Syria's Revolution Has Betrayed Its Promise

On December 8, Syria appeared to turn a page on dictatorship. After 14 years of brutality under former president Bashar al-Assad, the country ostensibly stood at the threshold of liberty. But liberty, as it turns out, is a fragile thing—its promise now eroded by bloodshed and betrayal. As the dust settles, Syria’s new chapter seems indistinguishable from its haunted past.

It’s difficult to write about Syria without despair, but that is the honest place from which I can write at this time. On March 7, my phone vibrated with a WhatsApp voice message. My friend’s voice on the other end was trembling and broken: “Please help us; they’re moving door to door, wiping out entire families.” She was speaking of the Alawites—my people—slaughtered along the Syrian coast as Islamist extremists, emboldened by the interim government’s failures, rampaged unopposed.

I sat there, stunned and helpless—a feeling every Syrian knows well, as if we are exiles in our own fate. Syria has a way of following you wherever you go, even beyond its borders. The pain does not dim with distance. 

My friend and her family were able to escape and hide in the woods nearby until they were able to flee to Damascus. Hundreds of others were not as lucky. 

After Assad’s fall, I dared to hope that justice, dignity, and a future worth building would follow. Yet here we are, with the new interim government presiding over massacres and disowning the consequences. Meanwhile, the bodies of the dead await burial and families mourn in silence while their neighbors dance in the streets, celebrating a stillborn agreement between the interim government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Not the Syria We Dreamed of 

The constitutional declaration of the new Syria should have marked a departure from authoritarianism but instead entrenched it further. Sharia law has been elevated from “a” source of legislation to “the” source of legislation. The president—once again—holds unchecked power, shielded from accountability. The economic unraveling has compounded the misery: tens of thousands have been laid off, hyperinflation is decimating the already meager wages, and electricity is rationed to a few pitiful hours a day. Yet, it is the security vacuum that has been most catastrophic.

Within 48 hours of the start of the massacres, more than 1,000 civilians were killed along the coast, according to local activists. It’s ethnic cleansing disguised as governance, sectarian vengeance masquerading as justice. The U.S. condemned the perpetrators as “Islamist extremist terrorists,” but within Syria, the silence from the interim government—save for a hollow promise of an investigation led by individuals with long histories of promoting jihad against minorities—was deafening.

The sectarian poison that saturates Syria’s political landscape did not begin with Assad, but the interim government has done nothing to contain it.

How Did We Get Here?

When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in 1976, he defined it as a “unit of cultural information” that, like a gene, replicates and mutates. British physicist David Deutsch builds on that but adds a crucial distinction: rational versus anti-rational memes. Rational memes or ideas invite critical inquiry and progress. Anti-rational memes, on the other hand, suppress dissent, thrive on dogma, and anchor societies in stagnation and violence.

Syria has become a breeding ground for anti-rational memes. Take, for instance, the song “I am an Arab Muslim,” which surged in popularity post-Assad. It glorifies the Umayyad Caliphate, invoking battles like Uhud, where, in a historical irony, the Umayyads themselves fought against the Prophet Muhammad. This contradiction doesn’t slow its spread; unchecked, these cultural distortions calcify into dangerous certainties.

Anti-rational memes have infected how Syrians interpret power itself. The belief that Assad’s regime was sectarian simply because of his Alawite identity ignores that Assad’s inner circle was predominantly Sunni (the largest branch of Islam). His vice president, defense minister, and intelligence chief were all Sunni. But sectarian narratives thrive because they reduce political complexity into digestible myths. Assad’s atrocities were committed by a political mafia, not an ethno-religious cabal—but try telling that to a society caught in a sectarian fever dream.

Ibn Taymiyya, a medieval Islamic theologian, wrote fatwas—Islamic legal rulings—that continue stoking violence against minorities. His medieval rhetoric, lionized by modern extremists, provides the moral scaffolding for today’s massacres. Syrians have inherited a narrative that sanctifies vengeance and martyrdom, not reason and reconciliation.

In Syria’s fractured society, collectivism reigns. Sectarianism, tribalism, nationalism—even vestiges of communism—all drown out the individual in favor of the herd. So when violence erupts, it’s never just an individual crime; it’s framed as “us vs. them” and given collective punishment.

For the Alawites, this means inherited blame for Assad’s crimes, regardless of individual culpability. We are trapped in a sinister irony: vilified as Assad’s protectors while suffering under his rule. Stories like that of Suleiman al-Assad—Bashar’s cousin who killed an Alawite army officer over a traffic dispute and walked free—continue to haunt us. Latakia (a city with an Alawite majority) became a symbol of untouchable privilege and unchecked violence under Assad. Now, it is a charnel house under Syria’s so-called liberation.

When Does the Cycle Break?

I grew up knowing the Assad family’s grip, yet I never imagined that the fall of one tyranny would birth another.

I have read F.A. Hayek, John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand. Yet none could prepare me for the sight of neighbors celebrating while bodies lay unburied, or for the helplessness I felt when hearing my friend’s voice plead for lives that no theory could save.

Even now, I find myself clinging to deontological values—the belief that life, liberty, and property are intrinsically sacred. Yes, they enable prosperity, but beyond pragmatism, they form the moral bedrock of any society worth living in.

Syria’s revolution began as a cry for those very principles. Yet here we stand, facing a new authoritarianism wrapped in the banners of freedom. The triumph against Assad is hollow if it births a state where massacres go unpunished and sectarian myths guide the hand of power.

The Syrian interim government stands at a precipice. Without swift and decisive moves toward the rule of law, pluralism, and human rights, the promise of a free Syria will remain a mirage. If they can not—or will not—deliver justice, if they allow extremists to shape Syria’s future, then we must ask: Have we traded one tyrant for many?

Liberty may be priceless, but Syria is learning that the absence of tyranny is not the same as freedom.

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Source: https://reason.com/2025/03/25/syrias-revolution-has-betrayed-its-promise/