Syria is free – but for how long?
Happy people, dancing youths, tears of joy: Syria is free! The tyrant has been overthrown. Moscow is granting asylum to the long-standing Syrian dictator.
The images are reminiscent of the scenes in Germany 35 years ago, in the autumn of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and the citizens of the GDR celebrated their new freedom. Back then, Erich Honecker also found shelter in Moscow. The strong and terrible men behind both dictators sat and sit in Moscow then as now – how telling. Erich Honecker back then and Bashar al-Assad today were once powerful, they had hundreds of thousands of soldiers, tanks and weapons at their disposal. But they had a miserable exit. Dictators usually flee into their own insignificance. What a ‘miserable exit’! (TAZ, 11 December 2025).
Other Arab leaders fared similarly, for example Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. And most dictators in history fared similarly. How ridiculous and ‘pathetic’ the ‘power of the powerful’ can be!
What is important for the liberated people is their new freedom.
In Germany 35 years ago and in Syria now, millions of people have overcome their fear of the dictator and therefore became free. They knew and know: ‘We are the people.’ And then they were so free. Both freedoms were achieved without violence. The real lesson of these two non-violent revolutions: Overcoming fear is the condition for freedom.
Freedom is anchored in the soul of every human being.
All religious and spiritual leaders have recommended and virtually drummed into their students and followers: ‘Don’t be afraid!’ The most frequently used word of Jesus in the Bible to his followers is ‘Don’t be afraid!’ The great judge of character and depth psychologist Carl Gustav Jung knew: ‘I only know one superpower on this planet: that is the human soul.’
People who understand this connection between freedom and the soul can overcome fear and even overthrow dictators. They free themselves from the bondage of wretched tyrants and cowardly mass murderers. Unfortunately, however, history – especially the more recent history of Arabia – shows that freedom is often short-lived. And that one dictatorship follows another. This danger is also present in Syria today.
The Syrian people will only be truly free if they can safeguard their new freedom permanently and sustainably. The current liberators in Syria are Islamists, not democrats. However, the fact that they succeeded in overthrowing Assad without bloodshed and without violence, and that in the first days of their new-found power they are willing to engage in dialogue with each other and with the old government, is a democratic sign of hope for the future of the approximately 25 million people in Syria.
