introduced.[2] This movement of openness and dialogue only lasted around three months, accompanied by Bashar al-Assad’s rhetoric about opening Syria up to the West. People set up public forums in a move that was initially tolerated by the state. Leftists, as well as some Arab nationalists, were organized within the Atassi Forum.

Then there was the Forum of the Left, where Communists, Trotskyists, socialists, and even people from Bakdash’s official Communist Party met. But this movement was swiftly suppressed. All of those involved were once again detained and released after some time. Those who had been in detention prior to 2000 for, say, ten years, were now sentenced to only one to three years. Despite the campaign of detentions and intimidation, some activists tried to keep the space open, but by 2003 at the latest, state repression in the country once again reached its previous level. The situation differed from that of Egypt, where the Kefaya movement was able to keep its voice — in Syria after 2008, there were no political opposition players left.

Yet five years later, there was another intensive phase of opposition organizing in Syria: the so-called Damascus Declaration of 2005.

This was one of the most important opposition movements in Syria, which brought together leftists from the Communist Action Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, but also liberals. However, the main leftist actors ultimately withdrew due to the dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood and founded the Marxist Left Gathering (TAIM). This new group drew active involvement from the Communist Action Party, what was left of the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau),[3] Qadri Jamil’s Hizb al-Irādah (People’s Will Party),[4] the Syrian Communist Unity Party, as well as individuals from the Atassi Forum.

Why did you, as more radical leftist activists, decide not to be part of the Damascus Declaration?

By 2005, the Syrian opposition had already waged a 30-year campaign — mainly underground, and in the face of severe suppression. This led to the emergence of undemocratic structures and methods within the parties as well as personalization, which meant that they became organizations focused on one charismatic leader. Moreover, the regime had repeatedly attempted to gain control of sections of the opposition. Then, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to hijack the Damascus Declaration.

TAIM was the Left’s response to these developments, but its members were once again forced to meet in secret, although they did manage to issue a newspaper in 2007 called Tareeq al-Yasar (“The Path of the Left”). There were of course also leftist opposition forces in exile, but they were not able to do much. Those who decided to return to Syria were completely prevented from engaging in political activities. Prior to 2011, we were really not able to do anything.

In comparison to previous attempts to achieve political change, the movement that arose in 2011 quickly evolved into a mass uprising sweeping across every region of Syria. Was this a response to the economic liberalization policies of the Syrian regime?

This was a demands-based revolution for freedom and dignity. It was in many ways an extension of the Arab Spring.

Abdullah al-Dardari, head of the Planning and International Cooperation Commission until 2005, became Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and announced plans to liberalize Syria’s economy. The majority of the population was negatively impacted by this. The government sought to stamp out the last remaining traces of socialism in the economy and to privatize and open up the Syrian economy — especially to the Gulf States. Business was only open to those close to the regime.

The parties that were involved in the Progressive Front were only tools — they certainly weren’t allies. It was clear that the regime was not actually willing to engage in a real dialogue.

It’s important to mention here that the factors that motivated the revolution were not exclusively economic in nature. While people did feel the effects of these changes, their economic situation was also mitigated by housing subsidies and so on. The uprising of 2011 clearly showed that the Syrian people had long felt that their dignity was being degraded and their freedom restricted. The revolution was not a “hunger revolution”, it was a revolution for dignity and freedom. The demands of the revolution extended beyond what a leftist perspective could offer us in the way of analysis.

Throughout 2011, demonstrations began to spread across Syria. The “security solution” became the regime’s first and only option. There were attempts by the regime (that really couldn’t be taken seriously) to organize a National Dialogue Conference with Farouk al-Sharaa, the Vice President of Syria at the time, but this initiative was rejected by the opposition. As far as they were concerned, it was clear that the regime couldn’t allow itself to enter into partnership with any other political forces. The parties that were involved in the Progressive Front were only tools — they certainly weren’t allies. It was clear that the regime was not actually willing to engage in a real dialogue.

In 2011, the left-wing political forces were invited to meetings to discuss forming a political body that would act as an expression of the broader left-wing political forces. At the same time, in the wake of the demonstrations, tansiqiyat (local protest coordination committees) were founded in every neighbourhood. On the political level, leftists, Muslim Brothers, and members of the political centre were also looking for ways to coordinate their activities. This is how the Hai’at al-Tanseeq al-Watani la-Qiwa al-Tagheer (National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, NCC) was formed. It was the first political body of the opposition since the uprising had begun in March. With the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood, the coalition brought together all of Syria’s opposition groups including the majority of Kurdish parties. No parties of the Progressive Front were involved, choosing instead to stay with Bashar al-Assad until his fall.

The NCC didn’t remain an organized body in Syria for long, because beginning in late 2011, invitations began to flow in from outside of Syria to join forces. Furthermore, the regime was growing more brutal and militarily suppressed all forms of political opposition. The political forces in question withdrew to abroad and formed the Syrian National Council. Now, many people such as Michel Kilo and Burhan Ghalioun began to withdraw from the NCC in order to be part of an alliance formed by the Muslim Brotherhood with the support of Turkey and Qatar, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC).

What were the ideological differences between these two opposition bodies?

The NCC was composed of mainly leftist forces like the Party for Socialist Unity, which is a pan-Arab party, the Communist Action Party, the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau), and the Democratic Ba’ath (February Branch). Riad Darrar was also part of it, as well as the Revolutionary Party of Workers.[5] The main left-wing bloc was organized within the NCC, convinced that the Syrian issue could only be resolved by finding a solution to the crisis. But the others were convinced that the regime could only be defeated by garnering external support and by armed resistance and militarism, which in turn would mean that the regional states would gain more influence through providing weaponry. This is how the designation of “domestic” and “external” opposition emerged, with the NCC as domestic and the SNC as external opposition.

The regime tried to exploit the idea of claiming to have “its own opposition” within the country and sought to form blocs inside the NCC. The regime tried to push for a perspective within the NCC that terrorist groups were attacking Syria and seeking to destroy the state. The rhetoric of the NCC, however, did not go in this direction. We were of the opinion that there was a national crisis, and that any support from outside would lead to a civil war. I think it’s pretty clear that this is exactly what happened in Syria.

The Syrian coalition was of the opinion that the regime was dictatorial and brutal, that it killed everyone who was not able to sufficiently protect themselves, and that it therefore required additional support in the form of weaponry. This is kind of the scenario that happened last month before the fall.

At the beginning of the revolution, you were in your early 20s and wanted to get involved in leftist politics.

I was in the NCC as an independent and then joined the Communist Action Party. The party had almost no space to be active, the only margin we had was inside the NCC, so pretty much all of the party’s endeavours focused on that. They were accused by members of the external opposition of being agents of the regime, and the regime accused them of being external agents.

The SNC tried to bring the Syrian armed opposition under its control, but then the Islamist currents appeared, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and later Daesh.[6] Jabhat al-Nusra constantly shifted its allegiances until it became Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS was in some ways independent, but Daesh was not independent at all and didn’t have a national agenda for Syria. Their ideology was transnational and radical. Jabhat al-Nusra was different. It was characterized by a profound sense of discipline from the very beginning, it was kind of independent from foreign agendas and was known for its skills in the fight. Daesh, on the other hand, was only known for massacres it and its public displays of violence.

There was a big difference between the NCC and SCN in the negotiations in Geneva. The NCC was there because it believed in finding a political solution through negotiation. The SNC was against that at that time because they wanted to see the fall of the regime through a military resolution. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 was adopted in late 2015. This was not an easy time, and I felt that our voices as members of a progressive Left that sought a peaceful solution became buried beneath the NCC’s agenda. Our voices were worthless. There was also corruption, and I didn’t want to be part of that.

What was the relationship between the organized Left and civil society in the Syrian Revolution?

The tansiqiyat, for example, which emerged as a kind of grassroots network of neighbourhood committees, organically came to adopt an organizational role in the demonstrations. The Communist Action Party was very active here. Omar Idlibi was incredibly active in encouraging neighbourhood communities to form these groups. The party was present in almost all opposition civil groups because we believed that the party was a free space for all opposition fighters and was organized very democratically. Although we had vastly different factions within the party — Maoists, Trotskyists, and even Stalinists — we always had collective leadership.

The ambitions of Syria’s Left are big. We want to transform Syria into a better place.

As individuals, we were involved everywhere, also in Idlib, but no longer as an organized power. This was due to the constant detentions, and due to heavy surveillance it was very difficult to return to the political work within the party when people were released from prison. So most of us were isolated. There were people who tried to revive the party. In 2012, a party congress was held — the biggest since people had been released from prison, with roughly 40–50 people in attendance. The ongoing campaign of political detention caused more people to flee.

Some of us founded the Tayar al-Muwatana (Citizenship Current) in April 2011, of which Aslan Abdelkarim has been the driving force. He used to be a Marxist, but today is very liberal and thinks that our politics are inevitably defined by the US. He founded this current in around 2003.

After the Russians intervened, the opposition on the ground got weaker and lost more and more ground. The regime was then able to claim that Syria was theirs, despite the country effectively being divided into five different pieces. This was the reality until the fall of the regime.

What role does the Left play now?

The ambitions of Syria’s Left are big. We want to transform Syria into a better place. We need to form organizations and parties. There’s no left-wing force today able to effectively organize and effect change on its own. The Left today seeks to form cells in order to forge alliances across ideological divisions, beyond creating rival camps of Right versus Left or Islamists versus atheists. While the unity of left-wing forces might be important today, it’s not the top priority.

These are nationwide questions that can’t be viewed through a left-right paradigm alone — that would be harmful to the national movement in Syria. We have yet to reach the democratic moment in which we would propose a left-wing programme that people could choose or elect. Managing this transition to a democratic, diverse Syria with a parliament in which political forces are able to openly debate with each other is a task that must be tackled at the national level. All of our efforts are now being put in this direction.

I don’t think it would be right for the Left to wage a revolution right now. That would give rise to social dichotomies from which the Islamized authorities would benefit. It would cause a new wave of detentions or bloc-formation. Syria doesn’t need this right now. After being absent from politics for some 60 years, it would be easy now to ideologize people. When the atheist forces took to the streets in the early days, it was very easy for the Islamists to suppress them. Leftist isolation or simply organizing the Left is not useful now. This would harm the democratic cause.

But with whom can you join forces? We have to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes, such as thinking we could form an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, like we did in 2005 and 2011.

There are many dangers. It’s difficult to plan for something that has never happened before. There are no traces yet of fronts being formed. Maybe it will be different soon, but all left-wing forces are seeking to bring together all democratic forces, so that the only remaining division is between those who want a democratic system and those who don’t. This is the basis upon which we organize, in the hope that we don’t move in an undemocratic direction.

We know that the Muslim Brotherhood and other traditional Islamist forces could present an obstacle to this project. Until now, there’s been no plan to involve them, but rather individuals who are known to be fair and transparent, such as Ahmad Muaz al-Khatib, Riad Darrar, Mohammad Habbash, and Ahmad al-Rumah. It’s clear that leftists and all the democratic forces that were not part of the military structures will not forge an alliance with Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Is this why you formed the Gathering of Democratic Syria? What does your work look like in concrete terms?

This idea was birthed by leftist figures in Latakia as a reaction to the fall of the regime. They issued a call to all provinces to start work. They also reached out to all of the Communist parties, feminist groups, and anyone who supported social peace. It was an invitation to cast old disagreements aside, especially within the Left.

The lack of experience among the general population of Syria in terms of political organizing presents one of the biggest challenges. Most people only have a limited awareness of politics and organizing.

The regime was gone, but Syria’s population was not organized. The political forces had been splintered because of the role played by foreign powers in Syria, but now the cause of their division had been overcome. We were very worried about social peace. Since the very beginning, there had been a national vision for all Syrians, despite their religious background, for a democratic future for the country.

We tried to disseminate the invitation to the gathering on Facebook. It’s still not so easy, given that prior to the fall of the regime, many people had stopped talking to each other out of fear of being surveilled, and even now movement is still not so easy in Syria. This is why at first we organized locally, within the provinces and cities. We still haven’t held a general official conference of the Gathering of Democratic Syria.

What happens in these local meetings, and what is discussed?

The founding statement was issued only eight days after the fall of the regime and, as such, is not a finished text. The aim was write something that would unite all Syrians. The statement was shared widely, and people signed it online with their name and telephone number. So we had the first resource, a database, with which to organize. We then wrote to everyone who had signed and asked them to organize themselves locally wherever they were based.

Throughout the years, Facebook remained the platform that gave people a glimpse into other people’s lives. The statement was quite general because we knew that, especially on the Left, it can be hard to reach consensus on a single idea. Nothing’s holy anymore, and there are no charismatic figures. Quite the opposite: we want people to negotiate locally about what is important to them. We formed groups in Jableh, Homs, Tartus, Baniyas, Latakia, and Damascus.

We’re still in the planning phase, meaning that every group has the freedom to develop their own positions according to the priorities of the local community. But everyone seems to be convinced that it won’t stay this way — that we’ll work together with other democratic forces, also to evolve in terms of content and to encourage people to take to the streets in support of our demands. No one can do that on their own. Together, we are much stronger.

The challenges really differ from place to place. The discussions differ greatly between Homs, Latakia, and Damascus. Maybe the discussions in Tartus and Homs are similar because they are so close. In Homs, for example, the focus is on achieving social peace. In Damascus, this isn’t considered so important because the security situation there is better. Because the security situation is so bad in Homs, there’s almost no room to talk about anything else. The local community wants to pin down guarantees for achieving social peace and preventing targeted killings.

In Latakia, people’s livelihoods and general prospects are very bad and dominate the discussion, while in Damascus the theoretical questions that concern Syria as a whole are more prevalent.

The lack of experience among the general population of Syria in terms of political organizing presents one of the biggest challenges. Most people only have a limited awareness of politics and organizing. There are many different opinions. There’s a very difficult security situation in all the provinces of Syria, and then there’s also a geographical issue in terms of communication between the different provinces. Social media has become a swamp of fake news.

How can the movement deal with the remnants of the old regime that now claim to be democratic and would seek to participate in a new order? What role do they play?

I am convinced that the regime never considered the parties of the National Progressive Force its allies. Instead, the regime simply exploited them. But they have a popular constituency, and this is what we see as relevant. Although they’re not democratic right now, if they want to have a presence in parliament, they’ll have to become democratic. I’m counting on the dawn of a democratic future and the need for us to reach this future — for everyone and with everyone —because otherwise we’ll be faced with a new dictatorship and another war.

I want to distinguish between the regime and its security components, which controlled even the prime minister. While he is part of the regime, he was simply forced to do what Bashar Al-Assad told him. I wouldn’t even have a problem if the prime minister wanted to join the democratic forces, as long he were to acknowledge his role in the previous regime and take responsibility and accountability for his actions.

I don’t have a problem with anyone who wants to get involved in this new political era. Our shared objective is to bring together all those who strive for democracy.

What are some of the challenges posed by the de-Ba’athification process? In Iraq, the politics of the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which governed Iraq until June 2004, led to the rise of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other extremist forces that had intentionally been excluded from the formation of the “new Iraq” after 2003.

We want to include any forces that would otherwise — similar to what we saw in Iraq — form alliances against the democratic project. De-Ba’athification in Iraq is very present here among political actors. But there’s a big difference in that with the fall of the Syrian regime, the Ba’ath Party and its stranglehold over political thought came to an end. It’s no longer an active social or political force. The Ba’ath Party’s presence was predicated upon the existence of the regime. There’s no problem today in Syria when it comes to dissolving the Ba’ath Party, and no one will defend it.

The priority today is to bring together all democratic forces in order to guarantee the future of Syria. The question of social peace, transitional justice, and the interests of marginalized groups needs to reach a popular consensus. Furthermore, the class question needs to be considered. Right now, there are a lot of lay-offs happening among public sector employees, who the new government either considers unproductive or claims that they were Ba’athists. We need to clearly defend the interests of the working class. This is not a leftist position — it’s a national position.

When you say “socialism”, people think of the Ba’ath Party’s slogan. When you say “Communist”, they assume you’re an atheist. If you say “Left”, they accuse you of wanting to divide society into Left and Right. We can only defend the working class if we refrain from using vocabulary that might alienate them. We need to put all of our strength and tactics into supporting the working class.

It’s our responsibility now to make sure that HTS doesn’t try to hijack the state. This is what the democratic forces now have to do.

The voices calling for privatization are very loud within the new authorities. They claim privatization is the only solution, given that the state is bankrupt. In this sense, of course forming a Democratic Gathering with these class interests in mind would mean that we have a clear political leaning. But this isn’t its main task. The workers’ union or the Communist Action Party’s task is to defend the interests of the working class. I can’t bring an Islamist into the Democratic Gathering and tell them that they need to defend the interests of the working class. It’s clear they want a free economy. But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work together to defend the democratic system.

The interim government is currently making many decisions that are not within its remit. The democratic forces need to respond to this. No decision that Ahmed al-Sharaa makes today should be binding. Once we have a democratic system in place, we’ll be able to confront him within this system.

The HTS has taken over the state institutions and infiltrated them with its own people. For example, the HTS swapped out the heads of the workers’ union and trade unions. Previously, they were completely controlled by the regime — they had no autonomy, were completely suppressed. The HTS just swapped out a Ba’athist for a HTS representative. Those are workers’ unions, it should be about workers’ self-organization and self-determination, not about the state controlling the workers. You can’t simply adopt the measures used by the old regime and change some names.

Then the workers protested, calling for the unions to be independent. The same was the case with the lawyers’ unions in Suwayda and Damascus, which have restarted their activities. This will take a long time to achieve, as the regime really quashed workers’ self-organization. The workers’ unions were virtually incapacitated. We need independent unions that are in no way affiliated with the authorities, that won’t be controlled by the HTS or any other future authority.

We also see this demand for democratic rights in other spheres. The workers who were laid off protested and claimed that their dismissal was illegal because they were only informed of it orally. In our opinion, the workers should not abide by the dismissal orders and should continue to come to work. The HTS will exploit this situation. If the workers don’t come to work for the next three months, then they would have legal grounds to lay them off. This is why we’re calling on everyone to continue going to work.

The current authority has no legitimacy or mandate to make decisions like these. We need to ensure that they don’t manage to infiltrate the new government. We need to take steps towards organizing a national conference, and then we need to hold elections. Then the newly elected authorities will have the legitimacy to rebuild the state and to re-establish the separation of powers and the authority of the government.

In unifying the wide range of democratic forces, we aim to bring together all forms of anti-authoritarian and anti-arbitrary forces against the powers that be into one single framework, irrespective of ideological orientation. It’s our responsibility now to make sure that HTS doesn’t try to hijack the state. This is what the democratic forces now have to do. Until now, we’ve only witnessed overstepping and hints that this could develop into a new dictatorship. We need the support of internationalists by our side as Syrians to prevent the emergence of a new dictatorship.

You and other locals managed to build a civil committee in your village in the countryside of Homs that coordinates closely with the interim government, and things have remained calm among the local Alawite community. Yet in early March, media began reporting on an uprising of Assad-sympathizing Alawite communities along the coast that ended in massacres and mass reprisals organized by supporters of the new government. Can you draw us a picture of what happened according to your understanding?

At noon on 6 March, a movement of loyalists and remnants of the Assad regime, so-called fulul, mainly present in Jableh, Qardaha, Beit Yashout, and close to the Hmeimim military base, launched an attack. By the afternoon they controlled half of Jableh, and had killed 250 Sunni civilians in an effort to foment sectarian strife. They managed to take over the naval college in northern Jableh. Apparently, the Russians had promised them support if they managed to establish a new reality on the coast within 48 hours.

They managed to capture strategic spots such as police stations and bridges all over the coast. I think the core group of this uprising was around 500–700 people from the former regime’s security apparatus. Another 1,000 people joined them. Their communication mainly happened via WhatsApp.

This uprising formed the pretext for the massacres that followed. By the evening of 6 March, you could here the “Allahu Akbar” calls from some mosques, even here in Damascus, and the call to Jihad. Anyone with a weapon now headed towards the coast, including civilians. You also had convoys of the General Security Service and the Syrian National Army. From this moment on, it was hard to distinguish between them. They stopped everywhere where they found resistance and started to indiscriminately massacre people, especially in the countryside.

As it is not so easy to identify who exactly was behind the massacres of Alawite civilians, Ahmed Al-Sharaa now had the choice of either adopting this operation – which would make him a war criminal — or announcing that those committing crimes would be held responsible. Of course, this means active punishment: the foreign fighters need to be neutralized, anyone from the General Security Service that participated needs to be laid off.

There is a strong need for anti-sectarian rhetoric now. But the speech given by Syria’s foreign minister at the Brussels conference on Syria that happened shortly after the massacres was not deescalating. He emphasized Alawite minority rule. The Assad regime was highly sectarian in nature, but it did not openly use sectarian rhetoric. The security apparatus was recruited from poor Alawites, but the broader system relied not only on them. If you look at some of the big names of the regime, you will see they were from all sects.

Now there is a new, open wound in Syrian society, and I expect that the area could explode any moment without a real nationwide solution.

City dwellers, however, were not really in the military or secret services as they historically formed the industrial or merchant bourgeoisie. They were supportive of the regime. Thus, this is a class question rather than a sectarian one: rural people joined the military and security services. The cities supported the regime until the last moment. Hafiz al-Assad consolidated poverty amongst the Alawites by keeping them as low-ranking servants in the state apparatus and secret services.

Is there a currently a mass base for resistance along the coast?

After the fall of the regime, there was a huge window of opportunity for Al-Sharaa to become very popular amongst the Alawites. For 50 years, the Assad regime had claimed that its removal would lead to massacres of the Alawites — with the fall of the regime, this narrative was disproven. But now, it is being reaffirmed.

Over the last three-and-a-half months, Alawites have been indiscriminately laid off from work, salaries were not paid, and many were humiliated and actively excluded from the new system because they were Alawites. This is a very delicate issue. People there rely on their state salary of around 20 US dollars, they are not part of the urban bourgeoisie, which has other sources of income.

Many Alawites also relied on their income as soldiers — Al-Sharaa could have used this to his own benefit. Those soldiers feel a certain a loyalty to the military as an institution. He could have used this for himself and integrated them into the Ministry of Defence.

So far, Al-Sharaa has not tried to offer national solutions. He is just trying to consolidate his authority, and if sectarianism helps, he uses it.

Do you see any prospects for resolving the situation peacefully?

The Syrian Democratic Forces need to become part of the state authority. They have no record of human rights violations, they have military discipline, and they have salaries. Otherwise, I think we are headed towards chaos.

We also need to be very careful now not to use a minority discourse. The Alawites are not a national minority — we cannot apply the rhetoric of national self-determination here. It is a very diverse sect present all over Syria, with its own unique religious, social and economic order. Now there is a new, open wound in Syrian society, and I expect that the area could explode any moment without a real nationwide solution.