Syria’s Independence Day

While tens of thousands of suffering Syrians filled an extensive network of prisons, Bashar Al-Assad filled his multiple palatial residences in Damascus with luxury cars, lots of them. As Syrian citizens stumbled through the abandoned palace yesterday, they discovered a garage full of extravagant vehicles, with one Ferrari F50 alone priced at more than 4 million dollars.

The triumph of a people-led revolution in Syria over this regime’s brutal rule is a moment not to be missed, including for my neighbor who hadn’t heard of anything happening yesterday “because I don’t read the news.”

While much attention has gone to the unpredictable future still ahead for the country, there are potent early signs that the exhilaration of the Syrian people on display won’t be yet another disappointment.

‘A priceless, historic moment’

The joy in videos and interviews has been palpable. “Thank God, we’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” a younger man, Mohammad Sabahi, told CNN, “and we’re all coming out on the street. This is the happiest day for us. We were afraid to go out at night. We’ve been waiting for this.”

“Feelings that can’t be described. It’s been 50 years since we suffered injustice, crime and oppression” shared an older man, Ahmad Shrabi. “This is a priceless moment, an historic moment.”

Mohammad Bakir, 42, is a rebel fighter who has not heard from his mother and brother since 2012 when they disappeared while protesting the government. “Seizing the city is a joy — we are joyous,” he told a New York Times reporter, before adding, “but the real victory will be when I find my family.”

“The ripple effect of this is just going to be remarkable,” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said on Fox Report Sunday, suggesting that the dictatorship’s fall could be comparable to the Berlin Wall, “which led to a ripple effect of dozens of countries becoming free after 50 years of occupation and totalitarian control.”

“What is happening in Syria is significant for the entire world,” said rebel leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani days before Damascus fell, in a sit down interview with CNN. “This event has positive repercussions globally, because under the regime’s rule Syria became a source of concern and trouble for everyone. Stabilizing Syria will bring many people back,” referring to 1.5 million people in camps.

“Soon we will reach a point where there will be no camps,” he said, describing his hope to see the Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and even in Europe coming home.

A victory stunning even the victors

The Assad regime was in power since 1971, with few suspecting that their cruel and repressive reign would end anytime soon. When the rebel coalition launched its first attack on the regime on Nov. 27, even they could hardly imagine what would happen next. After seizing 13 smaller villages, three days later they conducted a lightning-fast offensive taking control of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city on Nov. 30. They captured Hama only five days later and were soon on to the capitol.

“After the regime forces left, residents flooded the streets in celebration,” CNN reported from Syria.

Although a number of regime forces were killed, there were other reports of Syrian army soldiers peeling off uniforms, laying down weapons and abruptly refusing to fight. While much has rightly been made of the weakness of Syria’s main allies, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the actions of the Syrian people themselves shouldn’t be minimized.

When asked to explain these surprising developments, the rebel leader Jolani described the outcome as a consequence of growing unity among those fighting the regime. “In recent years there has been a unification of internal opinions and the establishment of institutional structures within the liberated areas of Syria,” he said. According to CNN, this has included new coordination between the Syrian National Army, the National Liberation Front, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led coalition of U.S.-backed ethnic fighters.

Jolani emphasized how much this unity elevated their fighting force, describing how different military factions “entered unified training camps and developed a sense of discipline. This discipline allowed them, with God’s guidance, to engage in a battle in an organized manner. The progress and execution of plans have been swift with clear communication and adherence to commands. They stop where they should stop and withdraw where they should withdraw.”

Jolani argued this was emblematic of a larger order and unity the uprising was beginning to spark across the country. “The revolution has transitioned from chaos and randomness to a state of order — both in civil and institutional matters, and military operations alike.”

Aspirations for a stable democracy

Whatever concerns Western leaders still may have with the rebel leader, his public pronouncements sound like a Syrian Founding Father in the making. “Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional, not one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions,” Jolani told CNN days before Damascus was taken, emphasizing “the most important thing is to build institutions.”

“We are not talking about rule by individuals or personal whims. It’s about institutional governance” and a “council chosen by the people,” he said.

What about minorities, many of whom fear retribution for previously cooperating with the regime? When asked that question, the rebel leader answered, “No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them.”

“There must be a legal framework that protects and ensures the rights of all. Not a system that serves only one sect, as Assad’s regime has done.” Jolani added, “People who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly. We are talking about something that aligns with the traditions and nature of the region.”

A change of heart or just ‘saying the right things’?

President Joe Biden called this last week’s sweeping military victory a “fundamental act of justice.” But with Christian groups in Syria expressing concern in recent days about their future, Biden also called on rebel groups to “demonstrate their commitment to the rights of all Syrians, to the rule of law and the protection of religious and ethnic minorities.”

U.S. intelligence agencies were also reportedly evaluating the possibility of a misleading “charm offensive” in the works — arguing for time to watch the new leadership’s behavior and future interactions with other Western governments.

CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh asked Jolani directly about his own past actions that landed him in an American prison in Iraq. “The situation must be understood in its historical context,” Jolani said. The war in Iraq “deeply stirred many people’s emotions prompting many to go there” — including him.

The rebel leader reiterated twice during the interview how his thinking has matured: “I believe everyone in life goes through phases and experiences, and these experiences naturally increase a person’s awareness. A person in their 20s will naturally have a different personality than someone in their 30s and 40s, and certainly someone in their 50s. This is human nature.”

“Given my level of awareness and my young age at the time, my actions evolved to where I am today. I didn’t go to Iraq with those intentions. I went to defend the Iraqi people. When I returned to Syria, I didn’t want to bring what happened in Iraq to Syria.”

While Jolani’s past affiliations with terror organizations aren’t in doubt, he does have a growing track record showing that his change of heart may be legitimate. That includes severing the connection between his al-Nusra Front and ISI in 2013 in an apparent effort to “distance his group from ISI’s violent tactics” according to the BBC. Three years later in 2016, Jolani likewise severed ties and has repeatedly sought distance from al-Qaeda — creating a new name: Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) to match what’s been described as a “more pragmatic approach to jihad.”

Some have reported a newfound ability of men and women in these regions to interact in public, and Christians being invited to return to their communities in recent years as churches were rebuilt. Jolani himself has been reassuring Christians and other minorities publicly they will live safely under his rule.

Yet other allegations and first-person accounts have been made of earlier repressive tactics in rebel areas previously under Jolani’s control. During the interview, he acknowledged that “there were some violations against them (minorities) by certain individuals during periods of chaos” — but insisted these “were not done under our orders or directions” and that individuals involved had been held accountable.

Awakening a once decimated hope for freedom

I will never forget the courage of the Syrian people during the Arab Spring in 2011 and 2012, which all started when some Syrian children who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall in Daraa were rounded up and tortured. In the weeks and months after, many citizens went out in the streets to protest knowing full well that if they did so, they could be shot or worse.

And they were right. During this time, Assad’s forces would regularly drop barrel bombs on protest centers — killing entire crowds of citizens as punishment for daring to call for change. They would also intentionally target hospitals and employ “double tap” strikes, with a second strike quickly following on a recent civilian target as soon as they knew rescue workers had arrived to help the victims.

For years, security forces detained tens of thousands — many of whom languished in an extensive network of 100 prisons, according to a United Nations report — and an unknown number of secret facilities.

Since 2011, the Syrian Network for Human Rights documented more than 112,000 disappearances—men, women, and children arrested arbitrarily without any legal justification. One notorious prison, Sednaya, was called a “human slaughterhouse,” with tens of thousands extrajudicially executed, starved or tortured to death. Estimates are between 470,000–610,000 violent deaths in the conflict.

In the days to come, accounts of the horrific torture endured by those still alive and emerging from prisons will be heard. The healing of the Syrian people is a long journey still to come. For now, the initial steps of healing are moving to witness. “The images of liberated Syrians are as moving as the images of Germans after the Berlin Wall came down,” Graeme Wood writes in the Atlantic.

“You are free now,” one man was heard telling prisoners leaving, including women and children. “He’s gone, Bashar al-Assad is gone, you can leave,” another man said to some who seemed to struggle believing they were genuinely free.

Ending a nightmare

“There is nothing worse than hopelessness, nothing more soul-destroying than pessimism, grief, and despair,” writes Pulitzer-prize winning, New York Times bestselling author Annie Applebaum. Rather than being cowed by the regime, Jolani and his rebel force were able to see through its bluster to the weakness at its core.

“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it — it has been effectively dead since that time,” Jolani said. “The Iranians attempted to revive the regime, buying it time, and later the Russians also tried to prop it up. But the truth remains: this regime is dead.”

Even acknowledging future uncertainties, this turn of events is being celebrated by other freedom-loving people around the world. Latter-day Saints see something divine in the pursuit of liberty, with one ancient wartime leader stating in the Book of Mormon that “the Spirit of God” was “also the spirit of freedom.”

These jubilant scenes, “the toppling of statues, the people taking selfies at the dictator’s palace,” Applebaum writes, “are the same ones that will unfold in Caracas, Tehran, or Moscow on the day the soldiers of those regimes lose their faith in the leadership, and the public loses their fear of those soldiers too.”

This turn of events in Syria embodies a “possibility of change” to the entire world, she adds — signaling to people, “The future might be different. And that possibility will inspire hope all around the world.”

“So far Syria has had 50 years of fascism and one day of its opposite,” Wood writes — expressing hope for many more bright days to come for the Syrian people.