There is a huge misconception making the rounds that the Alawite community were a major beneficiary of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The truth, however, is the exact opposite: they are actually the underclass in al-Assad’s Syria, suffering most from Bashar’s autocracy and yet made to pay the price for his atrocities.
Had he actually been concerned about the well-being of the Alawites, then he would have ordered the establishment of schools and universities in their remote villages and towns, and he had plenty of time to do that since coming to power in 2000.
But he did not, and neither did his father Hafez, who came to power in 1970. They actually preferred to keep the Alawites lurking in poverty and ignorance so that they would remain in eternal need and submission to the Assad family. Had schools and universities emerged in the Alawite territories, producing doctors, scientists, and engineers, then not a single Alawite would have carried arms with al-Assad at the outbreak of the Syrian Revolt in 2011.
Instead, he wanted them to remain soldiers in his service, guards at his doorstep, or drivers and bodyguards in his entourage and that of his top commanders. Their biggest ambition under the Assads was to become smugglers and mercenaries, first with the Defence Corps of Rifaat al-Assad in the 1970s, then with the Republican Guard of Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s, and more recently, in Maher al-Assad’s 4th Division.
Alawite elders were actually not too happy with Hafez al-Assad’s coup of 1970, which saw the arrest of top Alawite army general Salah Jadid and left him to rot in jail until his death in 1993. Al-Assad then ordered the systematic sidelining of all the notable families of the Alawite community, replacing them with petty Alawite officers who were promoted to senior positions under his regime.
Then came Bashar, who dragged the Alawite community into a senseless and uphill battle in 2011, where thousands of Alawite youth were killed with no proper compensation for their families. Bashar kept their villages in total darkness and poverty while he and his cronies were erecting palaces and making fortunes of their plight before turning his back on them and fleeing to Moscow on the night of 8 December 2024.
During his 24-year-rule, Bashar peddled a giant lie in Syrian history, that he was the protector of the Alawites and other Syrian minorities and that if it were not for him and his father, then they would have never risen to positions of power in the Syrian state and army. This is completely untrue, given that in pre-Baath Syria, Alawite figures had assumed important posts, like command of the air force and military police, and the portfolios of health, public works, media, and interior.
With the toppling of al-Assad and his regime, the Alawites are now before a historic opportunity to rid themselves of the Assad family legacy and return to their rightful place in Syrian society, where they were properly and adequately represented during the first half of the twentieth century and until the Ba’ath coup of 8 March 1963.
The Alawite State
Two months into French rule, High Commissioner Henri Gouraud established the State of the Alawites in September 1920. A close-knit esoteric community dating back to the tenth century, they lived in the rugged mountains east of Syria’s Mediterranean coastline, with another cluster living in the towns surrounding Homs and Hama and within the Sanjak of Alexandretta.
Much of what outsiders knew about them was based on imagination, myth, and gossip, with their earliest mention dating back to Crusader chronicles, travellers tales, and the diplomatic dispatches of European consuls. Foreigners often depicted them as a closed-off community that lived in fear, superstition, and repression.
During the 14th century, ranking Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiya issued a religious fatwa accusing them of being infidels, setting the cornerstone of the Ottoman attitude towards the Alawites for years to come. With the passing of time, an Alawite enclave emerged within Ottoman Syria—a place that was dramatically backward and void of any officialdom.
