Syria and South Africa: Nations at the Edge, Lessons Across Continents
Both Syria and South Africa prove that liberation does not guarantee prosperity.
Written By: Ziyanda Thando Nzimande
Syria’s history is one of the most layered in human civilization, stretching back thousands of years to some of the earliest known kingdoms and trading hubs. Cities like Ebla and Mari were centers of administration and culture as early as the third millennium BCE, producing written records that still inform historians about ancient diplomacy and trade. Damascus and Aleppo, both continuously inhabited for millennia, became crossroads of religion, commerce, and empire. Syria’s land saw the rise and fall of great powers: Assyrians, Persians, Greeks under Alexander, Romans, and Byzantines. With the spread of Islam in the 7th century, Syria emerged as a core of the Umayyad Caliphate, with Damascus as its capital, shaping much of Islamic culture, architecture, and politics. Later centuries saw the rise of the Ayyubids under Salah al-Din, Mamluks, and eventually incorporation into the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. For four hundred years, Syria’s fate was tied to Ottoman rule, until the empire collapsed after World War I.
In the aftermath, Syrians sought independence, declaring the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria under King Faisal in 1920. But this attempt at self-determination was crushed when the League of Nations awarded France the mandate over Syria, ignoring local aspirations. The French Mandate period was marked by deep resistance, including the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925–1927, where rural fighters and urban nationalists joined forces against French troops. Though ultimately suppressed, it became a symbol of Syrian nationalism. Resistance continued through strikes, protests, and armed clashes until at last, after decades of struggle and the turbulence of World War II, Syria secured independence in 1946. This moment was not just political in Syria’s history, it was deeply emotional, a sign that Syrians could finally govern themselves after centuries of foreign domination.
Yet independence did not immediately deliver stability. The decades that followed were shaped by coups, military regimes, and ideological battles over Arab unity, socialism, and alignment in the Cold War. Still, Syria built an identity rooted in resistance to outside domination and in the dream of regional leadership. By the early 2000s, despite structural weaknesses, the Syrian economy had grown steadily. In 2010, the country’s GDP reached $252 billion, fueled by agriculture, modest oil revenues, and growing trade. Many Syrians looked to the future with cautious optimism. But in 2011, the Arab Spring reached Syria, and peaceful protests were met with violent repression. What followed was not reform, but rather a civil war, which was an eruption of political divisions, foreign interventions, and immense human suffering. By 2024, the once-growing economy had collapsed to a GDP of just $11 billion. Millions were displaced, unemployment surged, debt soared, and the Syrian pound lost nearly all its value. The war became not only a political tragedy but an economic catastrophe that erased decades of development.
Although Syria’s post-independence period was unstable, it is important to note that there was a time when the country experimented with democratic governance. In the years following independence, Syria briefly developed parliamentary institutions and a functioning multi-party system. Yet this democratic moment was short-lived, as successive coups beginning in 1949 dismantled that fragile experiment and entrenched authoritarian rule. The lesson here is significant for the South African context: democracy is not inevitable, nor is it permanent. It can be reversed when institutions are weak and power is contested.
This historical reality raises a further question: if Syria, in the years before 2011, showed signs of economic improvement and a cautious sense of optimism, why did the Arab Spring ignite there with such force? And conversely, in South Africa, where conditions have steadily worsened in terms of inequality, corruption, and state dysfunction, why has no comparable popular uprising emerged? The contrast underscores that uprisings do not arise simply from economic decline, but from the intersection of governance failures, repression, and a loss of political legitimacy. It also shows that both contexts remind us how fragile political systems are, and how the endurance of democracy or authoritarianism depends not only on material conditions but on the balance of state legitimacy and citizen agency.
South Africa offers a sobering and fascinating mirror. Like Syria, its history is marked by layers of indigenous culture, foreign domination, and long struggles for freedom. Colonization by the Dutch and later the British imposed racial hierarchies, land dispossession, and economic exploitation. In 1910, South Africa became a union, nominally independent but governed by a white minority elite. It was only in 1994, after centuries of colonial rule and decades of apartheid, that the country achieved true democratic liberation. Yet, the road to democracy was soaked in blood. From 1985 to 1995, South Africa experienced what many historians describe as a civil war: the African National Congress waged an armed struggle against the apartheid state, while internal violence between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party claimed thousands of lives. The democratic transition, while celebrated globally, was not merely a peaceful handshake but rather it was the outcome of violent conflict, negotiation, and compromise.
Both Syria and South Africa prove that liberation does not guarantee prosperity. South Africa entered democracy with immense global goodwill and the promise of a “rainbow nation,” but thirty years later it is plagued by rising unemployment, deep inequality, corruption, mismanagement, and declining public services. Its currency weakens year by year, public debt balloons, and trust in government institutions erodes. Syria, once on the brink of emerging prosperity, saw its entire economic and social system disintegrate after 2011. The similarities are telling: both countries stand as reminders that fragile states can lose decades of progress if inequality, poor governance, and internal divisions remain unresolved.
The differences, however, are equally important. South Africa, despite its violent past, still holds functioning democratic institutions, however strained. In 2024, the country entered a new era under a Government of National Unity led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, where multiple parties share power after a fractured election outcome. This experiment could either rejuvenate South African democracy by fostering compromise or collapse under competing agendas, further eroding trust. Syria, meanwhile, remains under the rule of Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose grip on power reflects the legacy of war. His rule brings a sense of stability for some, but for many Syrians it symbolizes repression, stalled reform, and continued vulnerability to foreign influence. Both leaders stand at crossroads: Ramaphosa with the chance to prove coalition politics can work in Africa’s most industrialized nation, and al-Sharaa with the burden of steering Syria toward reconstruction without deepening authoritarian stagnation.
The reason for comparing these two countries lies in what they reveal about resilience and fragility. Syria can learn from South Africa’s transition and how its ability, even amid violence, to negotiate a democratic settlement. South Africa can learn from Syria’s collapse and how ignoring inequality, division, and disillusionment can drag even a promising state into chaos. More importantly, both represent very influential regions, the Middle East and Africa, that for way too long have been defined by their relationship to the West. The future demands something different, it demands partnerships rooted in pride, sovereignty, and shared developmental end goal.
The burning question on how to now reach that end goal would be, so what awaits Syria? A nation exhausted by war faces a choice, to remain trapped in cycles of authoritarianism, foreign influence, and economic ruin or to pursue reconciliation and reconstruction on its own terms. The same question also remains on the other side of the coin as to, What awaits South Africa? A democracy at its most fragile point since 1994, where corruption and economic decline must either be confronted or allowed to rot the system from within. The destinies of both nations remind us of one truth: recovery and collapse are never final. They are choices, shaped by leadership and the will of the people.
For Africa and the Middle East, the way forward is not dependence on the West, nor rejection born of bitterness, but solidarity born from pride in ones country. Nations like Syria and South Africa must look to one another, to learn, to share, and to build. Their histories prove that suffering can be endured, and their futures demand that resilience be turned into strength. If Syria and South Africa can forge ties of independence and dignity, perhaps both nations will write new chapters, not as victims of history, but as authors of it.
Ziyanda Thando Nzimande is the Middle East Africa Institute’s #FutureVoices Scholar for 2025/2026. With a background in neuroscience and management studies, and experience as a student leader at Wits, he combines scientific rigor with a commitment to social change. His focus is on assessing the impact of policy and geopolitics, aiming to deliver thoughtful, research-driven insights on global affairs.