The atrocities Syrians suffered did not take place in a 14-year vacuum of civil war, spurred by the anti-government uprising that started in 2011. They spanned many decades from late Ottoman and French rule, through the reign of Hafez Al Assad and under the subsequent rule of his son, Bashar Al Assad. A transitional justice process that neglects to address these deeper, pre-2011 historical legacies of injustice risks producing \u2013 and reproducing \u2013 social and sectarian divisions that have long marked the country\u2019s\u00a0history. The historical legacies of injustice in Syria that continue to play out today have thus left a colossal task of reckoning with such a complex past.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is critical, then, that transitional justice approaches in Syria refrain from isolating periods of oppression from the broader contexts that enabled them. Historical contextualization through historical commissions, for instance, can help unpack legacies of injustice in ways that strengthen the prospects for longer-term remedy and reconciliation in Syria. Syrian and international expert historians could work together to design and implement such commissions, and the role of donors will be important in carrying them forward and sustaining them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Need for\u00a0Historical\u00a0Commissions in Syria\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Historical commissions<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0truth commissions<\/a>\u00a0share similarities, but they also have key differences. While truth commissions\u00a0can often\u00a0focus on more recent episodes of violence, historical commissions pursue a mandate that addresses a much longer history.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the main goals of\u00a0truth commissions<\/a>\u00a0is usually\u00a0to\u00a0establish\u00a0responsibility, including criminal responsibility,\u00a0for crimes of the past.\u00a0Historical commissions<\/a>, on the other hand,\u00a0focus on uncovering, building, sharing, and documenting narratives about\u00a0distant\u00a0past events and their impact on societies.\u00a0While both historical and truth commissions can capture intergenerational trauma through victim and survivor testimonies,\u00a0historical commissions<\/a>\u00a0also\u00a0play\u00a0an important role\u00a0in providing the space for\u00a0interaction between history experts and those who lived and inherited that history to help navigate the complexities of such legacies and situate them within broader contexts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As with many contexts, the\u00a0legacy of atrocities<\/a> in Syria extends back many decades. They include: mass killings and enforced disappearances such as those that the Hafez Al Assad government pursued in the 1982 Hama massacre<\/a>; socio-economic injustices as a result of\u00a0demographic engineering<\/a> dating back to the 1930s and resulting in nearly a century of related land theft grievances and social tensions that persist today; and\u00a0a\u00a0legacy of authoritarian control<\/a>\u00a0over\u00a0Syrian civil society, especially since the emergence of Ba\u2019athist emergency rule in 1963.\u00a0<\/p>\n As\u00a0Fadel Abdul Ghany, a\u00a0Syrian transitional justice expert\u00a0told me<\/a>\u00a0in 2018,\u00a0\u201cpreservation of history is a type of accountability.\u201d\u00a0This is especially critical in the Syrian context, where there is a pervasive\u00a0legacy of\u00a0politicized<\/a> and polarizing history textbooks used in its primary and secondary education systems. As a result, both state and opposition groups have weaponized education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels to serve their narratives, further exacerbating social tensions and expanding the space within which power politics enforces selective memory. As Nisreen Al Sakbani and Juline Beaujouan explain<\/a>,\u00a0school curricula\u00a0went as far as to redefine Syria in various ways, including through redrawing national borders, reshaping Syrian students\u2019 identity by pushing\u00a0polarizing\u00a0narratives that promote a\u00a0\u201cgood Syria\u201d versus \u201cevil opposition and their supporters,\u201d and through allowing Russian and\u00a0Turkish\u00a0influence in educational curricula reform in Syria.\u00a0<\/p>\n The rehabilitation of education through a focus on reforming revisionist history textbooks is\u00a0thus\u00a0a fundamental part of longer-term reconciliation.\u00a0Without honest\u00a0discussions and dialogue about how Syria\u2019s history has and continues to\u00a0impact\u00a0multiple communities in Syria, the risk of perpetuating divisions will remain high. One or more\u00a0historical commissions\u00a0would be uniquely well-positioned to address this, especially\u00a0if they provide\u00a0Syrians\u00a0a safe space to share their testimonies and their lived experiences in ways that help clarify intergenerational traumas and the inextricability of the past with the present.\u00a0As I explain further below, Syrian universities could eventually become spaces within which such\u00a0story-telling\u00a0would take place, but they will require internal reform and support to prevent them from becoming weapons of polarization.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0Long (Re)view of\u00a0Historical\u00a0Reckoning in Syria\u00a0<\/p>\n Without\u00a0a concerted and consistent effort to contextualize\u00a0more distant\u00a0historical events and their resulting injustices, transitional justice\u00a0practitioners\u00a0risk not seeing the forest for the trees in Syria.\u00a0Intergenerational trauma would be inadequately\u00a0addressed\u00a0and the complexities of contemporary sectarian and socio-economic strife would be severed from their structural roots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It is never too late to address deeper historical legacies that span generations.\u00a0For instance, the\u00a0hibakusha\u00a0(survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945)\u00a0continue to share testimonies and\u00a0call for accountability<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0reparations<\/a>, more than 80 years later. The\u00a0United\u00a0States<\/a> has multiple local truth and reconciliation commissions to address legacies of slavery. A 2013 people\u2019s tribunal<\/a> revealed the role of the Iranian state in a massacre and enforced disappearances that took place in 1988 (which subsequently helped inform the trial of one of the perpetrators, Hamid Nouri<\/a>, in Sweden). Tunisia\u2019s Truth and Dignity Commission addressed<\/a> crimes committed under French colonial rule in the 1950s. In South Africa, an inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol was re-opened<\/a>\u00a046 years later.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Such examples are important, as they offer a critical opportunity to address intergenerational trauma while contextualizing present experiences through visiting the past. Given the extensive historical legacies of violence and the complexities of victimization in Syria that extend far deeper than the rule of Bashar Al Assad, the establishment of historical commissions would provide an appropriate venue not only to document the broader context within which such violence occurred, but to also underscore the persistence of unaddressed pain and suffering that is carried across multiple generations. Left unaddressed, polarization \u2013 whether economic, social, racial, sectarian, or other \u2013 will mar prospects for genuine and longer-term reconciliation. \u00a0<\/p>\n Oppressive and authoritarian rule in Syria devolved into multi-layered violence stemming from sectarian, political, and socio-economic discrimination and injustices that were also fueled by legacies of patronage networks<\/a>. Transitional justice is an attempt to address these complex historical legacies, but it can also inadvertently \u2013 or intentionally, depending on the motivations of the transitional justice actors involved \u2013\u00a0exacerbate\u00a0and\/or create new divisions. While leaders can be removed, their cronies apprehended, and national commissions for transitional justice\u00a0established, deeply embedded distrust and polarization remain and, as several events in Syria have shown, can worsen\u00a0(see\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>). This is in part due to a compartmentalized approach to transitional justice that prioritizes certain\u00a0time\u00a0periods over others, leaving\u00a0vast parts\u00a0of the past unaddressed and undermining present and future attempts at reconciliation and peace building.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Understandably,\u00a0Syrian\u00a0and international transitional justice actors have focused on the urgency of seeking justice for the atrocities committed during the 14 years since the 2011 uprising and the ensuing civil\u00a0(though heavily regionalized and internationalized)\u00a0war. These calls have already seen some efforts underway to address them, such as through the establishment of Syria\u2019s\u00a0National Commission for Transitional Justice<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0National Commission for\u00a0Missing Persons<\/a>.\u00a0This is already an enormous undertaking, especially given the fragile transitional period Syria is experiencing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Much has been written about the importance of judicial and legal reform in Syria to conduct fair, transparent, and efficient prosecutions for serious international crimes such as crimes against humanity\u00a0and for strengthening the current government\u2019s approach to transitional justice more broadly\u00a0(see\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>, for example). Others have also pointed to the necessity of reparations and the role that international actors, such as\u00a0EU member states<\/a>, should play in directing funds retrieved from stolen and illicit assets to victims.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This is all important, but it is not enough.\u00a0Historical commissions\u00a0that prioritize the\u00a0more distant\u00a0periods of oppression in Syria\u2019s history can incorporate and uncover\u00a0historical\u00a0archives, produce\u00a0additional\u00a0documentation, and provide a safe space for storytelling, whether through art or oral history. Multiple historical commissions across Syria\u2019s governorates may make the process more manageable, but a national-level\u00a0historical commission\u00a0would also be important, given the thus far centralized process of transitional justice that has been led via the state. As I have argued\u00a0elsewhere<\/a>, live televised or radio broadcasts of the testimonies can engage a society\u2019s diverse communities in powerful ways that prosecutions and truth commissions focused only on the recent past cannot. Syria\u2019s long-term stability would benefit greatly from a historical commission that provides this level of access and transparency.\u00a0<\/p>\n Donors Should Direct Funds Toward Deeper Historical Reckoning in Syria\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the challenges, however,\u00a0regarding\u00a0these more historically distant episodes of atrocities is that those who drive transitional justice efforts, especially civil\u00a0society\u00a0and survivors, have limited resources to address them. Throughout my research interviews with Syrians, many point to the urgency of addressing\u00a0more recent<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ongoing<\/a>\u00a0atrocities, especially since documenting them has been significantly\u00a0facilitated\u00a0through\u00a0open source\u00a0investigations, citizen journalism, and other digital means.\u00a0As a result, these more recent episodes are better-documented and easier\u00a0to surface with fewer resources\u00a0than older violations; without more resourcing, it is\u00a0simply\u00a0harder\u00a0in many cases for Syrian civil society\u00a0to undertake the\u00a0complex\u00a0work of going further back in time.\u00a0<\/p>\n A\u00a0related\u00a0challenge is that donors focus on timebound and outcome-oriented activities as a way to demonstrate that funding generates short-term results.\u00a0A reckoning with\u00a0deeper pasts takes longer and is a concerted effort that is different from addressing more recent\u00a0or even\u00a0ongoing crimes. It requires engagement with historians\u00a0of Syria, archives,\u00a0oral history,\u00a0the\u00a0elderly\u00a0and their successors.\u00a0Donor programs should evolve to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0this.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n While the final outcome of such\u00a0historical commissions\u00a0could\u00a0emerge in different forms\u00a0such as multi-volume reports\u00a0that\u00a0are\u00a0made publicly accessible, audio-visual live testimonies, or memorialization, what remains important is the impact of such outcomes on generating society-level dialogues that unfold in safe spaces and avoid inflaming divisions further. This is much easier said than done, but one place to start is through careful\u00a0selection\u00a0of venues, such as Syrian\u00a0universities<\/a>\u00a0or similar academic institutions where such dialogue is (or at least should be) encouraged and protected. Donors could then, to an extent, mitigate the fallout from having to navigate the\u00a0difficult task\u00a0of\u00a0avoiding\u00a0the politicization of\u00a0funding of\u00a0certain entities over others.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Historical commissions and donor involvement are not risk-free, as they can be selective and politicized. As with any other transitional justice mechanism, such as prosecutions, truth commissions, and memorialization, expectations of inclusivity must be managed in ways that acknowledge the limits of capital: resources and capacity. A fraught process of institutional reform can also present significant challenges to a meaningful reckoning with the recent and more distant past. Donors often articulate conflict mediation and resolution as key objectives. To fulfill such goals, they should prioritize longer-term investments in historical commissions as a way to help cultivate a culture of acknowledgement of multiple narratives and truths. Such a deeper historical reckoning must not be managed solely by the central authorities and instead make use of university and other academic venues as ideal spaces for learning, unlearning, and relearning how Syria\u2019s deeper history shapes its present and future. Without this, Syria risks perpetuating societal distrust, polarization, and anger that could extend to the transitional justice process itself.<\/p>\n FEATURED IMAGE: Defaced portraits of Syria’s ousted president Bashar al-Assad (L) and his late father Hafez al-Assad (C) hang on a wall in the capital Damascus on June 2, 2025. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA \/ AFP) (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The atrocities Syrians suffered did not take place in a 14-year vacuum of civil war, spurred by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[37874,1613,9287,19849,49,57421,95,6101],"class_list":["post-192892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-atrocity-prevention-atrocities-prevention","tag-bashar-al-assad","tag-civil-war","tag-civilian-harm","tag-middle-east","tag-peacebuilding","tag-syria","tag-transitional-justice"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116873893174103730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}