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Appeals to conscience in Damascus

A newly liberated Syria brings back activists who long relied on nonviolent tactics in hopes of building a democracy.

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Shoppers walk through the old city market in Damascus, Syria, Jan. 9.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

One predictor that a country will move to democracy after a civil war is whether activists relied on nonviolent tactics. The people of Syria, newly liberated from a violent dictator, are now trying to prove this point – that peace begets peace.

From small villages to the famed Al-Rawda café in Damascus, civil society groups that kept the cause of nonviolence alive during 14 years of conflict are now convening in peaceful public forums around the Middle East country. They invite citizens to freely discuss issues and help make a transition from the current rule by a former rebel group that liberated Syria Dec. 8.

They want the democracy they sought during the peaceful protests of the 2011 Arab Spring against the Assad regime.

Damascus has become “a large workshop,” Alma Salem, executive director of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement (SWPM), told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. last month. The public discussions vary from constitutional rights to economic priorities, she added, and represent a historic moment.

Yet many of these meetings end up providing immediate relief in basic security. Organizers have led local people to form neighborhood watch groups, clean up streets, and direct traffic. “The public sphere is open. If we don’t occupy it with our vision and with our activism, it might be closed,” a fellow SWPM member, Sabiha Khalil, told the PassBlue news outlet.

A national dialogue is promised by the caretaker government under former Islamist rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. Yet it has been slow in coming. Civil society groups, many under the umbrella organization Madaniya, hope their peaceful and inclusive forums will do what nonviolent tactics often do: present the truth, push opponents to consult their conscience, and show respect to others as equal citizens.

As two American scholars, Matthew Cebul and Rana Khoury, wrote this week in World Politics Review, “After a decade of conflict, war-weary Syrians are primed for a return to peaceful politics, and the 2011 uprising prepared the way.”

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