March 19, 2025 -We held a Candlelight Vigil for Syria at The Melkite Cathedral in Sydney. It was a beautiful coming together of Christians and Muslims, Syrians and Australians, to grieve and to pray for our beloved Syria and her people.
Thousands of us gathered at the Sydney Town Hall on Sunday, March 16, 2025, to protest the terrible wave of violence that has been unleashed against minority groups in Syria.
This is what we feared, and the testimonies coming from thousands of mobile phone cameras reveal the full horror of the pogrom. Even so, Western governments and Western media remain silent, confirming their complicity in the nightmare that is overtaking Syria.
Credit where it’s due. Yes, more could be said and done, but compared to the appaling silence of other world leaders, Anthony Albanese’s statement in support of the suffering people of Syria shines as a beacon of hope.
The Australian Government condemns the recent horrific violence in Syria’s coastal region.
We are deeply concerned by UN reports that many civilians from the Alawite community were summarily executed and understand the community’s distress. Our thoughts are with them at this time.
Australia condemns the murder of innocent civilians. All minorities must be protected, including those from the Alawite, Christian, Druze and Kurdish communities.
The Government has urged all parties to protect civilians, exercise restraint and prioritise dialogue.
We are closely monitoring the words and actions of Syria’s interim authorities, including their pledge to hold accountable all those involved in the bloodshed.
The persistent conflict, oppression and displacement that Syria’s population has long endured must end.
Australia calls on Syria’s interim authorities to lead an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition process that fully respects the rights of all minorities and establishes a representative, non-sectarian government.
We will continue to engage with the UN and our international partners to encourage lasting political change and inclusive governance to deliver long-overdue peace and stability for the Syrian people.
In Syria, the fox is now in charge of the henhouse. Call them Al-Qaeda, Jabhat Al Nusra, or Hayat Al-Sham. It’s the same crap in a different wrapper. Countless loyal Syrians gave their lives to stop these people. Now they endure the nightmare.
Maps of Syria, recently released by the new government, don’t include the Golan Heights or Hatay Province, currently occupied by Israel and Turkey, respectively. There’s no need to guess who was behind Al Julani’s sudden ascendency to power.
First published on The Sunday Eucharist – Where Social Justice and Spiritual Integrity meet.
Father Dave here, and I’m still grieving the collapse of Syria, and the ascendency of one-time Al Qaeda leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, to the country’s leadership.
I’ve been fearing for my many Syrian friends. I’ve been praying for their safety – perhaps most of all for my dear brother, Dr Hassoun, formerly the former Grand Mufti of Syria. I’ve also been feeling that someone should be paying tribute to the Syrian Arab Army – to all the young men and women who laid down their lives over a period of about 12 years, trying to prevent what eventually happened.
Yes, I’m talking about the ‘Assad regime forces’, which is how people on the other side of the world tended to talk about them, but through my nine trips to Syria between 2013 and 2019, I met a lot of Syrian soldiers, and I grew to have an enormous respect for the Syrian Arab Army.
I was given a full Syrian Army uniform on my last trip, and I still wear it with pride. It came from Douma, which was where then President Assad allegedly gassed his own people. Of course, if you talk to the people of Douma, they’ll tell you that nothing like that happened there, but that was the story we were sold, and that story became the rationale for a retaliatory strike that killed at least one pour soul. The story I remember best from Douma though was the one that came from the guy who gave me my uniform, and it’s a story I still find it hard to believe.
This guy lived with his family near the centre of Douma and, apparently, he heard noise in the street one morning, peeked out his front window, and saw the black SUV’s of Jabhat Al Nusra. These people drove black SUV’s, wore black hats, and had machine-guns mounted on the back of their vehicles. This guy says that he, like the other men in his street, locked their doors and fetched their guns.
He says that they’re not getting their guns in the hope of fighting these guys off. They know that they are completely outgunned. They will fight nonetheless, he says, and, if need be, they will shoot their own children before they let these people take them!
I still find that hard to believe, but these people had heard what these terrorists had done to children in neighbouring villages – the rape of babies, the sex-slavery of young girls. Maybe the reports were exaggerated, but I can appreciate that you’d rather give your children a quick and dignified exit from this world than allow things like that to happen to them.
Anyway, there’s more noise outside, they peek out and see the colours of the Syrian Arab Army. Everything is going to be OK. The kids will be at school tomorrow. And that’s what the colours of the Syrian Arab Army came to mean to me. They meant life
I remember the first Syrian soldier that I ever had a serious conversation with. That was back in 2013. He was a young man, in his late twenties, and he was bouncing his baby daughter on his knee. He’d been discharged from the army as he was carrying three bullet wounds.
He said to me, “the first time I killed someone I threw up. I didn’t know how to handle it, but then I realised that the only thing between my daughter and these people was me, and after that I killed hundreds of them.”
He said that foreigners like me were easy targets because we weren’t respected by the commanders. We’d be the first ones chosen to have bombs strapped to us. They’d say, “see you in Heaven” and tell you to go blow a hole through a wall. He said, “these people were easy targets”.
As I say, I did nine tours of Syria during the period of the fighting there. I saw some terrible things, but met a lot of wonderful people, many of whom were soldiers.
Indeed, while, on some of those trips we spent most of our time boxing with the Syrian Olympic Team, even then, after our training sessions finished, the Syrian boys would pick up their guns and go back to work. They were all soldiers, not because any of them had set out to have careers in the military, but because each of them had chosen to put their bodies between the terrorists and their families.
One other memory that sticks with me was when we visited the ancient Christian village of Sednaya in 2015. Sednaya is one of only two villages in the world where Aramaic is still spoken – the original language of Jesus. It’s a Christian village, and when we arrived, they were starting a church service that we attended. At the front of the church, there was a table covered with religious icons that looked like they were to be distributed as gifts. I remember thinking, “I hope these aren’t for us”.
I was part of an internation peace delegation on that trip, led by some well-known activists, and we were getting far too much credit just for showing up. As it turned out, the presents weren’t for us. They were presented by the Bishop and by the local Islamic Sheikh, standing side by side, to the families of those who had lost children in the fighting over the last month. There were around 20 of these gifts handed out!
The Christian villages in Syria were always uniformly committed to supporting the government and preserving their country from the terrorists. The number of young Christians who had laid down their lives for their families was horrifically high.
I have so many more stories I could tell but I’ll stop here for now, except to point out that the terrorists that these people died to protect their families from are the people who are now running the country.
Yes, I know they’ve changed their name twice since they were Al Qaeda, in an attempt to distance themselves from Osama Bin Laden, whom Americans are never going to think of as a friend. They’ve also changed the name of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa to the far more palatable, Al Jolani (‘Al’ for short). CNN has also published an interview with Al where he’s said that all those atrocities that he committed were when he was a younger man, and that we all do silly things when we are young. Those weren’t his exact words, perhaps, but that was the message.
So, what happens now? I don’t know. As I say, I fear for my many Syrian friends. Reports are filtering through of atrocities being committed against Christians and Alawites and other minority groups, and against former military people, of course. Perhaps those pulling Al Jolani’s strings are going to ensure that some level of human-rights is maintained in the new Syria, but as for Jolani and his team, I don’t think the leopard every really changes his spots.
I pray for the welfare of my many Syrian friends as I do not know what comes next, but regardless of what the future holds, I believe that it’s only right that we pay tribute to the many, many young men and women of the Syrian Arab Army who, over twelve long years, sacrificed their lives and their livelihoods – not to benefit any political party or to uphold any particular ideology – but to protect their families.
A big thank you to David Macilwain for his ongoing commitment to the people of Syria and for the insight he shares in this article. Read the full article and more from David Macilwain here.
So now that the rabid dogs are on the loose, and all the leaders and followers who couldn’t or wouldn’t visit Damascus are rushing in for a slice of her cake, and Allah forbid – standing on the top of Mount Hermon gloating over the Zionists’ latest purchase, what is the way forward? Is such a way even possible, when those proselytisers for ‘democracy’ and ‘inclusiveness’ have just smashed to pieces all their shallow pretences?
Nothing can ever be the same now, even if they were to somehow stop the genocide in Gaza, because ‘Israel’ and its backers are determined it never will be. They have just succeeded in executing the fastest regime change operation in history without resistance and practically without criticism in the West – a monumental achievement that has “grasped victory from the jaws of defeat”. As ‘Israel’ faced its day of judgement from the people whose land it occupies and exploits, and having made itself a global pariah state with its unprecendented butchery and obliteration of life in Gaza, it seemed to many that the Zionist project was finished; it was only a question of how the end would come.
Yet there is light beyond this terrible dark tunnel we are plunged into, in the strength of the ongoing resistance and the possibility of truth. Never before has such a conspiracy of nations and ‘information’ networks succeeded in deceiving so many people into allowing and supporting the triumph of evil over justice and truth. At the same time there is incredible nonchalance and apparent lack of understanding of what has just occurred, seen in the context of the fourteen years of war since the launching of the ‘Arab Spring’.
Summarising what actually has occurred in the last two weeks and the last twenty years in Syria – which was always THE prime target of the ‘Arab Spring’ and the focus of neo-con plans to create the ‘Salafist Principality’ in Syria that we now have, a discussion with two veterans of the conflict gives excellent guidance, along with shocking revelations of the truth. Those who think that an unelected and unrepresentative ‘government’ formed from the chiefs of the fundamentalist group that controlled Idlib ‘with an Iron Fist’ will somehow change its spots, are living in cloud-cuckoo land. It is as likely as that ‘Israel’ would decide after all to give equal rights to the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, give them free access to all parts of Palestine, and equal representation in a bi-lingual Knesset. The appearance of Saudi Sheik Muhaysini celebrating his entry into the Ummayad mosque the day after Jolani’s arrival surely sent a shiver down the spine of many Syrians.
Our discussion on The Sunday Eucharist often focuses on Syria and Palestine. As Karl Barth taught, theology is best done with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
On Dec 11, 2024, I was joined by Maram Susli (Syrian Girl) and Dr Tim Anderson (author of “The Dirty War on Syria”). We did our best to make sense of what had just happened in Syria, and this despite severe technical difficulties that suggested we were being hacked.
The following is the official statement of “Hands Off Syria“, Sydney (hereafter ‘HOS‘), dated Monday, December 9th, 2024
Today is a sad day for the supporters of Syria, however, it is much worse for the people of Syria, as, unfortunately, dark days await.
HOS, Sydney, calls on international humanitarian organisations to demand safe corridors and passages for all those wishing to leave the country. These organisations must also demand that the people in Syria are treated with dignity and humanely, and that safety and security is restored immediately. The UN must call for the restoration of democratic processes, an that a democratic elected government is in place in the near future.
Syria has never wavered its support for Palestine and the liberation of the occupied territories. Syria has been the central pillar of the Resistance while it has been continuously bombed by Israel, with the support of the US. There are reports that in the last couple of days Israel has bombed and destroyed every major military institution, and that has invaded Syria via Quneitra.
Today Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), successor to Jahbat al Nusra, the al Qaeda terrorist group, listed as a terrorist organisation by the UNSC has taken Syria. Ten of thousands of mercenaries, criminals and terrorists have over run the country, in just over a week. Vanessa Beeley, well known journalist living in Syria, as she managed to escape states “[c]haos rules, looting, thuggery and thieving… Going through the border was a mash of gunfire, infighting and looting from every single shop and market. Terrorists on motorcycles, gunslingers and criminals… Early morning Israel was destroying #Syria Air Defence with bunker buster bombs…” (V. Beeley on X, 09/12/2024). There are already videos on social media depicting the terrorists beheading soldiers, setting fire to buildings. We understand that hospitals are being flooded with wounded people.
Dr Tim Anderson writes: According to Palestinian journalist in Washington Saeed Rikat, the HTS attack was coordinated by the Biden administration with Türkiye and Israel and “came as a result of American-Israeli emergency plan” as part of “an American vision” for the second day of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, “especially in light of the failure of the Israelis to achieve a decisive victory” against Hezbollah and that this is “an effort to inflict a defeat on Iran and its allies in the region” such as the Syrian Army which regained control of Aleppo eight years ago (Dr Tim Anderson, 8/12/2024, Centre for Hegemonic Studies: Genocide rewarded: US backed al Qaeda takeover of Syria follows Israeli retreat from Lebanon – Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies ).
HOS, Sydney, expect the UN to discuss Syria’s situation this week, and expect that international humanitarian organisations get immediately into action, so the suffering of the people of Syria is limited, the wounded are treated, the dead buried, and order is restored.
