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Kassioun Editorial 1277: Like the Pupil of the Eye, We Must Protect the Syrians’ Movement
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.
The political report (in Arabic) presented at the second meeting of the Central Council of the People’s Will Party on 12 April 2026, stated that: “The level of dissatisfaction within society regarding living conditions has been steadily increasing. While this dissatisfaction reflects a certain degree of resentment, that degree has now reached a level of activity within society … leading to an increase in spontaneous demand-based protest movements”.
The report added: “The general assessment of the previous phase allows us to conclude that the overall trend will be toward an increase in this type of protest. What is important is ensuring their success in order to eliminate sectarian and regional mobilization consciously pursued by some sides, and also to block certain forces abroad that are attempting to exploit this popular discontent”.
Understanding this phenomenon objectively and scientifically is a national necessity that cannot be dispensed with, in order to engage with it positively and build upon it in ways that unite Syrians, lift injustices off them, strengthen the country, and protect it from the many dangers surrounding it.
Within this framework, the following points can be established:
First: The rising level of dissatisfaction with socioeconomic and living conditions reflects the reality that the economic measures being pursued — including privatization, lifting subsidies, undermining what remains of national production, weakening the social role of the state apparatus, and following the IMF and World Bank formulas — collectively represent a continuation and repetition of the essence of the liberal economic policies that had been implemented under Bashar al-Assad since at least 2005, and which were a major cause of the outbreak of the popular movement in 2011.
Second: The continuation of the same economic policies in substance has opened the door for Syrians to free themselves from many “political” illusions that circulated over the long past years — namely, the idea that merely changing the ruling authority means changing the regime itself. This, in turn, has opened the way for Syrians’ movement to become more deeply rooted around social justice and the lifting of grievances as their central objective.
Third: This central objective implicitly means that attempts to divide Syrians this time — whether on ethnic, sectarian, religious, or distorted political bases — will be more difficult. The Syrian people (that is, the 95% of Syrians who have been impoverished, plundered, and harmed by liberal policies) will more clearly recognize that they share common interests that unite them.
Fourth: It is also clear that the objective reality of the state apparatus, the authorities, and Syrian society today — in addition to the nature of regional and international conditions — makes it practically impossible to repeat the methods and mechanisms of suppressing popular movements that were used during the Bashar al-Assad era. This means that the objective possibilities for the people’s movement to develop peacefully, in an organized manner, and away from outside / foreign intervention are real and significant. This does not mean there will not be attempts to intimidate people, repress them, or arrest them (as occurred in some objectionable and unlawful cases), but it does mean that the capacity to carry out such measures has become incomparably narrower than before.
Fifth: It is also evident that, based on their bitter experience, people this time around will not allow anyone — internal or external — to hijack their legitimate demands. Rather, they themselves will seek to choose and shape their own leaders and representatives.
Finally:
Syrians’ movement in defense of their interests, livelihoods, and dignity is an objective and natural movement that should be encouraged and engaged with positively. It should be protected and safeguarded like the pupil of the eye, because it has the potential to become the best thing Syria has produced over many decades. It can become a solid foundation for unifying the Syrian people, fortifying Syria internally, and closing the various gaps through which outside forces penetrate. Indeed, it alone can lay the foundation for building a just, united, and strong Syria — one in which its people determine their own destiny by themselves, without any foreign interference or coercion.
