As the Bashar al-Assad regime announced a Bill to allow political parties to operate in its system, hundreds of thousands of Syrians said that it is too little, too late and that they don’t believe a word of it anyway.

Friday marked a clear attempt by the opposition to present a united front against the al-Assad family dynasty, the only regime Syrians have known for more than 40 years.

“One, one, one, the Syrian people are one!” protesters shouted in the capital, Damascus, in what has become a weekly ritual, with hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets across the country demanding President al-Assad leave power.

The regime has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted coverage, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events on the ground or casualty figures. By some estimates, more than a million people were protesting on Friday.

The Syrian conflict has become a test of wills between protesters emboldened by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and an entrenched family dynasty that refuses to relinquish power.

Although the protests are growing, a strong alternative to al-Assad has yet to emerge – in part because dissidents have long been silenced, imprisoned or exiled by the regime in Damascus. This is why many Syrians believe that the Bill will be a dead letter anyway.

There seem to be two paths open to Syria. Either the regime will accept a new deal based on serious political reform and inclusion, or the country will drift toward civil war.

Syria has a volatile sectarian divide, making civil unrest one of the most dire scenarios. The al-Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.

Alawite dominance has bred resentments, which al-Assad has worked to tamp down by pushing a strictly secular identity in Syria. But he now appears to be relying heavily on his Alawite power base, beginning with highly-placed relatives, to crush the resistance.

The uprising has brought long-simmering sectarian tensions to the surface.

In the central city of Homs, sectarian divisions already are erupting with deadly results. Activists and protesters say the regime is stirring up sectarian fighting to discredit the protest movement. The government blames the unrest on terrorists and foreign extremists, not true reform-seekers, and has taken pains to portray itself as the only guardian against civil war. But protesters insist that they are driven by the desire for liberty, and their slogans and banners emphasised national unity. The one thing that any people in the grip of a dictatorship need to maintain is unity. In doing so, the people of Syria will overcome all obstacles in their path.