Minorities in Syria: Prospects and controversies

I am not a fan of the excessive use of the term “minorities,” let alone exploiting it to reshape nations based on external interests.

However, political history across the globe has taught us the dangers of downplaying or ignoring the concerns of small or marginalized groups — whether based on sect, gender or other divisions. Such actions have, in many instances, provided a ready pretext for foreign intervention, leading to occupations, colonization or “protectorates.”

Overlooking the concerns of small or marginalized groups has also contributed to the arbitrary redrawing of borders, the dividing of unified populations into several newly formed states and condemning them to decades — sometimes even centuries — of civil wars and separatist conflicts.

Large political entities were historically built through conquest and the domination of smaller groups. The modern concept of the nation-state only emerged in 19th-century Europe. Yet, even there, democracy has struggled to resolve separatist tendencies, a problem known as irredentism.

Today, with the rise of far-right forces and their alliances with separatist or isolationist movements in countries like Italy, established European democracies face existential threats to their identity, despite once seeming secure in their sense of national unity. In major Western nations, including formerly vast empires like Britain, Germany and Spain, the interplay between isolationism and migration has fractured the once-cohesive understanding of national identity.

The issue of minorities has become an essential aspect of the world’s dealings with the new leadership in Damascus

Eyad Abu Shakra

In Asia and Africa, the challenges are similar.

Consider the plight of large and ancient peoples, such as the Amazigh of North Africa, the Baloch across South Asia, Arabs in Turkiye and Iran, the Kurds of the Near East and the Fulani scattered across the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to Chad and Cameroon.

All these groups, including Palestinian Arabs displaced by the Israeli project, are peoples whose unity was torn apart by colonialism, scattering them across newly created entities or turning them into global diasporas. This has given rise to crises and separatist movements that have redefined regional and international political issues.

The issue of minorities has, along with women’s rights, become an essential aspect of the international community’s dealings with the new leadership in Damascus following the fall of the Assad regime.

Naturally, this approach has not been welcomed by many in Syrian and Arab circles, who see it as a form of imposition that undermines Syria’s sovereignty and questions Syrians’ ability to reach an understanding and coexist, ultimately building a progressive state for a people with one of the oldest and richest civilizations in the world.

These circles are bothered by what they view as an arrogant Western approach toward the Syrians. The Syrian people, who struggled for freedom throughout more than 50 years of bloody tyrannical rule, have the right to enjoy their newfound freedom and sovereignty. There is no doubt that they deserve to decide their future themselves after being deprived of that right for decades due to the intersection of interests imposed by geography, balances of power and strategic regional and international interests.

At the same time, those who accept international conditions for rebuilding Syria are not entirely wrong, but they must remain cautious of the apparent goodwill of international powers. This goodwill was absent when Syrians faced repression, torture, barrel bomb and chemical attacks, and displacement. The new Syrian administration is still in its early days and has a long road ahead of it. There is a vast difference between armed struggle and building a state and preparing the ground for national reconciliation.

There is no doubt that Syrians deserve to decide their future themselves after being deprived of that right for decades

Eyad Abu Shakra

The revolutionary efforts in Idlib achieved their liberation goals through armed struggle. However, the current challenge is uniting the country under the slogan heard across Syria: “The Syrian people are one.”

The aim is to build a united nation for all Syrians, based on equality, mutual respect and citizenship, transcending differences in religion, ethnicity and gender.

Accountability is crucial in this transition, so that the Syrian people can put the chapter of tyranny behind them. The process must be overseen by legitimate judicial and constitutional bodies, not military field courts — as seen in Iraq after the US invasion, when vengeance drove the so-called justice system that ultimately indicted both the guilty and the innocent.

The new Syria is transitioning from a police state to a state of institutions that is part of the international community. This demands that its new leadership define its political interest in dealing with regional and global players whose political, economic and security roles cannot be overlooked.

Let us not forget: politics is the art of the possible.

• Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @eyad1949