Is an Alawite protest movement emerging in Syria's coastal areas?

Simultaneously, another declaration came out, this time signed by the "Free Alawite Officers" who claimed to be speaking from "the heart of the Syrian coast" and specifically from al-Kurdaha, the hometown of President Bashar al-Assad.

It is unclear whether the officers' declaration was linked to that of the 10 August Movement, given that it was far better structured with clear demands, like ending Iranian influence in Syria, creating "transitional justice," and holding accountable those whom it described as "traders of blood and religion."

The 10 August Movement declaration, however, was brief, vague, and written in poor handwriting, with no clear political demands. 

What is also unclear is whether the two declarations were actually written from within Syria, as their authors claimed, or from abroad like many before.

The common denominator between them was that neither was directly critical of the president, but both were targeting the Alawite community — the power base of the Syrian regime that until 10 years ago stood at around 12% of the Syrian population. 

The two back-to-back declarations came just days after Alawite activist Lama Abbas appeared in an online video, calling on people to take to the streets and demonstrate against the deterioration of the Syrian economy.

Although she is an Alawite and regime supporter, security officials tried to have her arrested but she turned them away, saying that they had no court warrant, filming the dramatic scene and then posting it on Facebook.

According to a 1973 edit by Shiite cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr of Lebanon, the Alawites are a small minority offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Hafez ultimate Alawite authority

During the years of French occupation, they were ruled by powerful Alawite families like the Kinj, Abbas, Kheir Beik, and Makhlouf, who were collectively sidelined by Hafez al-Assad after he came to power in 1970. The only exception was the Makhloufs, who were allied to the al-Assads and related by marriage.

During his 30-year rule, al-Assad was the ultimate authority for all the Alawites, challenged by nobody but his brother Rifaat, commander of the Defence Corps — a special unit that he used to try and seize power in 1984.

That led to his defeat and banishment, and he would remain in exile until 1992 when he was granted special permission by his brother to attend his mother's funeral in al-Kordaha. When Rifaat showed up for the funeral, some Alawites got so enthusiastic that they fired shots into the air, chanting that "The leader Rifaat is back."

Many of them thought that he would become Syria's next president after the sudden death of Hafez al-Assad's eldest son Basil in 1994. That never happened, however, and when Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, he was automatically succeeded by his second son, Bashar.

Rifaat would leave Syria during the final years of his brother's rule, living between Spain and France, and with the passing of time, lose his influence in the Alawite community as he advanced with age and lost the financial ability to bankroll the Alawites.

The greatest testimony of how irrelevant he has become today is the fact that he was allowed to return to Syria in 2022 — this time granted permission by his nephew, to spend his final years in peace, away from any political or military activity.

Rising Alawite star also sidelined

During the first two decades of Bashar al-Assad's rule, the rising star in the Alawite community was his cousin Rami Makhlouf — a businessman who handled the well-being of his co-religionaries and positioned himself as their best employer.

Many found jobs either at his company SyriaTel or in one of his many economic or industrial enterprises before he set up the al-Bustan Charity to cater for the Alawite poor, which would eventually transform into a militia when the Syrian war started in 2011. 

Rami Makhlouf became the most influential businessman in Syria, owning profitable companies, a charity-turned-militia, and a political party that he literarily bought called the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. 

In other words, he became too strong.

Suddenly and with no prior warning, a decision was taken to end the Rami Makhlouf phenomenon in 2020. His assets were seized, along with his party and militia, transforming him from an influential power broker into a Facebook personality who occasionally comes out with online videos filled with religious overtones, but little substance.

Overnight, he lost all influence in the Alawite community and since then, Alawite villages and towns have witnessed a major economic collapse, partially due to Makhlouf's sidelining but mainly due to the major slump that the entire country was witnessing.

Replacing him at the helm of power was Asma, the wife of the Syrian president, who established a strong media presence for herself that was most recently noted at the graduation of her son from Moscow, earlier this summer.

According to a foreign diplomat based in Damascus, all state institutions, including ministries and the ruling Baath Party, started dealing with her as "a leading member of the presidential institution."

Asma, who hails from a Sunni family from Homs, began to build a strong and wide-reaching political and economic network, visiting various parts of Syria on her own, without her husband, the last of which was to Alawite villages whose trees were damaged by a recent fire.

A war that Syrians paid with in their blood

The war in Syria has cast a long shadow over all Syrians, including the Alawites who live in decades-long gripping poverty. Thousands of them were killed during the battles of the past 12 years, although we can never know exactly how many since no proper census has been conducted in Syria since 2011.

In Sunni villages and towns, the death toll struck everybody: men, women, children, and the elderly, in addition to uprooting half their residents and creating a diaspora refugee community of around 3 million people.

In the Alawite community, however, the death toll hit the young hardest — those of fighting age between 18-40. There is not a single Alawite village not draped in black, and not a single household that has not lost at least one of its children.  

Throughout it all, the Alawites continued to show unwavering loyalty to al-Assad, fearful of what the future had in store for them, were he to step down. They never forgot that one of the earliest slogans of the 2011 revolt was: "Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the Grave," a chant that many in the opposition dismiss as regime-fabricated with the goal of strengthening fear of the opposition and loyalty to the regime, very early into the conflict.

Pro-regime Syrians, and especially Alawites, are firmly convinced that the opposition has failed to give them any assurances or ease their fears.

On the contrary, it continued to collectively attack and threaten them as a community, especially by Islamic hardliners like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State (IS), and Jabhat al-Nusra (now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham). This explains why very few Alawites joined the opposition, although many were known for their critical views of the regime prior to the year 2011.

No reward for defending regime

The vast majority of Alawites today consider that their day-to-day conditions are among the worst in Syria. They received no reward for defending the regime but, rather, were told that they were fighting in self-defence to protect themselves as a community, or else, face being collectively slaughtered by the opposition.

Their economic conditions are terrible and have reached rock-bottom over the past few months, given the collapse of the Syrian lira that has made the salary of a government official worthless, whether he/she are Alawite, Sunni, or Christian, unable to meet basic needs like medication, schools, heating, and electricity.

Throughout Syria, there have been major power-black outs and electricity shortages, prompting authorities to run a steady schedule for places like Damascus: three hours of power versus three hours of electricity rationing, and in some parts of the capital, it can be four hours of rationing against two hours of electricity.

In the Alawite villages, however, electricity is often turned off for days on end, especially during harsh winters and hot summers. Topping all of that is the fact that the Alawites have no alternative ways to make a living: there are no employment opportunities in their areas, no universities, and no hope for a better future.

All of that remained within the parameters of what they considered "acceptable." What wasn't however, was to have them shoulder blame for what had become of Syria, or to consider them as having been a "privileged community" in times of war — collectively responsible for all the country's woes.