Post-Assad civil peace efforts vary drastically across Syria, heavily dependent on the attitudes and personalities of local activists and local officials. Many of the positive steps made on this file have come as a reaction to serious local problems, rather than as a coherent, structured plan to resolve tensions and prevent violence before it occurs.
Aleppo City has largely avoided the media spotlight given to the violent inter-communal clashes that have plagued parts of the coast and western Homs and Hama. The city’s most significant source of insecurity stems from ongoing vigilante killings, though these almost exclusively target Sunni ex-regime criminals.
Still, the absence of more serious intercommunal violence does not mean there are not serious social tensions within the city. I spoke with an activist from Aleppo earlier this month about what mechanisms, if any, exist in Aleppo to deal with disputes and address more structural civil peace problems. This man is a veteran of the Aleppo civil peace scene and has previously organized inter-faith dialogues and trainings across western Syria. He addresses several important topics, but the key takeaway is this: There is a stark difference between resolving disputes and building genuine civil peace, and there is little work being done on the latter.
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