“After the fall of the former regime, the level of satisfaction with the new situation was higher than the level of dissatisfaction and concern regarding the country’s economic and social conditions. However, one year after the regime’s fall, dissatisfaction with the domestic situation began to increase. The real danger will arise when the level of dissatisfaction exceeds the level of satisfaction over the fall of the previous regime. The degree of public dissatisfaction with living conditions is steadily rising. While this dissatisfaction reflects a certain level of resentment, that resentment has now reached a level of social mobilization”.

The fate of Syria—as a people, a state, and as political forces in different places—depends on what we do in the coming weeks and months, and on how quickly we act. It also depends on the rapidly unfolding international and regional developments. These are major and turbulent transformations that must be understood well, and we must act based on that understanding.

The country is experiencing a persistent deadlock on every level, particularly in the socioeconomic and living conditions of its people, alongside manufactured security and social tensions that increasingly threaten civil peace. All of this is unfolding amid major shifts in the regional balance of power as well as at the international level.

The scope of protest activity among Syrian farmers and workers is expanding daily across the country. They are demanding their right to a dignified life; the right to wages sufficient to secure housing, feed their children, provide them with education and healthcare; and the right to be treated in a humane and respectful manner, whether by employers or by state institutions.

The country is experiencing an extremely dangerous situation on all levels, and it is not “doing well” in any sense. Nevertheless, both the country and the Syrian people have a rare historic opportunity for a fundamental turning point that could lay the foundations for the long-awaited state: a strong, independent, and just state, in which power truly belongs to the Syrian people both officially and in practice. That means power belonging to the more than 90% of Syrians who live below the poverty line; those who produce the nation’s wealth yet receive only a tiny fraction of it; those who come from all ethnicities, religions, sects, and ideological and political backgrounds, united by the fact that they are “underneath”, in contrast to those who are “above”. The latter also come from all ethnicities, religions, and sects, but are united by the fact that they appropriate the greater part of what Syrians produce through their labor and daily toil—and even through the blood they have shed over decades in defending and trying to improve this country.

Among the lessons and conclusions drawn from the Euphrates River’s flooding — and its disastrous effects, which have not yet been fully uncovered — are the following:

The areas and sectors covered by popular protests taking place daily across the country have become so extensive that merely attempting to count and document them would require a huge team of observers on the ground, as well as in the various communication and social media outlets.

The famous English writer Samuel Johnson said in the 18th century: “Facts of life are stubborn things”. In the Syrian reality, the facts of life are stubborn and painful: the realities of rampant poverty, unemployment, IDP camps, a paralyzed economy, and deteriorating education and healthcare. These facts and realities cannot be ignored or bypassed — neither by diverting attention toward secondary sectarian, ethnic, or religious conflicts and contradictions, nor through attempts to numb social consciousness with hypothetical mega-projects that are largely touristic and showy in nature, resembling Beirut’s Solidere alongside an entire country suffering from poverty and slums.

Protests of a socioeconomic nature, centered around people’s demands have been growing in both depth and scope over recent months and weeks. Estimates range between 50 and more than 80 protests, demonstrations, and gatherings during the past three months, across various Syrian areas.

There are many indicators that there is a deliberate and organized escalation of sectarian, religious, and ethnic incitement and sedition rhetoric in Syria. Most of this is happening on Facebook pages, amplified by algorithms and by external and internal cyber armies. A much smaller portion is taking place on the ground, with the aim of turning these Facebook “Wars of Dahis and al-Ghabra” into a new Syrian bloodbath.