It is the power of the people that brought an end to the authoritarian
regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. The struggle of the Syrian people is
continuing: the regime has already committed crimes against humanity and yet remains
in power. Turkey, as a neighbour and rising regional player, has championed an
intervention in Syria and hosted a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul to
reach that objective. However, Turkey’s criticism of Syria has provoked stern
opposition from the Nusayris of Turkey, sharing the same ancestry with their
counterparts in Syria, who mostly live in Antioch, home to thousands of Syrian refugees. The province itself has in fact been a significant source of conflict between
Syria and Turkey over the
last sixty
years.
So, why do Nusayris oppose to an intervention in Syria? Is
this just straightforward solidarity? The Turkish Radikal daily’s headline on April 15 voiced some Turkish Nusayri claims. According to those
interviewed, Turkey is being deceived by the western powers. The pro-government
Turkish press exaggerates the conflict in Syria and foments a bloody
Sunni-Nusayri conflict, and Antiochian people suffer from Turkey’s
interventionist plans as Turkish exports and imports with Syria have
drastically decreased since the political unrest erupted last year. In the end
they want to know why Turkey wants democracy only in Syria but not in Saudi
Arabia or Qatar? However, such accounts only serve to conceal the main causes
of opposition which lie in their historic fears.
Take the heated debates among group members in the ASI-DER, the
mail-list of an Antiochian immigrant community. Most members agree that
NATO and the US are pursuing imperial objectives and using Turkey as an
instrument to reach those ends. While some group members reject this
explanation and accuse Assad of slaughtering his own people, other group members
argue that the western and Gulf media is exaggerating incidents. They denounce
anti-Assad members for turning a blind eye on the plans of both western and
Wahhabist powers attempting to topple Assad. The anti-imperialism discourse of
the community incorporates a blend of leftist, secularist, and Kemalist ideology that sternly opposes
the Sunni-led AK Party government and therefore any intervention in Syria initiated by this
government. To them, the big picture is derived from an imperialist and
Sunni-led plot against the Nusayris of Syria and Assad.
Sultan Abdulhamid of the Ottoman Empire struggled to create
a common bond for his Muslim subjects across the Middle East, based on the
Sunni branch of Islam. This sparked conflicts with Sunnis who lived in the
Lebanese Mountains, and in Syria with the Nusayris. Sunnis have perceived
Nusayris as inferior and non-believers ever since. Sultan Abdulhamid’s project
reconciled Nusayris relations with the state, as many settled permanently and
stopped rebelling, but failed to resolve the problems between the Sunnis and
Nusayris as the latter rejected conversion to Sunnism. This problem continues
to the present day and is the primary reason why the Nusayris fear a Sunni-dominated
Syria.
Historically, having been oppressed by the Sunni-dominated
Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic, the Nusayris of
Turkey think, if the Sunnis take power in Syria, their fellow-Nusayris will be
subject to violence. The region will be dominated by Sunnis who may threaten
their secular lifestyles. Not only might the Sunnis take revenge for what the
Assad regime did, but also the attacks remind them, of a past that may be easily
renewed.
This article is part of Arab Awakening's This week's window into the Middle East.
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