Kassioun Editorial 1261: No Solution Except by Moving Beyond the “Leading Party” Mentality

Despite the importance of this atmosphere, incitement and pushing toward military confrontation are still ongoing, even if most of them take a media–political form. It is well known that the primary beneficiary of pushing toward confrontation and infighting is “Israel”, which never misses an opportunity to spill Syrian blood and never fails to seize a chance to sabotage the peace initiative in Turkey. This awareness has been reflected in statements by Turkish officials and analysts, as well as in Öcalan’s recent statements from prison, in which he considered that the escalation of tensions and clashes in Syria is aimed at undermining the peace initiative in Turkey.

Although the objective likelihood of an immediate, large-scale confrontation remains low, any state of relative stability that may emerge will be doomed to end sooner or later unless there is a transition from partial agreements to a comprehensive, nationwide agreement among Syrians, through a fully empowered, inclusive national conference.

What must be carefully examined and deeply reflected upon is that what has brought the country over decades to its current state of fragmentation, chaos, and weakness is the “leading party” mentality, which has always served as a cover for monopolizing power and wealth. Syrians have struggled against this mentality for decades, yet it has not completely disappeared, and today it is reemerging through calls to reject dialogue and resort to arms.

Reliance on weapons, coercion, and force was the primary cause of the de facto division we are still experiencing today. Continuing to rely on weapons means turning that de facto division into a permanent one, accompanied by continuous and escalating Syrian bloodshed from all sides and across all social and political components.

Today, Syrians have an opportunity to invest the fruits of their decades-long struggles by completely dismantling the “leading party” mentality once and for all, because Syria cannot be governed by a single party or a single group, regardless of which party or which group it is.

The gateway to achieving this is genuine dialogue among Syrians—dialogue within a fully empowered general national conference, where all contentious issues are placed on the table and solutions are agreed upon.

Those who stand against dialogue express their fear of a free, unified, and consensual Syrian voice emerging. When Syrians’ voices unite, they will seek their true common ground before anything else. Today, Syrians share two fundamental commonalities: first, more than 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line; second, more than 90% of Syrians have no voice in determining their destiny and no access to the kitchens of politics or the centers of decision-making. In short, the fundamental commonality among the overwhelming majority of Syrians—across all ethnicities, religions, and sects—is that they are deprived of both wealth and power. When they are given a voice at the table of a comprehensive national dialogue, they will join hands to reclaim wealth and power and to unify the country, regardless of ethnic, religious, or sectarian affiliations—affiliations that warlords turn into tools to entrench the plundering and repression of the people.

We are before an opportunity that will not come often. Let us move swiftly toward genuine dialogue through a general national conference. Otherwise, any partial solution will explode again, sooner or later—and most likely sooner—because many external actors are working to ignite such an explosion, mainly “Israel”.

(النسخة العربية)