Sharaa said Syria needed to rebuild its legal system and would have to hold a comprehensive population census to run legitimate elections.
A country with infrastructure torn up by war and people displaced from their homes. Sounds like a legitimate reason, but we’ll see how things play out.
Weirdly enough, the Islamist formerly-labelled-as-terrorist militant leader is making quite a lot of sensible moves and well thought out public statements. Maybe it’s illogical, but I’m getting somewhat hopeful about Syria’s future.
Oh yeah absolutely. I think it’s just hard for people to remember, but dictatorships used to transition to democracies all the time.
I do wonder, though, if it has happened to a country with so many foreign actors involved.
Chile
The life of the Prophet Mohammed sas. is a great example of statecraft, going from a persecuted outcast in his own city to challenging the Roman and Persian empire within two decades. People saying Islam would not or should not be political are missing the key notions about how social and religious values are deeply integrated with politics.
The same holds true for Jesus, who challenged the corruption of politics and religion in his time and Moses, who is the O.G. insurrectionist liberator. Also Moses is the most mentioned prophet in the holy Quran.
All Abrahamic religions are inherently political.
One could also argue that all politics are inherently religious, creating false objects of worship, like money and the individual, glorified dictators or a twisted understanding of collectives.
I for one am glad Jesus is kept the fuck out of my government.
Imagine people took the message of Jesus serious to stop hoarding wealth and give to the poor. Truly a scary prospect. What comes next? Treating the sick without charging them?
Afghanistan: “First time?”
Not really analogous, I think? The Taliban are and continue to be wackos, and the US-supported government in between the Taliban regimes was always obviously made up of incompetent crooks and grifters.
It is a little bit similar in that the Taliban also said that they were going to be more moderate. That didn’t last very long though.
Fair enough. I think the “Taliban are moderating” narrative was also helped by the fact that the Taliban were being compared against fricking ISIS.
Best case scenario: These peeps get a modern government vastly superior to our slavemaster system.
Worst case scenario: See Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, and every other place that imperialism has constantly attacked.
Honestly, for a bit, it’s probably best they rely on a more tribal mentality before they decide how to centralize power.
The DAANES model is the best hope for a new world, i hope they are listened to
I did a cursory web search for DAANES and came up with nothing. What do you mean by it?
That surprises me, as I just tried the same and came up with it instantly, anyway it’s commonly referred to as “Rojava” and it stands for “Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria”, a de-facto autonomous regione in northeastern Syria.
Basically it’s many self governing sub regions of Syria, governing themselves following the political model of Democratic Confederalism.
https://rojavainformationcenter.org/background/key-facts/
A video from anthropologist David graeber talking about his experience in rojava: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqfoJvD0Ifg
Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria
Forgotten Fronts: Making a case for DAANES governance
(I just read about this now too so no strong opinion.)
Time to fund a dictatorship to topple the dictatorship you funded to topple a dictatorship you funded to topple the dictatorship you funded to topple a dictatorship you funded to topple a dictatorship you funded to topple a dictatorship you funded to topple a dictatorship you funded to topple a dictatorship you funded
Who is funding HTS?
Oh look at that, the West toppling a dictator and replacing it with something that’s somehow worse. Those elections are never happening and the civil war will continue. It’s Libya all over again.
They have a legitimate point. It’s not possible, or even feasible to run elections without a functional legal system, a census, and even laying the ground work of the government that is supposed to be there. Give them time before letting the doom settle in.
To add to your point, it’s worth noting that about half of all Syrians in the world live outside of Syria, and many of those will be returning home over the next few years, so even demographically speaking it’s impossible to create a parliament in the current stage.
I mean, it’s kinda early to say that elections are never happening when the previous government has only just fallen.
We’ll see in 4 years then if the strategy of giving the most extreme groups money and weapons will have a different result this time. If only there were past examples we could learn from.
something that’s somehow worse
That’s a very big claim. It’d take more than just a dictatorship to be worse than Ba’thist rule.
If a country has to live under a dictatorship anyway, I will definitely prefer the dictator in power being toppled even every month, rather than a single dictator being able to consolidate their power and terror.
This logic only checks out when you have a malevolent dictator in charge (which Assad was). A benevolent or neutral (in the sense that they’ll generally do their job as a ruler) dictator is better than absolute chaos, which is why people like Putin and Xi Jinping are loved by their peoples (as much as we don’t like to admit it, it’s true; they’re both popular in their respective countries). Democracy is nice to have, but people will take a dictator who’ll keep a roof over their heads over a weak or nonexistent government 10 times out of 10.
What western country helped HTS defeat Assad?
Basically all of the major players.
Quite a variety of imperial forces: USA, Turkey, Zios, etc.
Running free elections are hard, especially when a lot of foreign countries have a lot to gain from rigging it (primarily Iran and russia). They need some time.
Gotta be brainwashed AF to think russia/iran have more at stake or more to rig than usa/turkey/zionists. Who would even say such a silly thing? Two sides of the exact same coin.
sigh Fucking Russia ruining everything.
—Democracy doesn’t work!
—Yes it does.
breaks the democracy
—See? Democracy doesn’t work.
Really, those two empires can’t fail soon enough.
