In the aftermath of Assad’s fall, Syrian social and political identities have become entangled in a web of conflicting narratives. Sects are no longer merely religious or ethnic entities but have been transformed into potent symbols within the structures of power and hegemony. Among these, the Alawite community has been both a vehicle and a victim of symbolic violence, burdened with the weight of authority and then denied the possibility of self-redefinition beyond this imposed framework.
Since the Syrian revolution, Alawites have been trapped within two contradictory discourses: one that reduces them to an extension of the ruling regime and another that demands their liberation from its repressive legacy, without affording them the space to emerge as independent actors. This dual confinement has positioned them as both enforcers of state violence and collective scapegoats, expected to atone for crimes committed in their name. Such a forced reduction reflects mechanisms of symbolic power that distort social actors into exaggerated political symbols. Even when some Alawite intellectuals and politicians joined the revolution, the expectation remained that they must apologize, as though their identity were inescapably tied to an original crime.
The Alawites and the Burden of Representation
Alawites have never been a monolithic bloc. They are a diverse social group, dispersed across economic and political spectrums. While the regime instrumentalized them as a power base, it did not elevate them uniformly; rather, the majority remained hostage to a rigid economic structure, where sectarian privilege masked deeper social and economic precarity. To analyze them as a single entity is to reinforce the very narrative the regime sought to impose. The reality is far more complex: there are rural and urban Alawites, intellectuals and dissidents, officers and soldiers, and those for whom politics remains a distant and inescapable burden.
What distinguishes Alawites from other Syrians in this historical moment is not their moral complicity but their coerced participation in the regime’s official narrative. Supporting the state was not always a choice; for many, it was a response conditioned by fear, indoctrination, and survival within a structure that weaponized identity. Hafez al-Assad did not need to repress Alawites to keep them loyal—he merely reminded them of the stark choice he had constructed: “Me or annihilation.”
The Engineered Silence
Before Assad’s rise, Alawites lacked a unified religious institution or a single authoritative voice. Their sheikhs were scattered across villages, each with its own interpretation of Alawite identity. The regime systematically dismantled these independent structures, replacing them with state-sanctioned clerics who served as extensions of the security apparatus. The result was a deliberate erasure of an autonomous Alawite voice, leaving only a manufactured identity that was inseparable from the state. Alawites were not merely prevented from developing an independent religious or cultural discourse—they were stripped of the ability to imagine themselves outside the framework of Assad’s rule.
Thus, the absence of an independent Alawite leadership was not incidental but the product of a calculated strategy. The regime ensured that any authentic representation of the community outside its security apparatus was either co-opted or crushed. This manufactured silence left Alawites with only one function: to be summoned as a bloc when politically expedient, while being denied an independent role in shaping their own destiny.
Breaking the Cycle
The real challenge today is not just to analyze how Alawites became entangled in the regime’s survival strategy, but to dismantle the structures that have turned them into hostages of a narrative they did not create. Can they exist beyond the imposed roles of both guardian and scapegoat? Can they reclaim their identity outside the forced binary of enforcer and victim?
Breaking the cycle of symbolic violence against Alawites requires more than replacing one dominant discourse with another. It necessitates a profound deconstruction of the narratives that have framed them solely as accomplices to power or as objects of collective punishment. Their identity must not be dictated by guilt or absolution, nor confined to the limits of forced allegiance or impossible estrangement.
A just Syria cannot be built by substituting one form of sectarianism with another. True liberation lies in dismantling the structures of forced categorization that have shaped political and social life for decades. Only then can the Alawite community, like all Syrians, redefine itself on its own terms—neither as an extension of a fallen regime nor as a convenient victim of counter-narratives, but as a dynamic, evolving society capable of forging its own future.
Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist from Jableh.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
