In a white pantsuit, Hind Kabawat stood out a mile, the one girl in a lineup of 23 males in fits, all ministers of the interim Syrian authorities simply sworn in, flanking the president.
“I would like extra girls and I did inform the president the primary day we met,” Ms. Kabawat mentioned in an interview just a few days after her appointment. “That is for me essential as a result of it wasn’t very comfy to be there.”
Her appointment as minister of social affairs and labor has been welcomed by many in Syria and internationally, each as a lady and as a consultant of Syria’s Christian minority. It was taken as an indication that Syria’s new chief, President Ahmed al-Shara, was broadening his authorities past his tight circle of insurgent fighters to incorporate a wider choice of technocrats and members of Syria’s ethnic and spiritual minorities.
Lengthy designated a terrorist by the United Nations Safety Council, Mr. al-Shara became president in January after main a insurgent offensive that overthrew the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad final 12 months. Since then he has consolidated energy and been extensively accepted because the de facto chief, even whereas coming below robust worldwide stress to fight terrorism and average his rule.
Ms. Kabawat, a diplomat’s daughter and college instructor, together with in the US, has a protracted document of labor in exile amongst Syrian refugees and with the opposition to the previous dictatorship. She had no qualms about accepting a task in Mr. al-Shara’s new authorities, she mentioned.
“He listens to folks, and that is the benefit of him,” she mentioned of the president. “Each time there’s a downside, we will ship messages they usually pay attention, they talk about. And that is their flexibility.”
“Don’t overlook additionally that he’s younger,” she added about Mr. al-Shara, 42. “They’re all younger, by the best way, they usually know that. In the event that they’re not going to be versatile, hearken to others, they’re not going run a rustic that features everyone. And if there’s a mistake, we right it collectively. We study collectively and we empower one another. So he is aware of that he can not run a rustic like Syria alone.”
‘We Can Assist the Folks’
Earlier than the rebels took Damascus, Ms. Kabawat had expertise working with Mr. al-Shara throughout the eight years he ran the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib.
After he took energy, she helped convene a nationwide dialogue convention, bringing collectively a whole bunch of representatives from throughout Syria to attract up suggestions on a brand new structure, a system of presidency and holding elections within the subsequent 5 years.
She mentioned she was glad to be provided a severe portfolio, overseeing what was previously two ministries for social affairs and labor, now mixed into one.
“It’s due to this ministry, that I accepted,” she mentioned. “As a result of we might help the folks.”
That gained’t be simple. She has inherited a sprawling establishment in a just about bankrupt nation. She admitted she didn’t but know what number of workers she had below her, nor the dimensions of her finances.
On her first day on the workplace, she gathered her division heads, a set of bureaucrats from the previous regime, officers from the rebel-led administration and opposition activists, together with one who survived detention in Syria’s infamous prisons.
“We’ve got to begin work based mostly on belief and cooperate with one another,” she advised them. “Simply bear in mind who’s our principal boss, it’s the Syrian folks.”
Her mission, she mentioned, was to make use of her expertise in educating battle decision and interfaith dialogue to reform the ministry from a device of dictatorship into one which serves the weak.
“Even when I go away after one 12 months or no matter, I go away one thing good for a technology,” she mentioned. “That is what I would like.”
Falling Out With al-Assad
Ms. Kabawat, who declined to offer her age, was born in India. She lived together with her dad and mom in London and Egypt, then moved again to Damascus for college, first at a Christian convent after which on the Lycée Francais Charles de Gaulle. She later earned a level in economics at Damascus College.
Her coronary heart is in Damascus, particularly the slim streets of the previous metropolis, the place she raised her two kids — she has a granddaughter — and nonetheless lives together with her husband, a businessman. Today she walks by way of twisting alleys within the morning to achieve her automotive to go to work.
For 14 years, she mentioned, she dreamed of returning to odor the orange blossom in her courtyard. However after the repression of pro-democracy protests degenerated right into a civil struggle, she was pressured to remain away.
Her exile started in 2011 after giving a speech in New York about Syria’s multiethnic society, which displeased Mr. al-Assad. She was advised to not return. “He doesn’t like this narrative that Christians and Muslims can stay collectively,” she mentioned of the previous president.
She tried to take care of a dialogue with Mr. al-Assad, who attended the identical college as her, and whose spouse she knew. When the protests broke out in 2012, she urged him to barter with the demonstrators.
“I known as his mom, I spoke along with his spouse,” she mentioned. “We despatched him a transparent message, don’t do that. You can’t kill civilians, as a result of that is our job in life, to defend and to guard civilians. He didn’t pay attention.”
She had already began a educating profession, after acquiring levels from the American College of Beirut and the Fletcher College of Regulation and Diplomacy at Tufts College, and dealing as a lawyer in Canada.
She has directed the Syria program at George Mason College’s Middle for World Religions, Diplomacy and Battle Decision since 2004, and the Syrian Middle for Dialogue, Peace and Reconciliation in Toronto. Over time she taught hundreds of Syrian college students the facility of interfaith dialogue and battle decision. A few of them work together with her as we speak.
In 2015 she co-founded the Tastakel Affiliation, a woman-led nonprofit group centered on constructing a democratic society for all Syrians, though she has stepped away from the group and resigned from her educating put up on becoming a member of the federal government.
She turned well-known to Syrians when she was named one among solely two girls alongside 30 males to the Excessive Negotiation Committee, which was for a number of years the primary physique representing the Syrian opposition within the U.N.-supported peace course of for Syria.
“It was very robust,” she mentioned. “However we acquired very thick skins.”
Among the many many statements welcoming her appointment, the Tanenbaum Middle for Interreligious Understanding, a nonprofit in New York, said her experience made her a “robust match” to assist safe a extra peaceable future for Syrians of all backgrounds.
‘Let’s Get Issues Accomplished’
In the middle of a number of conferences with The New York Instances, she repeatedly known as for the US to elevate sanctions on Syria, which have been positioned on the nation throughout the Assad regime, however are nonetheless in power and are crippling the economic system by proscribing commerce, funding and worldwide transfers.
“If the U.S. retains the sanctions on us, there will likely be plenty of refugee girls and kids, with no future,” she mentioned. “Lifting the sanctions isn’t something to do with politics anymore, it’s to do with human beings.”
She mentioned the Syrian authorities had met many of the circumstances listed not too long ago by a White Home spokeswoman. “We’ve ticked plenty of containers,” she mentioned. “If there’s something they don’t like, we will negotiate. Let’s sit down on the desk and determine it out.”
“The vital factor is we removed a struggle prison,” she mentioned. “We removed the massive obstacles, now let’s get issues performed.”
Saad Alnassife contributed reporting from Damascus.
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