Opinion
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How the government is looking to absorb popular anger
As economic hardship deepens and public frustration grows, Syria’s leadership is floating the idea of a semi-presidential system. But is this genuine reform – or a way to redirect responsibility while preserving the concentration of power?
08. March 2026
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Enough with empty slogans - we need a national narrative
Assad’s fall created a vacuum of national belonging. Without mutual recognition and a genuinely shared social contract between all citizens, calls for "national unity" risk worsening the problem.
06. March 2026
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What justice do we want?
In the new Syria, one question remains: what kind of justice do we want? A justice that repairs society and restores trust in the state — or a selective justice that reproduces fear and throws open the doors to revenge?
03. March 2026
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Our memory is not a Ramadan TV fad
As Ramadan dramas mine Syria’s revolution for ratings, a new series appropriates the name “Caesar” but strips it of its meaning. For those who endured detention, torture and disappearance, our memory is not seasonal content, and justice is not a script to be softened for prime time.
01. March 2026
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What I overheard at the mosque
In post-dictatorship Syria, lipstick sparks more outrage than corruption. An overheard conversation in a mosque reveals a nation trying to control its destiny by controlling what women put on their faces.
27. February 2026
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Germany’s Nuremberg trials are no blueprint for Syria
Can Germany’s post-war experience really serve as a blueprint for Syria’s transitional justice? A closer look reveals a far more complex – and violent – reality than the oft-cited Nuremberg Trials. Syria must craft its own path to justice, grounded in law, accountability, and the rights of victims.
25. February 2026
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The threat of counter-revolution is real. But so is stagnation
As Syria’s new leadership charts a post-Assad course, it faces a stark dilemma: how to protect the revolution from its enemies without suffocating the pluralism it once promised.
21. February 2026
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The Damascus book fair was a festival of freedom
Queues, Kurdish titles, Ibn Taymiyyah, prayer halls and free buses to the exhibition ground. The Damascus book fair offered a compressed portrait of a country testing its new limits of plurality and free speech.
17. February 2026
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Let’s admit it: we’re fragmented
In today’s Syria, the loudest voices trade accusations while the language of development, justice and national renewal is drowned out. Admitting that we are a fragmented society is the first step towards rescue.
14. February 2026
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How Fawwaz Haddad’s novels expose the Syrian condition
Fawwaz Haddad is a novelist who has traced the Syrian experience over the past fifty years. Long considered seditious under the former regime, his novels examine how political domination reshapes thought, culture, and moral judgment. In doing so, he has become one of the clearest literary voices of his generation.
07. February 2026