Syrian sectarianism is not merely a “step backward,” nor a “decline,” nor the “return of the repressed.” Rather, it is a revelation of the most intricate perceptions and dynamics of social existence in the country and the region. However, the more tragic reality is that the new Syrian sectarianism appears — in a significant wa — to be exactly the opposite: sectarianism is the most advanced, most honest, and most wretched ideological form in Syria today. It may well be the only remaining “savior” from the Truth.
But what is this “Truth” from which we are being saved? It is not merely a matter of seeing reality objectively; it is the burden of “shared responsibility” for failure, the devastating sense of “absolute impotence” before the forces that destroyed the country, and the painful realization that we no longer possess a functional political language to confront tyranny, death, and ruin.
Sectarianism transforms this “internal” or “subjective” impotence into an “external dilemma.” It does not grant you a solution; it grants you an adversary upon whom you can cast the entire weight of failure and defeat, allowing you to live comfortably within the illusion of the “innocent victim” or the “betrayed hero.” Thus, fleeing toward the sect becomes a “conscious act”; it is an investment in a lie that keeps us alive on the illusion of freedom and dignity, rather than dying from an overdose of truth.
Yet, this “salvation” is the ultimate deception. Sectarianism does not save us from the truth to guide us toward another; it saves us from it only to drown us in a more expansive and lethal illusion: the illusion that hatred is the only exit from the trap of history. It does not resolve the crisis of meaning but offers a toxic alternative: a ready-made, cost-free meaning, packaged in sectarian containers, consumed greedily, leaving behind a wreckage larger than the very question it sought to suppress.
We do not flee toward sectarianism because we are cowards, but because the courage required to face the vacuum left by dead ideologies and fatal bets has become a form of tragic luxury. Suddenly, hatred became easier than understanding, and blind belonging kinder than thinking and accountability.
Now, let me explain why sectarianism is the savior:
I. The Only Surviving Ideology
Arab Nationalism is dead, Ba’athism is dead, the Left is dead, and Liberalism died before it was even born. Only one ideology remained that never lied, never pretented, and never tried to be “modern” or “humanitarian”: Sectarianism. It no longer feels shame; it no longer hides behind “national unity” or “a homeland for all.” It says with total frankness: “I hate you because you are from another sect.”
This raw honesty is the secret of sectarianism’s power in the postmodern era. It does not promise you justice in the future, nor democracy or liberties; it grants you the immediate hell of hatred as an available, free “alternative.” Thus, sectarianism becomes the “hyper-reality” that requires no reference outside itself. It does not ask for difficult faith or arduous organization; it only asks that your sect be your only valid birth certificate in the registry of ruins—and, of course, that your malice be your identity. In an era where all grand narratives have collapsed, sectarianism appears as the final moment of black irony: explicit, unmasked, asking you to believe in nothing but your hatred, requiring only one sentence: “I am of the group.”
II. The Sectarian Fetish
Syrians know—not every Syrian, of course, but the critical mass that shapes the general climate—that the real problem is tyranny, corruption, the entrenched values within the social structure, the nature of politics and the state, the marginal position within the regional and global system, and the many internal and external entanglements of the Syrian phenomenon. They know the purely “Syrian” dimension is the least weighty or influential part of the Syrian event. But this truth is unbearable; it destroys the psyche and causes deep depression, paralysis, and slow collective suicide.
What do we do when we are unable to carry the truth? We invent a Fetish: something, real or imagined, that we adopt as a symbol or a symbolic idol. It stands in for the source of the threat (or what we perceive as such), replacing the actual truth we wish to evade and the reality we wish to avoid confronting. Sectarianism is the ideal Syrian “fetish” because it provides a tangible enemy (the other sect or social groups) instead of an abstract one. It grants a false sense of power: “If we expel them or humiliate them, we will find peace.” it offers immediate, free gratification: broad social acceptance, an expression of loyalty, and of course, likes, comments, and videos. Most importantly: it protects you from facing the ultimate truth—that you, and most Syrians and actors in the Syrian event, are part of a “collusion” or a “historical consensus” on what has happened and what is happening.
The Syrian sentence that summarizes everything today is: “I know my neighbor from the other sect is not the cause, but if we kill him, displace him from his home, or humiliate him, I will sleep soundly; I will feel my life has meaning, I will get many likes, and I will become a star.” This is the “fetish” in its purest form. This is why sectarianism will not die soon. From this perspective, it is not a disease, but the only available placebo against an even more horrific ailment: the realization that we reached the end by our own hands.
III. Sectarianism: The Democratic Form of Fascism
In the past, fascism required a leader, a party, a propaganda apparatus, and a state. Today, it has become entirely democratic: every citizen is a little Hitler with a mobile phone in his pocket. It is enough for a young man to film a provocative clip to get 50,000 likes in an hour. It is enough to fabricate a video insulting a religious symbol for the country to ignite. There is no need for a leader or an organization: the algorithm is the new leader, and the “Trend” is the new party. This is Fascism 2.0: a grassroots fascism, a TikTok fascism, a fascism that laughs while it kills. But this fascism is not merely a digital phenomenon; it is deeply linked to the “capitalism of hatred” and the “war economy” that thrives on destruction.
Sectarianism is the most “marketable commodity” today because it justifies the seizure of resources, legitimizes displacement, and protects corruption networks. Every provocative clip and sectarian insult is not just an emotional release; it is part of a “cycle of production and consumption” of ruin in which everyone participates. It gives the killers a reason to fight, the merchant a reason to monopolize, and the expatriate a false sense of belonging.
Sectarianism, therefore, serves the politics of catastrophe perfectly: it turns the victim into a tool that keeps the wheel turning, silencing the questions of bread, justice, and equality with the loud roar of hatred. In this sense, the “popularity” of sectarianism is not democratic, and its practice is not a matter of freedoms or human rights; it is a “privatization of fascism” that ensures continued profit for the few through the misery of the true majority.
IV. Sectarianism: The New Religion after the “Death of God”
When all grand narratives—the Homeland, the Nation, Democracy—died, the Syrian needed a new faith. Sectarianism provided everything: a god (the pure sect), a devil (the other sects and groups), daily rituals (the Like, the Share, the Hashtag), a sacrifice (the dignity and life of the Other), a heaven (a “pure” Syria after genocide, exclusion, and displacement), and most importantly: a sense of belonging in a world where nothing else unites. Crucially, this “religion” requires no prayer, no fasting, no alms… it is enough to belong to the “sect” and hate the other “sects.”
If we accept this diagnosis—which is controversial regardless—the fundamental question is not: How do we get rid of sectarianism? Rather, it is: What will we do when we reject this placebo? What reality will we be forced to face once we pull back the comfortable curtain of hatred? Here lies the terror of the true choice: rejecting sectarianism does not open the door to a national paradise; it throws you into a space of uncertainty, where the problem shifts from a clearly defined “external enemy” to a complex internal chaos. You may discover that you possess no political language other than sectarianism to name your oppression, nor any narrative about yourself other than that of the “victim” or the “sectarian victor.” This linguistic and political vacuum is what makes the “return to truth” after habituation to the sectarian narcotic resemble a painful withdrawal process: its symptoms are the confrontation with impotence, shared responsibility, and the grueling necessity of inventing hope from nothing.
V. The Only Treatment!
Sectarianism is not a disease; it is the only treatment available today for a more dangerous ailment: facing the truth that nothing awaits us—no stable state, no justice, no future, no meaning. It rescued us from falling into the well of nothingness; it saved us from “the Other/Hell,” to borrow from Jean-Paul Sartre. But the price of this rescue was exorbitant: replacing the crisis of meaning with a crisis of ethics. The sect turns into a “Sacred Entity” that justifies everything: the betrayal of the self, the neighbor, and the meaning of the homeland. “Good” becomes whatever serves the survival of the sectarian group, and “Evil” becomes any rapprochement or cooperation that transcends its borders.
Sectarianism grants us a cheap, immediate meaning: you are not a destitute poor person in a destroyed country; you are an “oppressed Sunni,” a “threatened Alawite,” a “dying Druze,” or a “secularist separatist Kurd”… etc. This is the ideological bliss we were promised: that your identity be given an importance that outweighs your very existence. It grants the “immediate recognition” denied to the individual in a collapsed society, offering a clear definition of one’s position and role (you are “oppressed,” “threatened”… etc.), which is an ideological bliss set against the misery of isolated individual existence.
Sectarianism saves us from despair… by drowning us in hatred. It presents hatred as an “Energy.” This is the fuel that ensures continuity. Hatred is a powerful and organized emotion; it maintains the tension necessary for the continued sense of belonging and the unfinished ideological war.
Therefore, do not be surprised if it lasts forever. It grants its owner the “false warmth” of belonging in the long night of the void. But this narcotic will not kill us instantly—though it does so anyway—rather, it will kill us slowly, slowly enough to make us accustomed to betraying the self, the neighbor, the homeland, and human values, until we discover in the end that we possess nothing but our malice. In this long path, some may find the courage to refuse the poison and seek a real cure.
VI. The Real Cure
The real cure is not in “pretending” to practice citizenship, but in reviving the lost politics on a new foundation: a dual and explicit confrontation of the social contradiction (by demanding economic justice that transcends sects), the despotic contradiction (by steadfastly demanding individual freedom and dignity), the human contradiction (by looking at the human being as such and demanding rights and freedoms), and the political contradiction (by demanding citizenship).
There is no salvation from sectarianism except by categorically rejecting the “sectarian fetish” and recognizing that the true enemy is the policies, actors, and bets that invest in our mutual hatred. Rejecting the “sectarian fetish” does not require false moral heroics, but the courage of “re-naming.” We must realize that the only language capable of piercing the wall of sectarianism is the “language of daily life”: the language of bills, food, education, and wasted dignity. The real cure lies in reviving the “lost civil society,” not under the banner of false nationalism, but through alliances of necessity that transcend sects to work together for a tangible common goal: Bread and Freedom.
The only “citizen” who can be born in this rubble is the one who finds their true interest in their neighbor living with dignity, not dying in rage. Perhaps this generation, which did not experience the dead ideologies but lives the hell of their results, is the one capable of discovering that coexistence is not a virtue, but a supreme vital interest for surviving the slow end. Though hope in them is weak or continuously diminishing.
Conclusion
Perhaps a day will come when we discover that the only way to salvation is to pass through sectarianism to its very end, to gorge on it until we vomit it, until no bitter taste remains in the throat worth a single “Like.”
Thus, sectarianism becomes the last lie we believe so as not to die from an excess of truth. It is not only a descent into barbarism; it is also a terrifying ascent into the elegance of escape. We are not returning to the jungle; we are building a programmed jungle, with algorithms that give every malice a “Like” and every bigotry a “Share.” Salvation from it does not begin with a false discourse of love, but with the expression of a lethal boredom with it.
When every sectarian insult becomes repetitive, every provocative video a boring copy of the one before it, and every closed identity a narrow prison for the soul, we may open our eyes to an original need: the need for a story about ourselves larger than the grave of the sect, and for a politics that speaks the language of bread, freedom, and dignity—that language which almost everyone has forgotten because the din of hatred was more seductive. Perhaps the only healing is for sectarianism to die internally, not through a moral prescription, but from sheer absurdity, and from the realization that, in the end, it does not even provide the pleasure of real hatred, but merely a cheap “dubbing” of our voices onto a black screen.
A blessed Friday to you, “God’s chosen people”… this week, the Deity is the Sect, and next week it may change, but the Devil will remain the same: ourselves.
