Syrian exiles who released a document in Berlin last month about methods that a transitional government might use to establish a free and democratic Syria after the fall of the Assad regime say they did it to inspire debate, and to quell fears over the future of the silent majority that remains trapped in the war-torn country.

“There was no disagreement among the Syrian opposition and the Syrian people about what the future of Syria will look like,” said Rami Nakhla, a member of the executive committee that drafted The Day After, a paper outlining a post-Assad democratic landscape. “Everybody is calling for almost the same thing: a free country, a civil state, democratic models, rule of law and civil authorities.”

Like others involved in the process, Nakhla is a Syrian activist who fled the country last year after being targeted by regime security forces. “I was active in Syria since 2010 and when the uprising started in Tunisia, the Syrian secret police began to arrest all the activists who they anticipated might play any role in an uprising in Syria,” he said.

Nakhla went into hiding in Damascus, working under the pseudonym Malath Aumran before he fled to Lebanon and gained political asylum in the United States. As the events in Syria turned more violent, he felt compelled to get involved in the project to envision with others what the country's democratic future would look like.

There was “all the pressure from the international community and the Syrian people, the silent majority, from everybody, [about] what will come next [and whether] the Syrian opposition are really ready to lead the transition period. We have to start to addressing these issues and start addressing 'the day after,'" he added.

"The Syrian uprising started spontaneously, but it cannot continue spontaneously and before we identify the goal, we cannot really know what is there.”

Although Syrians suffered political and social repression after Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, came to power in 1970, there was a certain stability in terms of tolerance of religious minorities. Alawites – a Shia sect, of which the Assad family is part – along with Christians and Druze had been able to live side-by-side with the Muslim Sunni majority in relative peace.

However, the uprising that began last year has sparked fears among many that the fall of the Assad regime could lead to an Islamic government, similar to what has happened in Egypt, and that minorities would suffer. Some believe this fear is what is leading minority groups to continue to support the regime despite its brutal repression, or at least to refrain from backing the opposition.

Earlier this year, participants from religious and social minorities joined those from the majority Sunni Arab population to initiate The Day After project, in order to show those fearful of religious intolerance that a united opposition can forge a better future. Members of the project emerged from a variety of groups including the Syrian National Council, the Free Syrian Army and the National Coordination Committees.

“I was living in Syria and I worked there at a university until 2006 and then I moved to the United States, not because I was an exile or because I was forced, but I could see what was happening with the society and the regime,” said Amr al-Azm, a professor of history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio.

Bashar al-Assad, said al-Azm, “was not changing Syria. He was taking his father’s Syria and just tweaking it to make it fit him better. By 2006 it became clear that this was exactly what was going to happen and that any attempts at reform were going to be either a sham or fake. I was never convinced there would ever be a serious attempt at change.”

One of the women involved in the project, Afra Jalabi, said she left Syria many years ago but maintained contact with friends, families and groups she wanted to support.

“There was a consistent and methodic attempt to lower the bar on the political discourse where you had just one opinion and if anybody was to oppose that opinion they would be considered traitors,” she said. “Syrians, who had the context to contribute to the discourse because they lived in democracies, [were subject to] propaganda that they were traitors and infiltrators being helped by Western agendas. That was another means the regime tried to neutralize voices of Syrians and that’s why I ended up on the wanted list about five years ago when I joined the Damascus Declaration. I was trying to be more public about Syria’s violations of human rights.

“If I’m a dangerous voice it shows the fragility of the political discourse. I was trying to be positive and call gradually for the move towards democracy. At the time nobody was calling for the overhaul of the regime or its downfall."

Some of those who helped to create The Day After document took part via Skype or traveled secretly from Syria to Berlin to join exiled Syrians and a panel of experts in transitional issues including justice and electoral reform.

“Syria is not a special case in terms of transition,” said Nakhla, “The process has already happened in 37 countries and there is lots of experience to learn from other countries. We had professors and specialists who were involved in the working groups.”

Since the project, participants have been working to distribute the document using their individual networks and there are plans for a televised broadcast of the plans using satellites channels, said Nakhla.

Participants plan to create a base in Istanbul where they'll be able to offer support to a transitional group that potentially steps in to take the reins of the country.

Yet, while the organization has dealt with the “day after,” Syrians continue to ask what the “day before” will be — and how they will get past the violence on the ground.