As diplomatic delegations from the Gulf, Europe, and the US repave their Road to Damascus, the optics are familiar. Donors pledge millions, UNESCO experts arrive with binders of conservation manuals, and international NGOs draft proposals to restore Aleppo's ancient souks and Palmyra's monuments destroyed by Daesh. A few months after the fall of the Ba'athist regime, a new consensus congealed: Syria must be rebuilt, and its world-renowned heritage must be restored to its former glory. Yet, as scholars have made devastatingly clear, this rush to reconstruct risks repeating the very mistakes that fuelled the conflict. If the international community truly wishes to build a durable peace, it must abandon its top-down, conventional impulse and embrace a decolonial framework that places Syria's diverse communities—not monuments—at the heart of recovery.
The fall of the al-Assad dynasty on 8 December 2024 was not merely a political rupture; it was a socio-cultural earthquake. For years, the regime weaponised heritage, using reconstruction in recaptured areas like Aleppo to launder its reputation, regain its lost legitimacy, and impose a monolithic, state-censored narrative of the conflict. What followed was not preservation but a violent re-engineering of memory—heavy-handed methods that erased unwanted stories and silenced those who had borne the regime's brutality. That was not preservation; it was “reconstruction as violence."
Now, with Assads' statues toppled, Syrians face a profound question: will heritage once again serve power, or become a foundation for a more inclusive, just society? To achieve the latter, three urgent policy directions must guide the reconstruction efforts now being planned in Damascus' transitional ministries.
First, it is vital to redefine reconstruction as a social and political process, not technical one. The prevailing international model, exemplified by past reconstructions in Iraq and Afghanistan, treats heritage as physical assets to be repaired. This approach seduces donors—it is measurable, photogenic, and seemingly apolitical. Yet, my recent journal article reveals that for Syrians, heritage intertwines intimately with identity, livelihood, and self-understanding. A male Syrian movingly described heritage destruction to me as “an erasure of my history and a destruction of myself." Repairing stones without repairing the social fabric is futile. Reconstruction policy must prioritise documenting contested memories and including conflicting narratives, transforming heritage sites into dialogue arenas rather than showcases for a new, equally brittle, national myth. As a female Syrian noted, “everyone has the right to express their thoughts…because future generations have the natural right to know what happened."
Second, there is a need to empower local communities—especially minority groups—as primary recovery agents. Under Ba'athist rule, ethnic and religious minorities faced systematic marginalisation: Kurds were stripped of their linguistic rights, whilst Christian communities saw their heritage dissolved into an increasingly politicised pan-Arab identity. A decolonial framework asserts that communities must anchor post-conflict heritage reconstruction. This is not merely a matter of justice—it is a matter of efficacy and social cohesion. When ethnic minorities see their identity represented, however modestly, in the country's cultural heritage, it cultivates a deeper sense of integration and belonging within the society. Policy must transcend tokenism. It should channel resources directly to local civil society, champion minority-led initiatives, and craft new laws that guarantee communities a real say in what is rebuilt, how it is rebuilt, and whose stories are told. Syria's recent Decree No. 13 of 2026, recognising Kurdish identity, language, and citizenship rights, offers a powerful model—a stark contrast to the outdated Antiquities Law of 1963.
Third, it is crucial to embrace conflict's scars as living heritage. The international conservation community remains wedded to a perfectionist restoration paradigm, seeking to return sites to an imagined, pre-damage state (status quo ante). This approach, rooted in Eurocentric views of authenticity, risks sanitising the painful recent past. As a female Syrian observed, “destruction, forgetting, or ruin adds value…when something is destroyed, it bears witness to a historical phase. Even when you restore it, you shouldn't erase the traces of that period." Reconstruction policy must permit an optimistic glass-half-full approach, preserving bullet holes, rubble, and voids as a new layer of meaning. This approach, gaining traction in post-conflict contexts from Belfast to Berlin, acknowledges that a city's socio-political history includes its traumatic past. To erase these traces is to deny the experiences of millions who lived through them.
These recommendations resonate beyond Syria. The lesson is consistent across the region: post-conflict recovery fails when designed by outsiders to manage rubble rather than by communities to reclaim their future. The same powers—the US, China, Europe, and the Gulf States—that failed to halt the destruction in Syria for over a decade now bear a moral obligation to ensure their efforts do not sow the seeds of the next conflict.
The world is once again looking at Syria. This time, its gaze must shift from the grandeur of its ancient stones to the aspirations of its living people. A decolonial, inclusive path is not an abstract academic exercise—it is a practical blueprint for transforming heritage from authoritarian control into a foundation for equity, healing, and a genuinely shared future. The donors and diplomats now descending upon Damascus would be wise to listen—at last—to the Syrians who have always known what their heritage is truly worth.