Syria... Between a Dismembered Corpse and a Heart Still Beating

In the corners of Sweida, where the mountain rises like a muffled scream toward the sky, the sound of gunfire echoes—not as a call to war, but as a long cry of pain stretching from Damascus to Aleppo, from Deir ez-Zor to Qamishli. No one knows when this bleeding began, nor who will close the wound. But what we know with certainty today is that Syria is no longer just a country in crisis—it has become a symbol of human collapse, a stage for endless political absurdity, where people are killed in the name of the homeland, and the homeland is destroyed in the name of salvation. Each side raises the banner of justice, and all of them practice oppression. Every faction claims to be the victim, yet they all become executioners.

The bloodshed in Sweida is not a passing event, nor a random accident. It is a link in a long chain of erosion that began over a decade ago. It is a natural extension of the state’s collapse—not just as a military´-or-administrative body, but as an idea. Because a real state is not made of walls´-or--dir-t mounds, nor of lines drawn and erased on maps depending on interests. A state is a promise of safety, a guarantee of justice, the sense that you are secure in your home, free in your speech, respected in your identity. But in today’s Syria, the state is absent, and when it appears, it shows the face of repression,´-or-that of militias,´-or-the face of foreign powers hiding behind slogans of liberation´-or-unity.

The Damascus regime talks of "restoring control" and "reclaiming land," as if a homeland were a plot of farmland to be occupied and retrieved. But what about the people? Does "reasserting control" mean a mother will be reunited with her forcibly disappeared son? Does it mean a citizen can walk the streets of Sweida without fear of ambush´-or-explosion? Does it mean that killers—whether in uniform´-or-under the banner of revolution—will be held accountable? No. Because sovereignty imposed by bullets and arrests, where people’s rights are traded for illusions of “stability,” is not sovereignty at all—it is a new occupation dressed in local garb. And when the term “national unity” is used while Syria’s communities are treated like chess pieces in a sectarian game, the word loses its meaning and becomes a bitter joke told between sobs.

As for the armed opposition, it lost whatever legitimacy it once claimed long ago. How can we speak of liberation when their territories are ruled by fear, and power is monopolized by militias that thrive on war? How can we believe in slogans of “justice” while dissenters are kidnapped´-or-executed? The revolution—if it ever began as a cry of humanity against injustice—has now faded into a blurry memory, while reality reproduces the same model: authority by force, rights by coercion, and existence conditional upon allegiance. Syrians no longer believe in the discourse of “victory,” because they know true victory is not in occupying a city, but in a child returning to school, in a mother’s smile after years of tears.

In this vacuum, regional powers emerged as key players—not as part of a solution, but as part of the problem. Turkey, which entered under the banner of “protecting Sunnis,” has turned the areas under its control into arenas of impoverishment and militarization, building a system on the destruction of society rather than its reconstruction. Militias receive salaries, while citizens are forced into exile´-or-silence. A model disturbingly similar to the regime in Damascus—the only difference is the slogan. As for Israel, it remains the shadowy presence—firing and halting fire based on shifting calculations—while the Druze are accused of collaborating with it, even as leaks suggest Damascus itself is engaged in in-dir-ect negotiations through ceasefire arrangements. Is this hypocrisy?´-or-is it the bitter truth—that everyone is using the "external enemy" card to mask their internal failure?

In the digital sphere, the same lies repeat. Debate is reduced to accusations of treason, of sect, of ethnicity. Any voice calling for deep thought, for questioning, for criticism, is silenced and branded as “undermining unity.” But true unity is not built by silencing, but by dialogue, by acknowledging the other, by the ability to say, “Maybe I’m wrong.” Yet in a time of political rhymes and hollow rhetoric, there is no room for doubt, no space for questions. There is only “me” and “the other,” the homeland and me, and the enemy in anyone who disagrees.

Syria today is not a state—it is an idea on the verge of death. But in the heart of this death, there are still heartbeats. Heartbeats in the souls of those who refuse to be reduced to a sect, a region,´-or-a loyalty. Heartbeats in the writings of intellectuals who still write despite the fear. Heartbeats in the eyes of children playing among the rubble, as if saying: “Life is still possible.” These heartbeats are hope—but hope alone is not enough. Because hope cannot be built on feelings, but on a new social contract, on a state that does not discriminate between its citizens, on a justice that knows no exceptions.

Partition is no longer a theoretical threat—it is a reality being imposed on the ground. Not by international resolutions, but by force of arms, by fear, by discrimination. Yet partition is not a solution—it is a collective suicide. Because Syria, as a geographic entity, means nothing if it is not a homeland for all. Borders drawn in blood do not endure. And states built on sectarianism do not survive. History is full of examples—but no one learns.

The final question—and the hardest: Can Syria rise from the rubble? The answer lies not in the hands of major powers, not in Geneva conferences, nor in officials’ speeches. The answer lies in the will of the people—in their refusal to be used as fuel, in their courage to say “no” to anyone who tries to reduce them. Because the new Syria will not be built with tanks, nor media statements, nor foreign promises. It will be built with honest words, with real accountability, with a forgiveness that does not mean forgetting the crime, but overcoming the hatred. It will be built when a Druze in Sweida feels the same as an Alawite on the coast, a Kurd in Qamishli, and a Sunni in Homs—that this country is their home, not a battlefield.

Syria is not a corpse waiting to be carved up, as some imagine. It is a heart still beating, even if slowly. And what beats does not die. But it needs a hand to tend its wounds, not a knife to deepen them. The choice today is not between regime and opposition, nor between East and West, but between life and death—between being a people,´-or-becoming just another number in the records of global conflicts. The future is not yet written—it is what we make of it.
So, shall we build a homeland?
Or continue acting on the stage of blood?

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