The Associated Press
March 7, 2013 Thursday 05:02 PM GMT
Civil war gives Syrian minorities no clear option
By BEN HUBBARD and STEVE NEGUS, Associated Press
YACOUBIYEH, Syria
During the battle over this hilltop village in northern Syria, many of
its residents fled, leaving behind empty homes, damaged churches and a
large statue of the Virgin Mary in the deserted town square all relics
of its Christian population.
Now Yacoubiyeh is one of the few minority-dominated communities
captured by Syria’s rebels in the country’s nearly 2-year-old
uprising, making it a key gauge of how the opposition fighters mainly
from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority deal with the country’s broad
patchwork of religious and ethnic minorities.
The Muslim commander of the local rebel garrison appears to be trying
to allay any fears among the around 2,500 Christian residents who
remain in the village since the fighting in January, saying he won’t
impinge on anyone’s rights. But, like many rebel leaders now in charge
of Syrian villages, he is making decisions according to a version of
Islamic law that, though not strict, Christians could find
constrictive.
“To each his freedoms,” said the commander, who goes by the nom de
guerre Hakim, suggesting that Christians could drink alcohol in their
homes, but not in public. “Personal freedom stops where the freedom of
others begins.”
As the regime of President Bashar Assad battles a rebellion capturing
increasing swaths of the country, the old order that governed
relations between the country’s myriad sects and ethnicities is
fraying.
Many of Syria’s minorities find themselves stuck in the middle, unsure
which side poses the greatest danger. While outraged by the regime’s
brutal efforts to quash the opposition, many find equally frightening
the Islamist rhetoric of many rebels, and their heavy reliance on
extremist fighters.
Christians, one of the largest religious minorities at about 10
percent of Syria’s 23 million people, have tried to stay on the
sidelines. However, the opposition’s increasingly outspoken Islamism
has kept many leaning toward the regime.
“I am not convinced that these people want freedom and democracy,”
said Fadi, a Christian civil engineer from Damascus, voicing a common
view that the rebels are led by extremists. “I sympathized with them
at the start, but after all the destruction, killing and kidnapping, I
prefer Bashar Assad.”
Like other Syrians interviewed for this article, he spoke on condition
that only his first name be published for fear of retribution.
Syria’s population hails from a mix of ethnic and religious groups, a
diversity reflecting their position at the crossroads of the Levant.
Some three-fourths of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but the country is
also home to other Muslim groups like Shiites, Druze and Alawites, as
well as Christians and ethnic communities of Kurds, Armenians and
others.
All coexisted with varying degrees of ease under Assad’s regime,
founded more than four decades ago by his father, Hafez, and inherited
by Bashar in 2000. The Assad family is Alawite, a Shiite offshoot sect
that makes up about 13 percent of the population, and the community is
the backbone of his regime, holding many senior posts. But the Assads
also made sure to bring Sunnis and members of other groups into some
prominent positions in the government and military, and let them carve
out lucrative sectors of trade.
But the uprising against Bashar Assad’s rule that began in March 2011
quickly became an outlet for long-suppressed grievances, mostly by
poor Sunnis from marginalized areas. It has since escalated into an
outright civil war.
So far, rebels have mainly taken control in Sunni majority areas.
There, most commanders do not appear to be aggressively imposing
religious puritanism, as insurgents in Afghanistan or Iraq have.
Still, they fall back on Islamic law as the default way of resolving
disputes and keeping order.
Sectarian violence is increasingly common. Recent weeks have seen
clashes between Sunni and Shiite villages in central Syria, hundreds
of sectarian kidnappings in the north and damage to Christian and
Shiite religious sites after their capture by rebels.
Many rebels increasingly describe their cause in religious terms.
Calls for freedom have been replaced by chants declaring Islam’s
Prophet Muhammad “our leader forever.” Online videos have shown rebels
smashing truckloads of alcohol bottles and mocking executed government
soldiers as “rafideen,” a derogatory term for Shiites and Alawites.
Many hardline Sunnis consider Shiites infidels.
In Taftanaz, a Sunni town near two government-held Shiite enclaves in
a rebel-dominated region, graffiti on a wall shows an ayatollah with a
Grim Reaper’s head, labeled “The Truth of Shiism.”
Further stoking minority fears, Islamic extremists have risen in the
rebel ranks. Jabhat al-Nusra, which the United States considers a
terrorist group, has been at the forefront of most recent rebel
victories.
Activists from minority sects who support the uprising have found
themselves sidelined, sometimes by both the opposition and their own
communities.
An activist from the city of Salamiyeh, where most residents belong to
the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam, said he had been organizing and
filming anti-regime protests since early in the uprising but found
that rebel websites preferred videos featuring the black flags
associated with militant Sunni Islam.
Instead of joining the armed opposition, he and other activists struck
deals with local officials to allow protests as long as they remained
peaceful, he said. That worked well until Jan. 22, when a bomb attack
on a carpet factory killed 36 people. Two weeks later, a second blast
struck a military factory nearby, killing some 50 Salamiyeh residents,
he said.
Jabhat al-Nusra claimed the first bombing, though many suspected that
the regime planned the bombings to turn the Ismailis against the
uprising. Indeed, many residents blamed the local activists for
bringing the war to what had been a peaceful city, he said.
The activist still supports the uprising. But, he said, “I’m afraid
that in the future we could get rid of Alawite dictatorship and get a
Sunni dictatorship.” He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of
retribution.
The Kurds, Syria’s largest ethnic minority, have tried to use the
security vacuum to increase their independence, often clashing with
rebels who seek to “liberate” their areas.
The opposition’s political leadership, the Syrian National Coalition,
has failed to build ties with minorities. It has few minority members,
and those it does have are not considered leaders in their
communities. The group also has no control over fighters on the
ground.
“To Syria’s Christians, Assad is no savior, but he is seen by many as
the gatekeeper holding back the floodwaters of sectarian retribution
and religious persecution by Sunni militants,” said Ramzy Mardini,
Middle East analyst at the Jamestown Foundation.
“For minorities, life after Assad looks gloomier and the political
opposition is neither strong nor credible enough to make any genuine
reassurances to them,” he said.
Rebels moved in to capture Yacoubiyeh and two neighboring villages,
Judeida and Quniya which together are home to several thousand
Christians in part because regime forces were shelling rebel-held
areas from the communities. Those who fled appear to have done so
mainly to escape the battle, though worries over the approaching
rebels may have played a role.
Last month, residents met with Muslim clerics to discuss the status of
Christians under the Islamic courts that rebels have organized. One
villager said he didn’t want to be a “dhimmi” a second-class citizen
under Islamic law but a Syrian with equal rights, said Mouaz Moustafa
of the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, who organized the
meeting.
The clerics responded that the courts were a “service” they provide in
the absence of any other government, Moustafa said. They said stricter
Shariah punishments, like amputation of hands and stoning, have been
suspended during wartime, and the courts would try to enlist civil
judges to partner with the clerics. Democratic elections after the
regime’s fall, the clerics said, would ultimately determine the laws.
Analyst Yezid Sayigh of the Carnegie Middle East Center cautioned
against assuming that all members of sectarian groups think alike.
Even among Sunnis and Alawites, there is a range of views: Many want
what they see as best for Syria not just for their own sect whether
that means Assad or the rebellion. It is also premature to talk of a
Sunni takeover in Syria, he said, noting that many Sunnis don’t follow
the extreme views held by some rebel fighters.
What is more likely, he said, is national fragmentation that leaves no
structure able to handle tasks like rebuilding the economy and
repatriating refugees.
“These are going to be massive issues,” he said.
Hubbard reported from Beirut. A Syrian reporter in Damascus, Syria,
contributed reporting.