To understand al-Sharaa's Syria, listen to the haunted echoes of the Arab Spring

Five months after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, progress towards democracy in Syria appears disappointing.

After Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the now-dissolved Islamist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, became interim leader of Syria following the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad last December, he promised inclusive government but gave little assurance that Syria would become a democracy, instead saying it could take up to four years for elections to be held.

Since then, a national dialogue conference has been held amid complaints that it was only a procedural exercise with little effect, and a new constitutional document, in force for the next five years, has been criticised by human rights groups for giving the president powers without safeguards, including the power to appoint legislators and judges.

Last month, forces affiliated with the former Assad regime launched an uprising in the Alawi-majority coastal area. The violence began with the killing of scores of members of the new government’s security forces.

Militias loosely affiliated with the government then entered the coastal area and massacred hundreds of Alawi civilians. While Sharaa’s government has vowed to investigate the massacres and bring perpetrators to justice, sporadic killings still continue in Alawi-majority areas.

However, Syria’s lack of progress towards democracy, and its failure to contain sectarianism and sectarian violence cannot be considered in isolation from the history of the wider Arab region over the past 14 years, in particular the suppression of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Under his pseudonym Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, Ahmed Al-Sharaa presided over an administration in rebel-held Idlib province widely criticised by Syrians for its authoritarianism, hardline Islamism, and suppression of civilian opposition activists.

The Syrian president has worked hard to shed his previous image as an extreme Islamist warlord, and present a more moderate face both to Syrians and to the wider world.

However, one very grim lesson from the Arab Spring is unlikely to have escaped al-Sharaa. His unexpected victory over Assad came almost 14 years after the first protests broke out against authoritarianism in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries including of course Syria.

While Assad remained in power in Syria through sheer brutality and the support of foreign nations, as a result of the overthrow of dictators in other Arab Spring countries, Islamists were able, for a relatively brief period of time, to participate in the political process.  

The grim lessons of the Arab Spring

The Islamists who won democratic elections in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011 and 2012 were far more moderate than al-Sharaa, who at the time was considered a shadowy fringe extremist, still associated with Al-Qaeda.

In Egypt, after Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi won presidential elections, secular and ostensibly liberal Egyptians found common cause with the army to oust him a year later, celebrating a 2013 coup which was backed by the UAE and other Gulf states and ended up returning Egypt to dictatorship – a much fiercer dictatorship than the one which existed under Mubarak before 2011.

Observers at the time noted the “illiberality” of Egypt’s self-proclaimed liberals and how they would use dehumanising language about their Muslim Brotherhood opponents, justifying and celebrating massacres such as the one at Rabaa Square.

In Tunisia, the Islamist Ennahda party which won the country’s 2011 parliamentary elections, adopted an almost exceptionally moderate and conciliatory course, initially forming a coalition government with secular parties and later abandoning its Islamic preaching activities in order to reconstruct itself as a “pure” political party.

For a decade, from 2011 to 2021, Ennahda took part in the democratic process and Tunisia was seen as the only success story of the Arab Spring, establishing what initially looked like stable democratic institutions. However, President Kais Saied showed how easy it was to destroy these after his 2021 power grab, which was once again backed by the UAE. Today Ennahda’s leaders are languishing in jails, like their Muslim Brotherhood counterparts in Egypt.

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If anything, the overthrow of Assad came much too late. Over 500,000 Syrians have been killed and the destruction caused by the war will take decades to repair.

By late 2024, authoritarianism appeared firmly entrenched in the Arab world. Assad had been rehabilitated by the Arab League and it looked like he would stay in power for decades.

Outside Syria, everything which once looked like an Arab Spring “success story” is now either a dictatorship or a conflict zone. All of this is itself now overshadowed by Israel’s increasing dominance in the region – its destruction of Gaza and its weakening of Assad’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Arab Spring had failed in countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, where the population was relatively homogenous ethnically and religiously, at least compared to Syria.

Syria’s ethnic and religious heterogeneity and the way this exacerbated its brutal conflict, with the Assad regime having its support base in the Alawi minority and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces controlling most of northeastern Syria, means that there is a real risk of partition and prolonged conflict along sectarian and ethnic lines.

There's still hope for a new Syria

Israel has made no secret of its desire to divide Syria along such lines and ever since the fall of the regime, tried to ensure that Syria remains weak and unstable. Not only has it occupied land near the Golan Heights and launched airstrikes targeting what’s left of the Assad regime’s mostly outdated military arsenal, it has demanded the “demilitarisation” of southern Syria and positioned itself as a “protector” of Syria’s Druze minority.

All this may seem to paint a depressing picture, of a broken country in a hostile environment full of examples of democracy failing, menaced by a ruthless and much powerful enemy and with an ever-present threat of sectarian violence and division.

However, there is still much to be optimistic about. While Syria is not yet a democracy, Syrians are probably much more free than they have been in years, with far more ability to criticise the authorities than they would have dreamed of under the Assad regime.

Before the regime fell, Al-Sharaa had already loosened religious-based restrictions in Idlib province, and does not appear to have imposed any in the rest of Syria, with no limitations on women’s employment or dress and alcohol still available.

A recent opinion poll commissioned for The Economist found that he enjoyed widespread popularity, with an over 80% approval rating. The 1,500 Syrians polled said they felt that their country was safer, more free, and less sectarian than under Assad.

While Alawis were more likely to disapprove of Al-Sharaa than Sunnis, the survey found that 49% of them were still optimistic about the future. The sectarian massacres on the coast remain a cause for alarm and worry, but Sharaa did make a point of reaching out to and reassuring religious minorities shortly after he took power in Syria.

While it could be argued that Sharaa’s high approval rating is due partly to the nightmarish state in which Assad left Syria in, it appears that Syrians are at least partially justified in their optimism, at least on the political front, with more spaces opening up for activism, civil society and free expression.

When the Assad regime began to crumble after the rebels launched their offensive in late November 2024, there were many fears as to what could happen if he were overthrown. These included fears of repressive Islamist rule, infighting among militias, and sectarian civil war and partition.

So far, most of these have failed to materialise, although it remains to be seen whether the al-Sharaa government is serious about preventing a repeat of last month’s sectarian massacres and there is no guarantee that the Syrian situation will not worsen in the future.

But the country’s uniquely fragile situation, the suppression of democracy in other Arab countries, and the hostile regional environment go a long way towards explaining the reluctance of Syria’s new rulers to embrace democracy and genuine reform. A coup scenario, backed by a state actor like the UAE and similar to the ones which occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, brings with it a real risk of sectarian and ethnic division and a return to civil war.

The al-Sharaa government has received a lot of criticism for its failure to move the country towards democracy, much of it justified, and much of it from secular and liberal Syrians. However they would also do well to examine what happened in other Arab Spring countries and learn from the failures there.

Amr Salahi is a senior journalist and news editor with The New Arab. He has an MSc. in Media, Power, and Public Affairs from Royal Holloway University of London. Amr has many years of experience in media, translation and research, having previously worked with the BBC, ITV News, Al-Hiwar TV, and Iraq Body Count.

Follow Amr on X: @Amr_Salahi

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.