Why Were the Alawites in Syria Killed? The Answer and a Look into the Future of Syria.

The new Syria is not off to a good start. 

Upon the conclusion of a nearly 14-year civil war, which ended after opposition forces suddenly overthrew the dictatorial regime of President Bashar al-Assad, hope arose in Syria and amongst the Syrian diaspora. “The whole world rejoices at what is happening in Syria,” one friend said to me. “With the help of the international community, a new government elected by the people will be formed,” said another.

Instead, Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Shams terror organization and founder of al-Qaeda’s al Nusra Front, quickly stepped into the role of interim president. Just three months after al-Sharaa assumed power, over a four-day period in early March, forces aligned with him brutally massacred more than 1,000 members of minority ethnoreligous groups along the northwest coast of the country. The factors which allowed a killing of this magnitude to happen mean that post-war Syria may head in a different direction than people originally hoped.

Why were the Christians, Druze and Alawites in Syria killed?

The minorities targeted in the March massacres were primarily Alawites, an ethnoreligious group whose faith stems from Shia Islam. Sources say Christians as well as Druze, a group which embraces aspects of several different faiths, were also killed. The massacres began after fighters loyal to deposed President Assad’s regime carried out an attack on his security forces on March 6. The al-Sharaa regime then called for revenge killings, primarily targeting the minority Alawite population. They targeted the Alawites because former President Assad is Alawite, as are many of his former fighters and officials. This immediate conflict between the Assad fighters and the al-Sharaa fighters, though, only scratches the surface of why Al-Sharaa’s people killed so many minorities. The root causes lie deep inside the makeup of Syria as well as the Middle East as a whole. 

One root cause for this tragedy is that Syria is in the early stages of recovery from civil war. From the time of its onset after the Arab Spring protests in March 2011, the war began to change everyone and everything in the country. Some people became violent and some people became frightened. Terror groups formed inside the country and other terror groups infiltrated the country. Approximately one million people died, and 14 million fled the country or became displaced inside the country. The massacres may have never happened in Syria had a civil war not devastated the country for so long. 

Another reason for the killing of minorities in Syria is because of ethnoreligious differences. The Middle East handles religious and ethnic differences differently than elsewhere in the world. Islam is the region’s predominant religion. Its followers are often less tolerant of other religions as well as branches of Islam which differ from their own. Religious education in the Middle East is imbalanced and focuses on teaching everyone the beliefs and practices of the majority. This limits people’s knowledge of minority religions and what they believe and practice. This can lead to serious misunderstandings and divisions. Religious teachings in the Middle East also tend to add to and even encourage both religious and ethnic divides. As such, the Middle East as a whole is  conducive to attacks on minorities. 

Lastly, the Western World embraces diverse groups of people, or at least makes efforts to do so. The Middle East, more than anywhere else in the world, does not embrace diversity amongst its population and often does not even tolerate it. Sometimes, diversity causes major problems. While different groups here get along just fine most of the time, other times attacks do occur. 

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The media tends to focus on certain issues and ignore others, for whatever reasons. Western media, who largely ignored the lengthy Syria civil war, has not surprisingly also ignored the Alawite in Syria killings. The reason in part is because these were attacks against religious minorities. The Western media didn’t really care and no one else did either because religion and religious strife don’t resonate very strongly in the Western World. 

My Alawite friend, who does not live in Syria, sent me dozens of horrific photos and videos of what happened. I told him I would share them to help raise awareness. That is, until I saw how horrifying they were. The below photo is the only one I can bear to even glance at.

The killings of ethnoreligious groups and Syria’s future

Upon the fall of President Assad, the words freedom and “the end of fear” were in the air. Hope arose that the country would finally move away from decades of oppression under Ba’athist dictator regimes. Refugees would return home, a better leader would take power and the country would normalize. Instead President al-Sharaa, who originally promised to protect the minorities in Syria, ordered them to be killed. Now people are more concerned than ever about what may happen next.

Some sources are saying that the killings are still happening albeit fortunately not on such a large scale. The fact that an event of this magnitude happened even once, just a few months after the government changed hands, does not bode well for Syria’s future. In a region which frequently targets religious and ethnic minorities, in a country still reeling from war, the root causes of the massacre are unlikely to be fixed any time soon, if ever. Unfortunately, it is likely something of this sort could happen again.