After the fall of the Assad regime, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Islamist-led rebels, faces the daunting task of uniting a deeply divided Syria. Can he overcome religious and ethnic tensions to establish peace and democracy, or will radicalism resurface?
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rise promises peace, but can he overcome Syria’s deep divisions and lead to democracy, or will radicalism prevail once again? A woman crosses into to Syria from Turkey through the Kassab crossing on December 27, 2024. – Islam ist-led rebels took Damascus in a lightning offensive on December 8, sending president Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria.
(Photo by AAREF WATAD / AFP) They’re still celebrating the miraculous fall of the Assad regime in Damascus and the killing has stopped in Syria, except for parts of the north, east and south. So, what are the odds that the man whose fighters brought down the regime, Ahmed alSharaa, can bring peace, prosperity and even democracy to Syria?He is still listed as a terrorist, which he is not, or at least not any more – but as an Islamist he would normally reject modern forms of Islam that permit abominations like democracy and equal rights for women.Sharaa is Sunni himself, but most of them would see his Islamist doctrines as extreme. And he really frightens the 30% of Syrians who belong to various religious minorities: Alawites, Ismailis, mainstream Shia Muslims, Christians and Druze. To make matters worse, one of the Muslim minorities, the Alawites, have run the country for the past 53 years under the Assad family. Now, an explicitly Islamist Sunni force called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has overthrown the Assad regime. Sharaa promises that the rights of all minorities will be respected and the new Syria will be democratic, but he would say that at this stage, wouldn’t he? One might also mention the country’s ethnic diversity (Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Druze), the fact that Syria has just been through a 13- year civil war that has left half the population refugees, either at home or abroad, and the presence of foreign troops (Turkish, Russian, Israeli and American) on its soil, all with blood on their hand
SYRIA POLITICS ISLAM DEMOCRACY CIVIL WAR
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