Kassioun has documented more than 250 protest actions—sit-ins, strikes, demonstrations, and others—over the past three months. These took place in nearly all Syrian governorates and were overwhelmingly driven by socioeconomic demands directly connected to Syrians’ living conditions and the hardships they face.

The visit by UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, to Syria, which began on Saturday, 25 July 2026, carries particular significance in terms of both its timing and its implications.

With the first session of the new “People’s Assembly” now convened, it has become both urgent and necessary to start thinking about the next People’s Assembly: its actual role and functions, and the legal and political environment within which it will be elected. That environment will determine, to a large extent, its ability to carry out those roles and responsibilities.

Some are attempting to downplay what has taken place over the past two weeks, whether regarding the bombings, the gasoline crisis, or the many other scattered economic, security, and political incidents.

“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: