Heal the wounded memory

A few days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, or his “evacuation” by Moscow, the diplomatic and economic war has begun (hoping that it will stop there), to reshape Syria. As in 2011, the United States is once again trying to lead the process. Washington aims at a Syria faithful to the “American order”, which in recent decades has turned out to be, and not only in Syria, more of a “disorder”.

The Turkish government has not limited itself to programmatic declarationsand, already on December 12, 2024, it sent the head of the secret services, İbrahim Kalın, to Damascus to meet the leadership of the Syrian provisional government. Everyone more or less agrees in underlining what they would not like to see in the future of Syria: from a new jihadist escalation to an excessive strengthening of the Kurds. Few, however, seem to really underline that it is absolutely essential to promote the self-determination of the Syrian people, after years of tears and blood. The decision to support the transition period and the reconstruction process has given legitimacy to the provisional government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (hts), a material actor of the Syrian turning point, unanimously considered a terrorist group.

But it is now a constant in international politics to easily grant the title of terrorist to those who are wrong to oppose the hegemonic forces in the field. While those who have always appropriated the exclusivity of the arduous defense of democracy, at home and in that of others, is often distinguished by military actions that to define as terrorist seems almost reductive. The pragmatism of Al Jolani, head of the HTS, is more of a necessity than a real choice. It is a question of removing the HTS from the lists of terrorist organizations and guaranteeing its international legitimacy, revoking the Caesar Act (which provides for the continuation of sanctions on supporters of the Syrian regime, effectively undermining the process of reconstruction of the country) and allowing humanitarian aid. In this uncertain phase of transition, minorities in general, and Christians in particular, are called to a turning point, highlighted with authority, a few weeks ago, by the Maronite Patriarch Beshara Raï.

If the Assads, father and son, belonging to the Alawite minority, have governed Syria with an iron fist for 53 years, in the name of an alliance of minorities, exploited to demonize Sunni Islam, the majority in Syria, and leading, in particular, to the repression of a revolt of the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama (February 1982), during which tens of thousands of Syrians were massacred, the other minorities (Christians first), convinced that they were serving their survival, have long remained silent about crimes of which they knew the existence, making themselves implicitly complicit. In this regard, and for the first time in public, the Maronite Archbishop of Damascus, Mgr. Samir Nassar, made a self-criticism on the behavior of the Churches present in Syria. In a world in which everyone controlled everyone and denunciation was an instrument of power, even quite a few faithful and members of the clergy have handed over brothers and sisters of their communities into the hands of the executioners. These are wounds that will take a long time to heal.

Mgr. Jacques Mourad, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Homs, Hama and Dabek, a senior member of the community of Mar Musa, founded by the Jesuit Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, speaks of a “revolution of the gaze”, a liberation based on the healing of wounded memory. In the perspective of a longed-for new Syria, Mgr. Jacques, underlines the need to become positive and collaborative actors, to take on responsibilities not so much as members of religious communities but in the name of inclusive citizenship in the defense of a non-discriminatory democratic system. On the subject of justice, the prelate does not mince his words: «We have fought against injustice but not so that sharia can replace the Palace of Justice».


NP January '25
Claudio Monge