Who will reconcile with whom in Syria?

When it comes to Syria and the Syrians, everyone talks. Everyone, whether connected to the matter or not, says everything about their present situation, their past and their future. Never mind merely talking; people with no connection to the matter even pontificate. People can pass judgments about them as though they were inanimate objects, as though they were beings without a past and without a life. It is assumed that agreements between states will solve all the problems that have accumulated inside Syria over 13 years, and will make all the suffering that has been lived as if it had never been lived.

Ears that have grown accustomed to the phrases "Let the Syrians go, let there be none left, or let them stay on such and such conditions" forget that the Syrians are human beings too, that they have a past, a life, a human existence with all its appurtenances. This forgetfulness is, in a single word, "ghaflah" (heedlessness). Heedlessness toward the existence, lives and feelings of other people is also a sign of a person moving away from humanity. To a greater or lesser degree, but moving away. The most basic human familiarity is squandered through oblivion precisely where it is needed most.

It is strange, in fact, that the explanatory temperament of social science has also always been afflicted by this heedlessness, this oblivion, with regard to social actors. It pontificates from the position of theory about social actors of every kind, yet it never thinks to listen to the social actors it speaks about, or to understand them. That is why the interpretive approach in sociology, beginning with Max Weber, opened a great new path that changed the whole complexion of the field. Understanding instead of explaining. Let us not pass over it without mention.

At a time when everyone is pontificating about the Syrians and producing solutions, the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies in Istanbul brought Syrians together, let them speak, and listened to them.

The center in fact does this regularly every year. Aiming in particular to contribute to the formation of a Syrian scientific community and to encourage free academic dialogue, the center tries each year to give Syrian women and men researchers the opportunity to meet, to get to know one another, to learn about others' research and to exchange ideas on matters that concern them. On the occasion of this annual conference, different segments of the Syrians find an environment in which they can address their own circumstances with the perspective and means of social science, having reached the freedom of expression, and the freedom of research in the social sciences and humanities, that was suppressed not only during the last 13 years but in fact for sixty years.

The conference gives researchers the opportunity to present their research problems in an academic environment in which objectivity and the critical spirit come to the fore. It forms a platform for presenting and developing research in various fields of the humanities, whether in progress or completed but not yet published, including doctoral or master's theses and books being written.

At the conference, in which I also took part, the session I chaired, titled "The Syrian Revolution Between National Reconciliation and Continuity," presented the results of some surveys conducted by listening directly to the voice of the people in Syria. The sociologists Talal al-Mustafa, Mustafa al-Saghir and Fayiz al-Kantar, for example, stressed that what has happened during the 13-year process in Syria has sown serious problems not only along the axis of the problem between the regime and the people but also among different segments of the people. Therefore, when national reconciliation is mentioned, it cannot be only a reconciliation between the regime and the people, and in any case there is no open door toward such a reconciliation. What is essential in Syria is for the people to enter into a reconciliation with one another, and for this to be given a constitutional framework that will secure everyone's rights, justice, dignity and peace.

Even today in regions under the regime's control, for example in as-Suwayda, protests continue intensely despite all the regime's repression. This shows that the relative calm that has formed in the regime-controlled areas of Syria does not mean the people are content with the current situation. Under what conditions the 99 percent consent was obtained in the sham elections is probably something no one wonders about. This scene alone gives a sufficient idea of what the Syrian regime could do if left alone with its people, especially once it catches again the people who fled from death.

In fact, the moment the withdrawal of Turkish troops is mentioned as a condition for the return of the Syrians, all Syrians see that death will be waiting at the end of their road back. So, let alone the withdrawal of Turkish troops, everyone sees that for a return, more Syrian territory must be taken out of the regime's control. Because the areas controlled by Turkey are packed to the brim and promise a life to no one who would return.

Yet a large part of the Syrians in Turkey are of Aleppo origin. In that case, we should insist that a solution we voiced earlier be turned into a real proposal, a truly solution-oriented proposal that is effective and feasible for the Syrians and for all parties. That is, making Aleppo a safe zone under UN control, outside the control of the regime or Iran and Russia (even Turkey). The sole aim is to enable the people who have emigrated from Aleppo outside Syria to return and settle safely on their own rights and lands. Such a solution, to be followed over time until an outcome everyone agrees upon, would be the most reasonable and best solution in terms of Syria's territorial integrity, regional peace, and the tranquility and security of the peoples of the region.

ALL YOU REMEMBER IS YOUR COMPLICITY WITH ASSAD

In response to the reminder we made about how things came to this point in Syria, some Baathist-minded circles have tried to make some reminders to me on social media. In the name of not letting a speck of dust touch Assad, who has savagely, cruelly and brutally massacred one million of his own people without batting an eye, they are all but going to put the responsibility for what has happened in Syria on Turkey.

They remind us of the truck incident of 2014. For some reason they do not remind us that by that time Assad had already committed the great majority of his massacres and crimes against humanity. Is it because they themselves do not remember, or because they do not know, or because they themselves also deemed that genocide of the Syrian people acceptable out of a sectarian motivation?

Turkey had already made clear its side at that stage. Turkey's stance at that time was not a cause but a consequence. Won't everything they will remind me of also remind us of their own complicity in Assad's crimes against humanity? However much they play shameless, however many memory games they play, however much they hide behind leftist jargon, in every case they are simply tagged out.