The Crucial Role of Dignity in Rebuilding Syria

Syria is a country deeply fractured and militarized by well over a decade of civil war. The destruction from the war only exacerbated what were already existing religious and ethnic fissures somewhat kept under wraps by repressive authoritarianism. The current government in Damascus led by former Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has a monumental task in front of it to not only establish sustainable governance practices and keep the country from bursting apart at the seams, but also help heal a population scarred by years of physical and emotional trauma. This healing process is a necessary prerequisite for Syria to rebuild while reconciling with its past. One way to move forward is by applying a basic, yet universal human value: dignity.

Dignity refers to the inherent worth and value of every human, deserving of respect and ethical treatment. It is—or at least should be—a fundamental right. Dignity should not be dismissed as an impractical, abstract concept. It has practical applications based on real interests that can be broken down into tangible categories, such as policies pertaining to people’s personal, economic, political, and socio-cultural circumstances. And as Harvard University’s Donna Hicks, who wrote the book on the application of dignity in conflict resolution, wrote, “if indignities are not directly acknowledged and redressed, they take on an invisible energy of their own, showing up in the form of obstacles to a fair and equitable agreement.”[i]

Dignity has a crucial role to play for Syrians, perhaps because of the demonstrable lack of it at many levels of society over the past few decades as it became more aspirational than real. In the early stages of the Syrian uprising in 2011, anti-government social media labeled each Friday demonstration with a theme that resonated with the protestors. The very first one on March 18, 2011 was called “Friday of Dignity.”[ii] Indeed, many of the uprisings throughout the Arab world during the heyday of the Arab spring in 2011 were called “dignity revolutions.”[iii] Protesters first and foremost demanded justice, accountability, and an end to corruption and repression—a restoration of their personal dignity. The hope was that from this all other practices of good governance would flow in terms of economic dignity through opportunity, political dignity through legitimate representation and choice, and socio-cultural dignity by respecting diversity and heritage.

Today’s government in Syria would do well to establish an Office of Dignity. It may well be that in the wake of Ahmad Sharaa’s diplomatic onslaught since coming to power he now has more external legitimacy than internal. The outbreaks of violence in recent months, both of the vigilante kind against supporters of former president Bashar al-Assad[iv] and that which has been perpetrated against minority groups by Sunni extremists[v] amply display the challenges the current government faces. This has been marked by the recent deadly bombing of a Christian church in Damascus by a group loosely affiliated with ISIS[vi] and cut from the same cloth as HTS, and the even more recent fighting between the Druze and Sunni Bedouin and their Sunni brethren in the Syrian army.[vii] This is not surprising. For well over a decade, religious sects in Syria retreated into their sectarian fortresses amid the breakdown of the state, all the while indoctrinating their followers to loath and fear the other, which was the inevitable byproduct of civil war.

The Syrian government needs an Office of Dignity as a mechanism to restore confidence and trust in the population in a way that clearly indicates that systemic indignities will not be tolerated. It must be independent and empowered as a government department with satellite offices in provincial capitals to observe, report, and recommend concrete actions to address improprieties across the board. It cannot only be a symbolic representation that temporarily deflects domestic and international opprobrium. It needs teeth—and an ability to fill out a dignity scorecard, so to speak.

In 2021 Tim Shriver created the Dignity Index, primarily to assess the rhetoric of political candidates in the US.[viii] It contains an eight-point scale, a lower score indicating divisive language, a higher one reflecting inclusive and dignified language. The lowest score typically encompasses violent language, which, of course, can lead to violent actions. Attacks on moral character and mocking one’s background or beliefs also represent the lower end of the scale. The higher end of the scale recognizes rhetoric that promotes engagement as well as listening to and a willingness to work with all sides. A scale such as this could potentially be expanded to include actions as well as words; often the two are directly related. And an investigative body from an Office of Dignity, empowered by the Syrian government, can publicly identify abuses and indignities that can be rectified through appropriate government action that focuses more on education and rehabilitation than punishment.

A decade ago, Harvard professor William Ury and this author published an article titled “Dignity Key to Syria’s Future”[ix], arguing that, “restoring [dignity] offers an ideal that embodies active, positive processes…that can move Syrians toward a better future by focusing on a concept that is important to all Syrians.” Ury, Hicks, and this author then organized the Dignity of Syria Initiative to help implement this ideal, which was proffered to the EU and the UN. But Syria was not yet ready for this. We had hoped that Assad would focus more on reconciliation rather than securing his position by punishing the opposition—and that dignity could be a vehicle for national healing. That did not happen—but now he is gone. Perhaps in Syria, dignity is a concept whose time has finally come.