Hazem Saghiyeh

There are some today who are using “the support of Syrian Christians for Assad’s regime” as an argument to condemn the Syrian uprising, to prove that “Islamists and Salafists” are involved in the uprising and uphold the “secularism of the regime” in contrast.
Of course, we do not have anything to confirm or deny this “support” and its extent. But its presence, if true, is nothing but another sign of what the Baathist regime has sown since its establishment in 1963 (especially after the “corrective movement” in 1970) and of what it is reaping in Syria today.

If the Christians’ fear has led them to this, it only betrays the weight of the destruction that the Baathist decades inflicted on the Syrian social fabric. Communities began relating to one another only through fear and suspicion, not seeing any future besides open killing.

Honesty requires us to say that sectarianism and minorities’ fears are of course not the product of the Baath or its rule. These sentiments run throughout the history of religious communities and the partisan structures and cultures that flourished in our region. Yet, having said this, it is difficult to avoid the bitter reality that 48 years of the authority of “unity, liberty and socialism” has aggravated such sentiments rather than limiting and restraining them.
It can be deduced from this that more Baathist rule necessarily means more social disintegration, more fearful minorities asking them ruler to “protect” them – in fact, it means more fear on all sides, from all sides.

If it is true that the Christians are “supporting” Assad’s regime, it is also true that they are mistaken. By doing so, they are creating worse conditions that will backfire on them in the future. As for the dangers of transition – and there may well be real dangers for both minorities and majorities – the other side of transition is the establishment of new beginnings. Intolerance accompanied by a possibility for change is less costly than established, entrenched, closed and arrogant intolerance.

It was said before that Iraq’s Christians were supporting Saddam and his regime because he “protected” them. This – again, if true – is a sign of the role the Baathist regimes play in the breakup of their countries’ social fabric by offering minority communities protection in exchange for their loyalty. They do this rather than replace the fear-protection dualism with the standards of actual citizenship. Was not Saddam Hussein’s era itself, with its prolonged discrimination and repression, the reason behind the explosion of bloody, fanatical hatreds among the Iraqis following his overthrow?

These kinds of regimes are based on a type of Stockholm Syndrome, where the hostage falls in love with his captor. In this case, all the captor has to do is keep from killing the hostage so that it appears he is the one giving him life. The Syrian Christian – in fact, any human being – should be smarter than this.