Kassioun Editorial 1255: A Year Since Assad’s Fall

Over the past years and decades, the Syrian people trekked a long path of pain. It is time for that path to end. It is time for Syrians to look to the future face to face, with confidence, with heads held high, and with great hopes of rebuilding their beloved country—even if it wronged them; though it was not the country that wronged them, but those who dominated it”.

“The experiences of different peoples prove that the departure of a ruling authority does not mean the departure of a regime, and that changing a regime radically and comprehensively – politically and socioeconomically – is a far more complex process than the mere departure of one president and the arrival of another.

The Syrian people deserve to crown their struggles with a genuine, complete victory—whose essence is to prevent a transition from one tyrant to another, or from one plunderer to another. Thus, as wide as the space for today’s joy may be, it can be equally temporary if the people do not truly move from the margins of history to its center by actually assuming power”.

The two excerpts above are from the statement issued by the People’s Will Party on the day Assad fell—8 December 2024. Today, a full year since Assad’s escape, the major events that filled this year on various levels reaffirm the truth of those words: what has fallen so far is the ruling authority, and Syrians still face the task of building a new regime, lifting the Syrian economy and the Syrian people from below the poverty line. Indeed, additional existential tasks have emerged: restoring the country’s full geographic, political, and demographic unity; preserving civil peace; rejecting the comprehensive sectarian destruction of the country’s resources, people, spirit, and history; and putting an end to the various forms of foreign intervention—foremost among them the Zionist assaults in all its forms, military, political, and media—which have gone as far as openly declaring the goal of partitioning Syria along sectarian, religious, and ethnic lines.

Before us also lies the task of building a national army that protects all Syrians regardless of any other affiliation, and that remains politically neutral.

The various events that unfolded throughout this year—from the coast to Sweida, to the National Dialogue Conference, the Constitutional Declaration, the People’s Assembly “elections”, and finally the issuance of UNSC Resolution 2799, among many others—reaffirm the following facts:

First: The Syrian crisis is still ongoing and is, in fact, growing deeper and more catastrophic on all levels.

Second: External interventions in the Syrian situation continue to increase, relying on the political division imposed on Syrians and along sectarian, religious, and ethnic fault lines, and working to fuel them.

Third: The only solution—and the only way out—has always been and remains the unification of Syrians regardless of religion, sect, or ethnicity, gathering them around a real program to rebuild their country and to determine their own destiny through genuine political participation in all fields.

Fourth: The path toward unifying Syrians has always been a comprehensive political solution achieved through realizing the core goals and principles of UNSC Resolution 2254, whose essence is the Syrian people’s right to determine their own fate through a non-sectarian transitional governing body, a permanent constitution, and free and fair elections at all levels.

Fifth: One of the most important tools for implementing this solution is a general national conference—broad and inclusive of all Syrian political and social forces, and endowed with full authority—through which Syrians can place all the major challenges facing them on the table for discussion and consensus, ultimately reaching a unifying national vision and a genuine revival of Syrian national identity, grounded in the legacy of the founding fathers, the heroes of the Great Syrian Revolt against the French colonial power.

(النسخة العربية)