Troubling Signs of Reemerging Authoritarianism in Syria

Depending on their sectarian identity and the region in which they lived, there is a glaring imbalance of privilege in terms of how Syrians experienced the 14-year civil war. In 1971, Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power and built the military authoritarian intelligence machine with which his son controlled the country. This phenomenon elevated the Alawites to become the most politically powerful sect in Syria. Thus, after the 2011 revolution and ensuing war,  the majority Sunni and dissenting areas faced chemical weaponry, mass detainment and torture, village-wide massacres, bombing, and countless other human rights atrocities. 

When I last visited Syria, my relatives described Assad as ‘humbly living like us’ (villagers) and thus ‘we must be grateful to him’ (he lived in a palace). The children suffering in refugee camps in Lebanon were ‘children of terrorists facing the consequences’. The dissonance in perception of the war among Syrians was clear. Some witnessed the murder of their family members and the destruction of their neighbourhoods, while others lived relatively safely a few governorates away, believing in the blue-eyed benevolence of our former president. 

After Assad’s fall in December 2024, a different kind of popular rhetoric emerged, branded as conducive to healing from Assad’s authoritarian terrors. Freedom from Assad and his regime has become an instrumentalized notion, employed by those in power to enforce gratitude towards Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) for toppling the regime. HTS loyalists have used the phrase, “he who liberates, decides.” The government has applied this sort of language in its publicized investigations of the revenge killings that took thousands of lives on the Syrian coast. The investigations resulted in complete absolution of any complicity on the government’s part, despite widely documented evidence that showed government forces participating in the sect-based massacres. Self-ordained immunity is secured through enforcing expectations of gratitude and continuously redirecting the public eye to Assad’s crimes, detracting focus from the glaring evidence of newer horrors. The new government’s justification of violence towards rival factions and Alawites is a dangerous indicator of how brutality cyclically continues through the exploitation of trauma and existing power structures.  

Post-Assad Syria is being rebuilt–seemingly intentionally—upon a controlled narrative that utilizes unresolved trauma and enforced gratitude to suppress nuance and consolidate power from within. This foundation is also the basis from which the new government collaborates with foreign powers. Such collaboration has occurred under the guise of liberal reconstruction for the securing of external strategic and economic interests.

Historically, proto-states in the post-colonial period were only legitimized in the international community when they met a criterion set by hegemonic powers. Al-Sharaa’s approach is reflective of this, attempting to match the liberal world order’s affinity for human rights and democratization. However, affinity for liberal values is evidently outweighed by a steadfast devotion to economic prosperity. This has led to foreign investment for global strategic and financial interest in Syria outpacing the process of democratization. Furthermore, the trajectory of democracy and nation-building in the Global South states is framed within a linear expectation of economic prosperity and capitalism as the indisputable basis for democracy. However, in the post-colonial world, democracy struggles to take root when stable institutions develop more slowly than foreign investment in the economy.

Foreign investment into the “rebuilding” of Syria—in collaboration with al-Sharaa—is driven by the United States, Türkiye, and the Arab Gulf States in the aftermath of the Assad regime’s collapse. Türkiye has bolstered Hayat Tahrir al Sham as a proxy arm against its strategic opponents in Syria for over a decade, from its reign over Idlib to the offensive that toppled the former regime. 

President Erdogan of Türkiye professed his strong appreciation for the “commitment” his “brother Ahmad al-Sharaa has shown in the fight against terrorism.” The United States has indirectly exerted influence on Syria through Türkiye, pushing for the new administration to sign peace deals with Israel and business deals with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This triad—the United States, Turkey, and the GCC—is positioned to make substantial profits, both economically and strategically, through the cooperation of the Syrian government. The United States has sent Tom Barrack, doubly appointed as the ambassador to Türkiye and the Special Envoy to Syria, to oversee the Syrian administration’s cooperation. At first glance, these diplomatic efforts present no inherent issue—even if they are strategically motivated, large amounts of foreign investment, like that of the Gulf Council, will ultimately bolster the economy. 

However, the issues of democratization and cyclical brutality remain at the centre of the Syrian future. Democratization is necessary for the Syrian population to represent its interests and needs in the wake of a decades-old system that alienated large portions of the country. Economic advancement intersects with democratization as a means of reducing poverty and encouraging more Syrians to participate in the political process. However, to promote this, a restructuring of the economic system that was monopolized by an authoritarian elite—and which has 90 per cent of Syrians under the poverty line—must occur. This great “rebuilding” of Syria will rebuild nothing if investments are injected into the same hierarchical and exclusionary system that operated before. 

Over the past year, the new government has publicized its condemnation of former Assadists for the havoc they wreaked upon the country, while government forces carried out extrajudiciary executions and massacres of minorities across the country. The increasingly authoritarian approach of al-Sharaa’s government uses collective memory to divide and stoke fear, while accelerating economic investments heighten uncertainty about an extremely unequal economic hierarchy. New forms of divisiveness and control have emerged; the accelerated economic prosperity induced by foreign assistance will create a new economic elite to take the Assads’ place. These phenomena are evident even in personal interactions, when different relatives now ascribe the massacres and instability solely to the remaining Assadist Alawites, who ‘must be defeated’. The Syrian people, from every sect and part of the country, are now left to grapple with the nuances of the civil war’s trauma without substantial movement towards democratization.

It is crucial to note, however, that no matter how bleak the state of Syria is or has been, the necessity and possibility for cross-cutting the cleavages instrumentalized against Syrian society cannot be erased. Despite signs of authoritarian reemergence, the fall of the Assad regime momentarily broke the walls separating Syrians from different sects and regions when they united in celebration on the streets. The direct aftermath of Assad’s ousting punctured the veneer of isolating authoritarian fear that had occupied the country for 50 years. Now, the hope of that period finds continuity in acts of defiant understanding, rather than in a perfect saviour. Plenty of leaders have claimed to save or fix Syria, yet the notion that one Syrian cannot imagine the reality of another based on their sectarian or regional identity is only broken through grassroots efforts to establish a nuanced collective memory of Syria’s recent history. Hope for Syrians will not be found in a new face to plaster everywhere in newfound adoration and gratitude, but rather in unity and pluralistic understanding amongst ourselves. 

Edited by Jacob van Bergh 

Featured image credit: Ahmed al-Sharaa meeting with Tom Barrack and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani in Istanbul. “Ambassador Tom Barrack” by HurricaneEdgar is under the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.