The past eighteen months of the “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” authority’s tenure demonstrate that it is moving steadily toward consolidating its rule and “empowerment” (tamkin) in managing Syria. It possesses no project to end the “transitional phase,” which it previously claimed would last no longer than five years. Because the ultimate goal and objective is to transform this “transitional phase” into a sustainable form of governance and rule, the hard-core inner circle holding the reins of power—namely, the leadership team within “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”—resorts to employing a wide array of “policies” and “tricks.” This is designed to distract and preoccupy the public with the mirage of “development,” thereby calling on them to exercise more patience while waiting for the realization of billion-dollar projects that will allegedly turn the country into “a paradise flowing with milk and honey!”
To date, not a single project has been inaugurated, nor has a single cornerstone been laid for the construction of a hotel, resort, or tourist tower (the discussion here is limited strictly to service and tourism projects, as there is absolutely no mention of factories, plants, road networks, or infrastructure). Despite these projects remaining merely ink on paper, and amid reports of the withdrawal of major Arab businessmen who intended to enter the “world of Syrian investment,” the authority continues its embellishment and propaganda. It keeps feeding its chorus of “influencers” with a basket of promises about upcoming new projects, craving further sedation and the creation of false hopes. This method of drugging, distracting, and falsifying closely resembles what the former “Ba’ath” regime used to do through its “Five-Year Development Plans,” aimed at “achieving strategic balance” in preparation for the “fateful battle”—a battle that never came, even as the regime itself withered away!
In addition to the promises of development and modernization—which have become a subject of ridicule and sarcasm on the Syrian street in light of deteriorating living conditions, exorbitant prices, and the collapse of the citizen’s purchasing power to rock bottom—the authority continues to market its political model of “distributing” posts according to blatant quota-sharing. This is done to appease all parties and factions and to pass a political process based on appointment and assignment. It offers no horizons or hopes for a genuine, healthy participatory democracy, such as what occurs in states built on established democratic institutions and mechanisms like elections through free competition among the programs of political parties.
The reality is that the Damascus authority has failed to achieve any tangible positive change in the reality of Syrians since it overthrew the previous regime and assumed power. The beginning was marked by horrific massacres committed in the coastal region against members of the Alawite community, followed by other massacres against the Druze community, and then the assault on the Kurdish community in Aleppo and the advance toward northern and eastern Syria, accompanied by “stab-in-the-back” operations and the targeting of Kurdish citizens during the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces from Deir Hafir, Raqqa, and Deir ez-Zor. The authority did not undertake any impartial or independent investigation to uncover those responsible for issuing orders to kill Syrian civilians in all those massacres, nor did it bring them along with the executive tools (the criminal perpetrators) to justice. What actually occurred were investigations presented by biased government committees, followed by summary trials conducted in haste, where it was clear that the objective was simply to close the file and get rid of it. The wound remains open, and the rift created in “Syrian nationalism” is immense; it cannot heal without a structural, core change that leads to a comprehensive reconciliation based on uncovering the circumstances of what happened, doing justice to the bereaved, and holding the criminal perpetrators accountable.
What is happening these days in terms of security chaos and targeted liquidations of individuals—whom specific “social media” platforms claim to be “Shabiha” and “remnants” (fulool)—confirms the authority’s failure to control the street. It proves the bankruptcy of the entire legacy of the past months, whether it concerns “arrests” of those involved or “status settlement” operations carried out for military and civilian personnel who used to work in state institutions under the rule of the previous regime. It is clear that there is no trust in the authority, and vast segments of the population are now inclined to “take the law into their own hands” as they watch an authority act according to its own whims. It pardons security and economic figures from the core inner circle of the former regime (who are proven, with evidence and proof, to have killed and plundered Syrians), and then interferes, secretly and publicly, in the corridors of administration and the world of finance and business—an underground empire it establishes and which is supervised by the active operatives of the Hayat, far from the eyes of Syrians.
Three Pillars of Governance
The Damascus authority has stood from the beginning on three main pillars: first: allying with the outside and operating as a functional authority that accomplishes tasks and settles outstanding files quickly and at the lowest cost. Second: “empowerment” in the economic institutions and departments of the state and controlling the assets and sources of wealth and money. And third: seeking to confiscate the largest sect of the Syrian people (the Sunni Arabs), and charging them with hatred, so that it is easy to lean on them, and then direct them right and left, and use them as a tool of repression whenever it wishes. Whoever looks at the past months of the rule of the “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” authority will see the reality of the authority’s reliance on those pillars and its movement within the three aforementioned circles, and how it conceded sovereign national files to the outside, and even its own “ideological constants,” and accepted the role of the agent, in order to market itself and avoid the evil of influential regional and international actors, on top of them the United States, Russia, Turkey, and Israel. One will see how it was fighting desperately to control the resources of the country and sources of wealth, and consequently sidelining the finance and investment sector away from the eyes of Syrians, and entrusting its leaders with the mission of supervising it. And likewise how it used the lower classes within the Sunni sect of the marginalized, the ignorant, and the obscurantist fanatics, to use them as a baton of repression in the face of the rest of the components of the Syrian people.
By acting in this manner, the authority created a rift within the Syrian house, dividing Syrians into warring sects, and thereby achieved its goal of preventing the emergence of any cross-identity, national democratic movement. It dealt a fatal blow to political action, making organization, partisan work, and freedom of expression near-impossible amid the existing sectarian tension, incitement, and the crackdowns (some of which the authority itself may be behind) carried out by organized, masked groups and brainwashed segments targeting “Shabiha” and “remnants.” This serves to obscure the economic and political reality and the state of total deadlock dominating the entire Syrian landscape.
The authority has provided the Syrian people with neither bread nor freedom. It is evident that the management of the economy and state resources, along with the invitation of foreign capital for investment, is based on an oligarchic, elite, “neoliberal” approach that disregards the marginalized, impoverished citizen and the crumbling infrastructure, aiming instead to reap quick profits whose revenues benefit a specific group. Furthermore, the authority perpetuates the political deadlock, clinging to its approach of appointments, assignments, and the distribution of posts under a fake quota system, at the expense of the emergence of a genuine political movement featuring parties, elections, unions, and a pressuring public opinion.
Meanwhile, the state of division remains unchanged among the components of the Syrian people, given the authority’s refusal to conduct a fair accountability process followed by a comprehensive national reconciliation, as required by the prerequisites of a true “transitional phase” in any country. The authority has not held trials for those responsible for past and subsequent massacres, nor has it ceased rehabilitating symbols of repression and corruption from the former regime, in addition to continuing its mistreatment of the lower strata of specific sects to feed the state of division and distract communities from the miserable living conditions and failure on all fronts.
This is compounded by dependency on foreign powers, unannounced concessions of sovereignty to regional states, and offering services to engage in conflicts and confrontations outside Syria’s borders. This guarantees the continuation of tension, anxiety, division, and sectarian incitement, creating a reality that does not permit development, growth, or modernization. In other words, the authority remains, under these conditions, practicing the role of an external proxy—holding onto money and national sources of wealth, managing the “crisis” inside Syria, using everyone in a war of all against all, building the “faction’s state,” and “empowering” itself within war-shattered, broken societies that have been deprived of education and enlightenment. It directs them in their internal punitive wars according to the methodology of the “Management of Savagery,” at the expense of a homeland called Syria, whose people once dreamed of freedom, justice, and a state of institutions and the rule of law.
