For over a decade now, Syrian civilians have been living through a gruesome war against their own government. Once started as a peaceful uprising to a devastating civil war, Syrians are finally receiving the hope and freedom they were desperately fighting for.
The events that led to the civil war all started during President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, whose family has ruled Syria for over four-decades. Bashar al-Assad received his title as president from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who was known for being a ruthless and tough-minded leader that ruled using authoritarian practices, which would often involve brutal violence and extensive censorship. Bashar al-Assad would continue his father’s autocratic rule, followed by committing human right violations and war crimes against his own citizens.
It wasn’t until March 2011, when Syrian teenagers held a peaceful protest to call for democratic reforms that triggered the cascade of civilian upbringings. However, President Assad had the teenagers arrested and tortured. This incident sparked a movement by Syrians, demanding that the government respect their human rights and put an end to political corruption.
These anti-regime protests later spread to other major cities in Syria. The Syrian army continued to attack unarmed civilians and perform frequent executions. All this provoked an armed response by the Syrian government and later followed in the country to fully declare a civil war by mid-2012.
After 13 years of fighting, the Syrian civil war came to an abrupt end on Dec. 8, 2024 when the Assad Regime suddenly collapsed. The rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS, entered major cities, like Damascus, and seized control in 11 days. This rapid assault led Assad to resign as president and flee to Russia as the country granted him asylum in Moscow. Resulting in the end of the brutal half-century rule under the Assad family. Not only does this day mark a memorial day for all Syrians, but also symbolizes a new era of freedom and new promised beginnings.
Syrian Emad Kishi expressed that “the end of the war was a dream come true for all Syrians. No one could even dream of ending the dictatorship of Al-Assad that quickly in 11 days.”
After hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of civilians displaced, Syria is now in an era of reformation to rebuild the government to a more democratic one, which many hope will involve the voices of all communities and represent all Syrians. Even so, the biggest step the Syrian opposition must set in stone is drafting the country’s new constitution.
When asked about how Syrian’s should approach creating a new functional government, Justin Nelson, a government teacher at Troy High School, states that “the hope is that the HTS sits down and looks at creating something that resembles western democracy in some way, in the sense that they put forward a version of government that is going to actually provide for the citizens of Syria and not what they have been coming from.” He continues by stating that, “if they can create a constitution that has opinions from the actual people of Syria, then I think that’s going to go a long way towards getting them viewed by other countries as a legitimate government that can rule fairly.”
It is estimated that the new constitution will take up to three to four years to draft and for the country to officially hold any democratic elections. However, in the meantime, the Syrian opposition established a transitional government that will govern until a new constitution is approved. Ahmed al-Sharaa will take place as Syria’s president during the transitional period. As of now, Sharaa has temporarily formed a legislative council, and had rebel groups agree to being dissolved and merged into state institutions.
Even though Syria is in a state of reconstruction, it’s still in a state of poverty. With a large amount of its territories being shared by other foreign powers and the majority of its citizens dealing with the aftermath of the war after being deprived of basic human necessities.
Kishi explains the hardships his family in Syria had to go through, “They lived through the struggle and managed to survive for almost 14 years of war and fear.” He continued by stating, “They used to have electricity for about one hour a day and everything was super expensive with very limited access to basic needs of life and medicine.”
Likewise, The UN Refugee Agency declared that “Syria is currently the world’s largest refugee crisis.” With more than 14 million Syrians being displaced due to the war forcing them to flee or their homes turning into rubble. Which results in more than 70 percent of the population in the need for humanitarian aid and most of its civilians being below the poverty line.
Syria still has a long way to go, but their next big steps are to continue their reconstruction efforts, which will include dealing with their humanitarian crisis, faltering economy, territorial conflicts and rebuilding their government from the bottom-up.
Nonetheless, many Syrians are still optimistic about the rebuilding of their country and finally being free from the Assad Regime. Kishi expresses that “the date and time of Syria liberation on 12/8/2024 at 6:18 was the new chapter and prosperity for all Syrians. This event gave us again the hope and the opportunity to build our new country for all Syrian citizens.”
