Let’s admit it: we’re fragmented

It is hard to watch the spectacle of Syrians tearing into one another across television screens and digital platforms. Harder still is the realisation that those who claim to defend the authorities in Damascus often behave as though the state were their private estate and a possession to be guarded against all who dare to think differently. Any dissent, even the suggestion of an alternative method or vision, is cast as treachery incarnate, to be crushed without mercy.

On the opposite flank, much of the opposition public approaches every word issued by the authorities as though it were irredeemable evil — beyond reform, beyond engagement, beyond even tactical cooperation. Between these poles, the so-called “electronic flies” — the online bot armies — find their syrup-soaked playground. They amplify every insult, inflating every minor disagreement into an existential struggle.

The inevitable result is a public sphere dominated by abuse, denunciation and calls for blood. What is conspicuously absent is any sustained discussion about Syria’s future: about how to bridge the yawning chasm between Syrians themselves.

We are left with a single, poisonous narrative. The Druze are branded traitors. The Alawites are dismissed as regime remnants. The Kurds are labelled separatists. In return, the authorities are denounced as inherently radical and abusive. There is no room for nuance. No space for the complicated truths of a wounded society.

This mutual demonisation has obliterated the middle ground. Compromise is the oxygen of political life, but it is treated as betrayal. The Syrian public sphere has been reduced to black and white. Moderate voices, those seeking workable solutions and a shared national framework, are themselves swiftly turned into fresh targets.

Consider, for instance, the recent claim by a television guest that the so-called “Tribal Army” commands nearly half a million fighters. Is this not the language of a parallel, quasi-state militia? We are now in a period in which the authorities insist on consolidating all weapons under the Ministries of Defence and Interior. If such a force truly exists at that scale, why is it not deployed against Israeli patrols that repeatedly violate Syrian sovereignty in rural Damascus, Daraa, Quneitra, the Golan and Mount Hermon? Why does its presence become visible only in domestic confrontation?

If, on the other hand, these numbers are inflated, then what purpose does such rhetoric serve except to intimidate fellow Syrians?

And if the force does exist and possesses significant weaponry, then other questions follow. Where did these arms come from? Who authorised their distribution? Who controls them? A state that seeks to monopolise violence cannot simultaneously tolerate the public celebration of surplus armed power.

In either case, the political message is corrosive. It normalises the idea that entire communities — Druze, Alawites, Kurds, even dissenting Sunnis — can be framed as internal enemies against whom force may be mobilised.

Has the leadership in Damascus paused to consider that when media figures aligned with it indulge in such language, they hand Syria’s enemies their most precious gift? Nothing serves the agenda of instability more effectively than rhetoric that forecloses national reconciliation. Nothing fractures the national spirit more decisively than the constant excavation of past conflicts at the expense of future projects.

The media landscape, fractured as it is, remains relatively open. It can still host those who search for middle ground. It can still provide a platform for advocates of a new social contract that recognises the other, seeks common ground and accepts collective responsibility. There is still time to privilege those who wield tools of reconstruction rather than demolition.

The first step is honesty. Syria is divided — geographically, politically and, most perilously, socially. To pretend otherwise is folly.

It is understandable that many in Suwayda, among the Druze, fear the authorities in Damascus. It is equally understandable that many Alawites along the coast carry deep feelings of grievance and anxiety about their identity. Kurds have little reason to welcome being described as “rogue groups”. Supporters of the authorities, for their part, harbour their own collective memories of violence — of barrel bombs and rockets, of torture in Sednaya, of the disappeared, of the hundreds of thousands killed, missing, or displaced from ruined cities.

Such fragmentation is not wholly surprising. Three factors have driven it. First, Syria’s rich national and religious diversity was not in itself a source of conflict; it was weaponised by the former regime, which pitted communities against one another. We continue to pay the price. Second, the absence of a unifying national narrative and a coherent military doctrine perpetuates mistrust. Third, there has been no serious roundtable — no sustained acknowledgment that Syria suffers from a political problem requiring a political solution. The management of diversity, the reckoning with historical grievances and future fears — all demand recognition.

We are divided. We are fragmented. We are estranged from one another. The sun cannot be hidden with a sieve. Nor can Syria’s present condition be obscured by slogans. Admitting our fragmentation is the indispensable beginning of repair.