It is one of the starkest ironies of international politics: A man who once stood at the forefront of an armed militant project now travels as a head of state to New York and takes part in the highest forum of world politics — while in his homeland communities are forced to their knees, villages are seized, and forests are burned down. The world is watching, but not all eyes are equally attentive.
Ahmed al-Sharaa — still known to many by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani — is the embodied paradox of this situation. On the one hand, his biography: former leader of an al-Qaeda-linked group, long-time rebel in the Syrian turmoil. On the other hand, today’s reality: head of state, in New York at the UN Secretariat and in talks with Western politicians — a step that showed how quickly geopolitical interests can override former enmities.
At the same time, eyewitnesses and local sources report that it is precisely the Christian communities in Syria — namely those in Wadi al-Nasara (the “Valley of the Christians”) and in rural areas of Homs province — that are facing a new wave of threats, assaults, arson, and intimidation. Villages are said to have been taken, houses burned, people looted, abducted, or killed.
“We saw the flames spreading across the olive groves within hours,” says Elias H., a farmer from Wadi al-Nasara. “The police did not come, no one helped us. We feel completely alone.”
An elderly woman from a village near Homs describes: “Our church still stands, but the houses of our neighbors have been burned down. We hear gunfire every night. It is as if the world has forgotten that we live here.”
Why does this surprise us so much? Because the international stage these days is dominated by other major crises — the war in Ukraine, the escalation between Israel and Palestine — and because diplomatic priorities are often set along the lines of short-term strategic benefit or stability. The presence of a once outlawed ex-militant in New York, courted or at least received by influential states, shows: raison d’état, sanctions policy, and conflict management have long become bargaining chips behind which historical alliances and moral categories blur.
For the Christian Syriacs in Syria, this development is not just abstract theory but a daily threat: When international powers engage with a new power-holder, local minorities often lose out — their security guarantees, land rights, or cultural protection mechanisms are not automatically part of the deal. The question many urgently ask is: Are the original inhabitants of the land — the namesakes of these landscapes, the millennia-old communities — once again falling victim to a grand reshaping, so that “reconstruction” and redistribution on the ground can move faster?
A priest from Safita sums up the mood: “We were here long before Damascus was a capital. But when the great powers make their deals, we end up at the bottom again. Our existence is treated like a footnote.”
The paradox is complete when one understands how diplomatic recognition and economic opening for a regime or new leadership can turn into a golden hour for investors and construction industries — often without reliable protection mechanisms for minorities being established beforehand. The fear of many Syriacs in regions like Wadi al-Nasara is therefore not unfounded: Time and again in Middle Eastern history, upheavals have hit ethnic and confessional minorities particularly hard.
A municipal council member says: “It is not only about our land or our fields. It is about whether our children still have a future here. If the world does not protect us, we will disappear from Syria.”
What should be done? In short: attention, protection obligations, and binding mechanisms. If the international community is serious about establishing relations with new rulers, this must be tied to concrete, verifiable commitments for the protection of minorities, access to humanitarian aid, and the return or safeguarding of property. This must not remain a mere side note to geopolitical pragmatism — otherwise, the outcome is likely to be counted not in humanitarian but in economic terms, with the losers being those who are already the most vulnerable.
The world seems both curious and cynical these days — because diplomacy and realpolitik sometimes enable what was once unthinkable. But the consequences of such actions are not visible in New York; they are visible in small villages like those in Wadi al-Nasara: burned forests, displaced families, frightened communities. The central question remains open — and pressing: What goal justifies such sacrifices? And who weighs that up?
