Could this year’s Christmas season bring a glimmer of hope for the conflict-ridden Middle East? Or is the recent end to Syria’s long and brutal civil war, which has been ongoing since 2011, potentially setting the stage for new tensions and divisions?
Conflicting reports are emerging from Damascus. After the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, fighters with ties to various Islamist factions from all corners of Syria have poured into the capital, each staking their claim to different parts of the city.
At the centre of this seismic power shift stands Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant force in the rebel alliance.
The respected guerrilla commander in Syria has been actively trying to distance himself from his extremist past associated with the Islamic State. By trading his militant attire for a more formal suit, he is now positioning himself as a leader aiming to govern as a civilian rather than as a perpetual soldier.
On Tuesday, al-Shaara’s fledgling government announced a landmark agreement: anti-Assad rebel forces will disband, their fighters merging into a single unified Syrian army under a newly formed ministry of defence. A glimmer of hope for the region’s future? Perhaps.
Still, for many Syrian Christians – who make up some 2 per cent of the country’s population – this festive period brings more anxiety than celebration.
Yesterday was the first Christmas day in 50 years without Assad’s tyrannical rule and, although the new government made it a public holiday along with Muslim festivals, not all the signs are encouraging.
Earlier this week, a video spread on social media showing hooded fighters setting fire to a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama.
As a result, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus early on Tuesday to protest.
HTS quickly responded to the shocking videos, making assurances that those who torched the tree were ‘not Syrian’ and would be punished.
But the damage was done.
Syria, after all, holds a special place in Christian history. It was on the road to Damascus two thousand years ago that the Bible says that Paul was blinded by a light from heaven and became a Christian.
The country is home to the world’s most ancient Christian communities along with Israel and Palestine, and the way that non-Muslims are treated by its new leaders is a kind of litmus test for Syria’s future stability.
The country’s modern Muslim majority has a long history of living alongside Christians. They made up the country’s majority before the Arabs brought Islam with them in the 630s when they conquered Damascus as their new capital.
But the civil war polarised communities. Hardline local Muslims joined the Islamic State as a vile alternative to Assad’s dictatorship. This meant Christians like the Armenian community of Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, tended to see Assad as the ‘devil they knew’, offering a grim sense of security compared to the horrors unleashed by ISIS. Now, as the dust settles, the future of these ancient Christian enclaves – like Maaloula, where the language of Jesus, Aramaic, is still spoken – hangs precariously in the balance.
In particular, the thorny problem for Syria’s new leader will be the thousands of foreign fighters who came to Syria to fight Assad as part of a global jihad and who are thought to be behind the burning of the Christmas tree this week. These jihadis have often shown their hostility to local minorities like the Kurds or Yazidis as well as Christians.
Many of them know no other life than as professional jihadis. Unlike Syrian rebels who may be only too happy to go home and restart a civilian life, the professional jihadis can’t go home, because ‘home’ is still controlled by enemy regimes like Russia or China.
Maybe these jihadis will settle down in the new Syria, but they could form a well-armed opposition to the new government.
Al-Shaara has a difficult job on his hands. At the same time as displaying that he is willing to share power – and even renounce it if he loses elections – he needs to rein in his former comrades-in-arms and stop jihadi vigilantes terrorising minorities.
That will be the real test of change for Syria.
- Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford
