The Bloody Shirt of Sectarian Fear
Not: “Oderint Dum Metuant” but “Metuunt Quod Oderunt”
The regime and its supporters warn constantly that the alternative to them is ‘sectarian violence’. They wave the bloody shirt and claim that, if they relax repression here, the alternative is massacre of one sect by another. Waving that bloody shirt has indeed worked often in the past to rally the religious minorities around the regime and, it seems, that fear is what drives the people pulling the triggers now.
Are there sectarian tensions here? Of course there are! This has never been a religiously unified country; struggle between religious groups goes back about as long as revealed religions have existed (and likely long before that too if we simply had records). But that is to be expected in any society where multiple groups make claims of having a monopoly on correct belief.
Here, too, many groups identify strongly as closed communities, some, of course, more than others. For some sects, communal identity historically has trumped all others. And this regime has played no small part in encouraging them to do so.
There are many sects here: Sunni Muslims, Alawi, Imami and Ismaili Shia Muslims, Druze, and far too many Christians sects to name them all.
Fear of sectarian violence, fear of becoming Lebanon a generation ago or, worse, Iraq, plays a major role in the regime’s propaganda and its fear of democracy.
When the French came last century, they (even more than the British) as policy pushed a notion of ‘divide and rule’ and worked to turn divisions into ways of managing a country and making it eternally dependent on them. They expanded the territory of Mount Lebanon from being a small but overwhelmingly Christian and Druze area to Lebanon’s present size, aiming to make as large a territory as possible under majority Christian rule (51% then) and set up a system of governance there where only religious identity mattered and was stressed above all else. It worked; it created a weak state where unity was hard and political parties were based on sectarian identity.
They tried to carve out two more states from Syria: a Druze state in the south and an Alawite state along the coast. Unlike in Lebanon, though, those communities rejected further partitions: the Druze especially played a glorious role in the national movement for independence. Even so, French policy was to build an army and police that would be loyal to Paris, not to Syria. So they recruited heavily among minority religious communities and worked to keep others out of being trigger pullers. They pushed the concept that, if Syria gained independence, the Sunni majority would immediately begin massacres of all non-Sunnis. They wanted fear to keep people loyal to them.
It didn’t work: when the French finally left, there were no massacres, no communal strife, much though they might have desired it. And a country emerged that is now 74% Sunni Muslim …. a number that must be recalled … that is not a tiny segment but a supermajority. And because it is, sectarianism is the flag that must be waved to stop democracy.
The regime, after it came to power, was heavily made up of Alawis: they had been more numerous in the military under the French. And to ensure that they would retain power, the ruling clan of Assad over decades filled the officer corps and the security forces not with people chosen for ability but for whether they could be counted on as loyal when push came to shove. They placed other Alawis into those jobs and made sure that there were Alawi units who could be called on to crush any call for a democratic Syria
And to insure the loyalty of the Alawis themselves, they pushed the idea of sectarianism and waved the bloody shirt, telling Alawis that, if the regime ever fell, there’d be massacres of all Alawis. And many believed them.
And those Alawis were not stupid: they know the crimes of this regime and the oppression it has visited on everyone. It oppresses Alawi too; if one is not from the ruling clan, being Alawi only counts for so much. And it has stamped down hard on Alawi dissenters.
But the crimes done in their names makes many Alawi fear: they fear that what has been visited on the other 90% of Syrians in their names will be returned to them.
And because of that sense of guilt, they live in fear. From that fear, they act out in violence … and take part in repression and forbidding democracy.
The regime wants to present this movement as made up of ‘salafi’ radical Sunnis who are inspired by Bin Laden: I am only surprised that they are not claiming that Bin Laden lives and is in Homs or Dera’a. Surely, they’ll try inventing that. They claim that everything we want is sectarian. When Christians and Druze, Secularists and Communists march and demand the overthrow of the regime, they claim that they are being coerced … really? If the opposition is really that strong, we have already won power …
They hate us because they fear us, fear us because they know what they have done and fear that we are like them.
We are not; we do not hunger for blood. We hunger for freedom.
We want one Syria: we will have one Syria and they are Syrians too.
When we say “WAHAD WAHAD WAHAD” The People of Syria are One” we are talking about Alawis and Baathis just as much as we are speaking of Sunnis.
They need to put down their guns and join us;
That is how sectarianism must end.
3 comments:
this, elevation of sectarianism, is why i left Lebanon, and why your accurate descriptions of the situation is why i support true secularism... not the monopoly of a minority claiming falsely claiming secularism...... Cary on sister... you and all the Syrian people give us hope.
Could you...I know it's asking a lot, but I often end up skipping posts because I'm so confused. I've tried reading about the history/recent history of Syria, but there's so much out there that it's just overwhelming. Could you do a post with a basic outline of the things that are important to you, who the people are, the importance of some of the places you mention often?
This post is actually not very confusing, except that I don't know who the Alawis are, or what wahad means...
Thank you. And thank you for blogging. It's brave, and important.
WAHAD = 1:
wahad, ithnain, thalatha = 1,2, 3.
It's one of the main slogans of this revolution and stresses the unity of the people.
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