George Banna, Maha Al-Bitar:

      Going back to history and its revolutions, we find several types of revolutions and we also find several types of regimes that people revolted against, We find less violent regimes and others that were more violent, In general, it is noticeable that revolutions against regimes that use subjugation, coercion, and violence are coupled with the practice of counter-violence, which in some cases was parallel to the violence of the authorities, and in others was more severe than the violence of the authorities.

     Given the violence of the regime in Syria, it was expected that the Syrian revolution of 2011 would also relapse into the method of violence, and there is no objection to that!! Because the Assad regime, which practices violence, only understands the language of violence, The regime has eliminated all possibilities for a normal life through its seventeen security apparatuses at least, and thus the regime has controlled the public sphere economically, politically, militarily and socially, and seized everything material and moral, To finance its mercenaries, it has recruited corruption, Captagon and other things, Corruption has eaten everything ,, In general, we believe that it was impossible for the revolution to remain in the form of peaceful demonstrations, and its transformation into militarism and violence was inevitable and necessary, in harmony with necessity and with the possible development in this case, It can be said that people’s revolutions are in many cases like their rulers, one violence paralleling another violence!

   There is no logic to violence when unjust regimes are able to comprehend and understand their own crisis, and are able to comprehend and understand the aspirations of the people, However, the Assad regime saw, based on several falsified referendums that resulted in 99% and in some cases 100% support for the Assad regime, that with these percentages there is no opposition, that is, the regime is free of , defects that require the presence of an opposition, Therefore, this blind regime did not comprehend the aspirations of the people, their protests and demonstrations, and considered them acts of rioting motivated by a vile conspiracy that mobilized its agents from among the traitors within to undermine a progressive regime that will create a modern Syria… Syria of Assad… Syria of resistance and steadfastness… Syria of the great people who stand behind their leadership, sacrificing everything   for it and for the path of progress, modernization and construction that was started by the immortal leader and continued by the leader forever, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, A regime that is so rigid does not understand the language of demonstration because it sees no reason for demonstrations, and those who came after Assad were like Assad, or even worse.

     The 2011 revolution began, months after its outbreak, especially after 2012, with a regression towards violence, Here, the Free Army was established, composed of defected soldiers, This army was welcomed and accepted by many parties abroad and supported at home, The Free Army succeeded in many confrontations with Assad’s battalions, Everything went well until the jihadist armed factions appeared as a competitor and enemy, The factions did not want what the 2011 revolution wanted and what the Free Army wanted, The factions did not want Assad’s rule either, which some thought was days or months away from falling, Therefore, the jihadist factions rushed to eliminate the expected authority, i.e. the Free Army’s authority, after the fall of Assad’s rule, The factions got what they wanted, and the Free Army was almost eliminated. Military action against Assad’s rule was monopolized by the jihadist factions, which proved through their practices, ideas, and slogans that they were not only similar to the Assad regime, but worse than Assad’s rule in all respects, This led to a change in positions, especially external ones, At first, the priority was to eliminate the Assad regime, Around 2016, the priority shifted to eliminating the jihadist factions, Based on the view that the jihadist factions were worse than the Assad regime, the international coalition began to wage war on the factions, Thus, the Assad regime shifted from a state of defeat to a state of victory, and thus survival and a return to square one from 2011, However, those who rejected the Assad regime were logically unable to accept the jihadist factions, so many Syrians turned to the gray color, Then there are those who restored the Assad regime’s reputation because it is morally superior to the jihadist factions, especially ISIS.

      Externally, support for the forces that fought Assadism, such as the Free Army, decreased, and stopped, we think, in 2016, especially after the failure of several attempts to form a military force different from the fundamentalist jihadist factions, which only the Islamists wanted, who thought that the opportunity to seize power had come and all they had to do was eliminate the Free Army and the 2011 revolution, which was accepted internally and externally, and then eliminate the crumbling Assadism, Thus, the caliphate became very close to being achieved, but their calculations did not apply to their field calculations, and thus their jihad led, in general, to initially consolidating Assadism in power and eliminating the revolution and the Syrian dream, Despite this, Assadism finally faded in late 2024, which led to the ease of handing over power to the only armed group, which was Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was not a revolution because the conditions of the revolution did not apply to it, as it was handed over by external forces, There were several reasons, including signing an agreement with Israel in the form that Israel wanted, after Assadism refused to sign an agreement of this type with Israel, In practice, al-Julani He is not free and he does not have the right to decide.

        We do not think it is accurate to say that jihadi fundamentalism stole the revolution, Whoever steals something uses it, and whoever steals a revolution turns into a revolutionary, The fundamentalist bulls were not revolutionaries and did not turn into revolutionaries, Rather, the 2011 revolution was a real, dangerous enemy with a good reputation and a candidate to succeed the Assad regime, Therefore, fundamentalism rushed to eliminate the successor before the predecessor, They did not steal the revolution, but rather fought it and fought the Free Army as opponents more dangerous to them than the danger of the Assad regime, which resembles them, Regarding the Assad regime, their principle was competition for power, not liberating the people from the clutches of the Assad regime, They were able to prove in just a few months that when it comes to freedom, liberation, committing massacres, violence, and agreeing with Israel according to Israeli conditions, they are worse than the Assad regime by degrees. 

       Violence is inevitable in many cases, and in the Syrian case it was necessary and logical provided it was a continuation of the essence of the peaceful revolution by other means, The jihadists practiced nothing but violence, demagoguery, brutality and massacres, Intellectually, they were further from the spirit of the revolution than the Assad regime was from it, They were the complete opposite of the spirit of the revolution and the needs of the people, They were and still are the inferior, degenerate class that shattered the dreams of the Syrian people after they had come close to achieving them, after oppression reached the level of luxury and ingenuity in its practice, and corruption reached a scale unparalleled in history, and despair and lack of horizon reached a legendary form, where death merged with life, which allowed it to be said that the Syrian person is born and dies at the same moment.

          We cannot exonerate ourselves and many Syrians who turned a blind eye to the characteristics of religious fundamentalism and were dazzled by the victories of this military fundamentalism, Assad’s “neurosis  ” has taken over the minds of many Syrians, who thought that there is nothing worse than Assadism, and that eliminating Assadism was the goal regardless of the results,, Syria lost the revolution, the country lost its infrastructure, more than half of the Syrian people were displaced, and the other half went hungry, And about the killing, widowhood, orphans, dispersion, division, and internal colonization of the country and selling it to provide wages to mercenaries and militias who poured into the country from every direction, there is no shame in talking. This is what we did to Syria, which we wanted to be a homeland, but we turned it into a cemetery and ruins with an area of ​​​​185 thousand km2!

         The country has moved from the Assad trap to the even worse Golan trap, Most Syrians did not need half a century to realize the truth about Golanism, and Golanism helped them with all its baseness and decline to accelerate that realization and certainty through the massacres and the sheikhs who assumed executive supervision over all the institutions of the Syrian entity, which was not a state and did not transform into a state under the management of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and it will not transform into a state!