Projection and Treachery Accusations Amongst Syrians; A Fleeting State or a Phenomenon? A Societal Psychological Analysis into the Reasons
There are many sayings and voices in the Syrian community that repeatedly criticise their disagreements and division, not to mention their aggressive attitude towards each other. Indeed many experts and observers relate that to weak trust between Syrians; which thus led to a state of prevalent accusations of treachery, projection, and an unhesitant rejection of any project or campaign that can help Syrians or a particular slice of them.
This state is particularly prevalent online on social media platforms; these platforms have become the main source of news and information for Syrians, not to mention being a primary venue to share their ideas, hopes, projects and disappointments as well.
The issue of projection and accusations is heavily related to societal trust, which is considered one of the main axes of interest to the Syrian Dialogue Center within the Societal Cohesion and Shared Identity Unit, especially with regards to the ways it can be built on both the individual and institutional level. Besides that, the center is very concerned with studying the societal changes that have affected Syrians in the past years, particularly changes related to civil and humanitarian work. Thus, it was of the utmost importance to discuss, study and dissect this popular and repetitive pattern of behaviour; as many experts see it as a complicated and intersectional problem, intersecting with many other issues in a way that makes understanding it and suggesting solutions a matter of great difficulty.
This report relies primarily on the outputs of a discussion workshop held on the expert level, and on what is found in some reports and books as a secondary source. The workshop included a group of experts in humanitarian work, academics specialised in the fields of psychology, social science and education as well as researchers. It focused on studying the case of the quartering campaign launched in the winter of 2020, which can be used as an example of an initiative that becomes controversial and divides opinions around it between supporting and opposing, where the reactions keep escalating to the point of taking an extremist forms. This was done by tracking the various reactions and studying them. The report will focus on the societal psychological aspect with regards to the local populous more than focusing on the objective factors relating to institutional work.
This report was prepared using “Chatham House” rules, without being restricted by the order of display and inputs; instead using thematic ordering to organise ideas in a smooth way to help the reader follow the topic as much as possible.
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مؤسسة بحثية سورية تسعى إلى الإسهام في بناء الرؤى والمعارف بما يساعد السوريين على إنضاج حلول عملية لمواجهة التحديات الوطنية المشتركة وتحقيق التنمية المستدامة
