It is difficult to reduce the Syrian question to a conflict between distinct sects, for it brings together multiple levels of disputes. The question in Syria is not about the ideal method for sectarian quota-sharing, or the distribution of influence, resources, and gains among sects; rather, it revolves around the unified national and cultural identity of the state, which brings us to the national question. It is also about the ideal economic system to rescue people from abject poverty and backward relations of production, which is a social and class question. Furthermore, there is the question regarding the nature of the warring groups, and the extent of their belonging to a single people and a unified cultural and ethnic group, which poses the ethnic question. To this, one can add the question regarding internal distinctions based on region, lifestyle, and the mode of production or receipt of rents, opening the door to the regional and provincial question. Therefore, it can be said that the Syrian question is a complex synthesis of sectarian, ethnic, national, class, and regional issues, within a pressing regional reality connected through cultural, human, and political ties to the conflicting Syrian groups; each group or region possesses its lived or imagined extension with other human groups and regions in neighboring countries. Consequently, the phrase “the sectarian problem in Syria” might be too reductionist to encompass the overlapping realities that constitute the highly explosive “Syrian matter.”
This forces any engagement with the Syrian question to pass through all of these complex levels. Even if the slogan of decentralization, federalism, or self-determination is raised—meaning the reconstruction of the Syrian entity on new foundations, changing its borders, or seceding from it—all the previous questions will remain posed. What identity will a decentralized state have? How do groups desiring autonomy or secession define themselves, and transform themselves from a sect or an ethnicity into a people? What will be their definition of the Other and their relationship with them? What will be the form of resource distribution and the delineation of borders and administrative regions? Therefore, there may be no utility in “escaping forward”; the “Syrian question” must be confronted, whatever the objective or purposes of that confrontation might be.
Perhaps what complicates matters further is that there are not many theoretical contributions to the “Syrian question.” Under the influence of traditional nationalist and leftist thought, it has long been appended to other issues, such as Arab national liberation, confronting Zionism and global imperialism, and democratic transition. For long decades, this placed the entire complexity of the Syrian question in the category of the unthought-of, as if the demise of external hegemony or internal tyranny would automatically lead to solving the problems of the coexistence of Syrian population blocs, returning them to an original state where harmony and social peace prevail—or as if hegemony and tyranny were indeed an “external” condition to the problems of that coexistence, rather than one of its internal factors and foundational conditions. Perhaps Syrians produce “tyranny” and invite hegemony, rather than being merely their absolute victims.
Based on this, the “Syrian question” may need comprehensive political, social, and cultural perspectives—not necessarily a single one, meaning that approaches to the question may multiply with the multiplicity of the concerned Syrian groups, their location, and the risks they face. However, each approach must be able to provide preliminary answers to all the fundamental challenges raised by the question, and condense within itself a set of multiple demands, positions, and categories, even within the narrowest local frameworks, so that it can build an independent political subject that is not merely a reflection of the deadlock of the Syrian situation. This requires what is usually called “critical consciousness,” which is not just the rejection of or attack on a certain party, but rather the realization of the basic conditions of the general situation, its limits, and its contradictions, leading to an attempt to transcend it or break with it. Is this type of consciousness available in Syria?
This seems to be an exclamatory question rather than an interrogative one, and perhaps it is more useful to wonder about the reasons for the absence of consciousness rather than the extent of its presence.
The phenomenon that might be called “sectarian narcissism” could be one of the most important manifestations and outcomes of the “Syrian question” at present. It is not merely “self-love,” a sense of superiority, victimhood, or the dehumanization of the Other; rather, it represents the primary pillar for the emergence of modes of discourse within different groups based on identification with an imagined conception of the self, without the existence of a symbolic position from which the group can evaluate itself. In other words, these discourses do not possess a political, legal, moral, or cultural standard through which the group can seek to reshape the space and framework within which its members desire, act, and think; thus, the group appears only to seek conformity with its imagination of itself, whether the content of that imagination is glory, power, sophistication, or civilization. Hence, we see groups mired in poverty, violence, and enforced ignorance, practically incapable of producing their own self-political representation, and in a state of permanent dependency on an external party—or waiting to find a party to depend upon—while discourses proliferate within them that are confined to their conceptions of their imagined ideal self, without any capacity for criticism or transcendence.
One can also focus on the “sectarian” attribute of this narcissism because its discourses relate primarily to the sect or doctrine; a feeling prevails that a difference in sect confers a large measure of distinctiveness and privilege upon the group, followed by numbers and geographical spread. This reduction into the sectarian image conceals the rest of the questions and factors, rendering identification with the image more intimate. There is no need to answer the complex questions of ethnicity, nationality, class, and society; they might disrupt the identification, because they invalidate the feeling of oneness with the self.
Although the narcissistic image is present in any identity—indeed, in any concept of the self in general—the discourses of sectarian narcissism appear to be a cheap and comfortable alternative to seriously dealing with the complexity of the “Syrian question.” This hinders the emergence of serious political and intellectual standards that might arise from a serious discussion of the question: what do these groups want to become, except to feel that they are superior or better? Sectarian or identity-based belonging in general may perform necessary social functions, such as securing belonging, protection, and a form of resource distribution. However, in the case of Syrian sectarian narcissistic discourses, no functions seem to be performed; many groups are incapable of securing protection or providing resources, nor have they remained a safe space for belonging and building values, making narcissistic discourses closer to a compensatory or even a reactionary attempt. Imagination here (building an imaginary image of the self) takes the place of representation (finding standards to build the self and present discourse about it), and the inflation of the imagined self-image becomes a compensation for the absence of a clear symbolic standard.
A number of basic characteristics of this narcissism can be extracted. First, it is anti-political and anti-cultural, meaning it is not only incapable of political and cultural production, but its very existence blocks this production. Second, it is anti-social, meaning its inability to build actual ties between the various strata within the group and carry their actual demands. From this branches the third characteristic, which is its lack of comprehensiveness; its failure to build ties leads to greater fragmentation within the groups, the escalation of defeatist, nihilistic, and submissive attitudes, and the reinforcement of dependency on the most powerful, armed, and fierce parties. The fourth characteristic is its inverse relationship with the actual conditions of the group; the further its political, social, cultural, and even vital decline drops, the more the narcissistic tendency escalates among its individuals, as if it were a sort of self-elegy and a relish in it.
The question remains about the dominance of the imaginary dimension over the symbolic in the Syrian condition—that is, the inability to represent the self through an integrated normative dimension that includes political, legal, cultural, and moral ideas. This certainly has its direct economic/social causes, as we are talking about societies that have been linked for decades to a bloated state apparatus that carried out operations that can be described as “peasantization”—meaning the reproduction of peasant relations through the state apparatus and the networks of loyalty and dependency branching from it, without any development in the social structure toward bourgeoisification, industrialization, or comprehensive development. This blocked any possibility for the emergence of independent political subjects and placed people in a relationship resembling serfdom with the new master, which is the state. There are also ideological and religious reasons; in the Arab/Islamic nation-state, where Islam is the source of legislation, there is no actual place for freedom of belief, conscience, and expression, and all Syrian groups had to identify with that monolithic designation through the Islamization and Arabization of the self. When the unifying national standard collapsed, no standard remained, and narcissism escalated as a regression to an imagined original state to identify with the sectarian self-image. Finally, there is existential pressure; when groups feel a vital threat that impedes the continuation of life, social desire moves in various directions characterized by chaos, and it may transform into a self-destructive energy instead of being an energy for survival.
In this circumstance, is it possible to reach a symbolic position capable of dealing with the “Syrian question” and presenting new standards for the different groups, enabling them to represent themselves? Or do the realities of the general social condition impose themselves, making any attempt in this direction futile?
Representation and Imagination
In Marx’s famous book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, a decisive passage appears in the subsequent development of political theory. In the context of his discussion about French peasants during the coup of Louis Bonaparte, who later became “Napoleon III,” Marx says: “The small-holding peasants form a vast mass, the members of which live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse […] They are consequently incapable of enforcing their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or through a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.”
A number of thinkers, including the Indian scholar Gayatri Spivak, have noted that the concept of “representation” may mean in the German language, and in Marxist philosophical usage, a combination of representing the group through direct individuals and discourses—Vertretung (as in parliamentary deputies representing the people, for instance, through a mode of democratic proxy)—and the personification of groups and others through conceptions, knowledge, and imaginations—Darstellung (as in literature that presents conceptions of “the people”). In Marx’s text quoted above, he uses the word Vertretung, but in other places, especially when speaking about people’s conceptions of themselves and their production of their world, he appears closer to the meaning of Darstellung. Thus, people who are incapable of representing themselves in the direct political sense through representatives, leaders, and organizations still retain representational conceptions of the self that contribute to moving them and making their decisions. These conceptions are embedded in an integrated symbolic/ideological world that manufactures the conditions of self-perception, and it is a field for ideological, political, and class hegemony. When Marx says “they must be represented,” he means that the dominant classes undertake the task of representing those incapable of representing themselves, whether by defining the political and institutional conditions of representation or even formulating the basic conceptions of the self, the world, knowledge, and society. This places those incapable of representing themselves in the position of subalterns, who form a passive crowd for authorities, especially populist ones, as in the case of Louis Bonaparte, who is one of the most famous and earliest models of modern populism.
In the case of the discourses of sectarian narcissism in Syria, a complex phenomenon can be observed: most Syrian groups are incapable of and deprived of representation (Vertretung), just as entire groups have been dropped from the symbolic/ideological world, especially with the collapse of the Syrian nation-state. Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and others are demonized, excluded, and indeed their very existence is considered a “problem” within the Arab-Islamic monolithism, which has become jihadist and “majoritarian” in the sectarian sense. Meanwhile, entire regions are subjected to similar exclusion and demonization, though differing in degree, such as the city of Aleppo, whose belonging to the “majority” is questioned due to what is alleged about its people’s stance during the Syrian war. All of these have been excluded from the world of Syrian symbolic personification (Darstellung), and they no longer find a place for themselves in it to evaluate and represent the self. This may explain the regressive tendency toward discourses of sectarian narcissism among some of them; they can no longer be Syrian Arabs, Muslims, or nationalists, while they stand in a position of doubt, suspicion, and potential violation. Therefore, narcissistic discourses create an imaginary image with which one can fully identify and unify, without posing questions to the self. These people were expelled from the symbolic world, or given the worst status within it, and since they are incapable of representation in all its meanings, nothing remained for them but imagination—meaning the transition to the imaginary/narcissistic level.
“The Symbolic” and “the Imaginary” are terms coined by the French thinker and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Therefore, it is necessary to speak of his third level, namely “the Real,” which is his most complex concept and the most open to interpretation; we will use it here to mean that which escapes the symbolic and the imaginary—that which is shocking and uninterpretable and unimaginable within our symbolic networks and imaginary images. In the Syrian case, it is the horror and existential shock of the possibility of vital annihilation, which takes various forms, including identity-based killing, starvation, and the destruction of the foundations for the continuation of life. It is precisely here that “the Real” may emerge, against which neither the imaginary images of sectarian narcissism nor the symbolic networks of “Syrianism”—meaning the central Arab-Islamic privilege that has become closer to a Sunni sectarian fascism—will be of any use.
The Surviving Sect
What is sometimes called the “Lacanian Left”—meaning the current influenced by the ideas of Jacques Lacan, whose most famous figures include the Slovenian Slavoj Žižek and the American Jodi Dean—is considered one of the most important trends of the contemporary Western Left. The latter attempted to present a comprehensive theoretical approach to the inability of actual political representation, which is a global phenomenon and not unique to our region. The solution proposed by Dean can be summarized in one word: the Party.
For Dean, the party is not merely political or ideological content that must be disseminated and propagandized among people to organize them on its basis; rather, it is closer to an apparatus for organizing collective desire, making politics possible in light of the fragmentation of desire and our tendency toward narcissistic self-images in our contemporary social and communicative world. The party becomes closer to a “Big Other” that grants us a coherent symbolic world and establishes the frameworks and conditions of our desire, ensuring several purposes: providing a representational model for the collective self that creates a bond between individuals, enabling them to develop themselves and work together on its basis, leading to the production of a distinct politics, discourse, and culture; guaranteeing continuity—that is, the capacity to accumulate manifestations of protest against exploitation, pain, injustice, and threat suffered by people in existing systems within a stable, organized, and effective political framework that does not end with the expiration of a protest “trend”; and working on the production of counter-hegemony, so that people do not remain subordinate to a dominant ideology that makes them sink into a narcissistic relationship with their imagined image. This image is not spontaneous or individual as it might seem; rather, it contains a ready-made and totalitarian ideological model that relocates individual selves, after scattering them, within the frameworks of a system that practically cancels the capacity for collective action, producing alienating relations that allow for the impoverishment, exploitation, and oppression of people.
Returning to the Syrian affair, we can indeed observe the development of the Kurdish political experience and its capacity to represent the collective self compared to the rest of the Syrian groups due to the existence of a broad and active party heritage. Despite the corruption, violations, and failures that mar it, it has secured an experience that is more “advanced” by the standards of the region. This does not mean that the Kurds are the “surviving sect” in Syria, for many of the crises and problems of the “Syrian question” apply to them, and they suffer in turn from an actual existential threat; rather, it means that rethinking the concept of “the party” might be a method for collective survival in Syria.
The concept of “the party” in Syria may stem from the level of “the Real” before the symbolic or the imaginary. We do not possess an organizational and ideological heritage that can be fully relied upon, just as our sectarian imaginations will lead us nowhere. However, a level of “the Real” emerges for us, appearing closer to an existential “event” in the philosophical sense: the collapse of our old worlds with the collapse or decay of the region’s states, the seizure of power by Islamic militias with external support, their comprehensive threat to the continuation of life, and the massacres they committed in past years—such as the Yazidi genocide and the massacres of Alawites and Druze. Perhaps we must be faithful to this “event,” in the words of the French philosopher Alain Badiou, which drives us to work on producing an organized political action that takes the form of a party according to Jodi Dean’s perspective.
A theoretical schema can be proposed for this action, starting from “the Real”—meaning the existing horror and the necessity of securing self-protection and refusing the contract of adhesion imposed by the jihadists, which is submission and acceptance of violation and Islamization in exchange for not being immediately annihilated; passing through “the Symbolic”—meaning the creation of social frameworks and organizations that enable us to transcend our individual and sectarian narcissism and represent our selves, such as self-management and party organization; leading to “the Imaginary”—meaning the production of images of the self with which temporary identification is possible without sinking into them. These levels overlap and interact; the symbolic may ground the imaginary and prevent its dominance, while the real may be the foundation that must be reintegrated into the symbolic and the imaginary, while remaining “faithful” to it always.
Certainly, no symbolic/ideological framework can be produced that ignores the most difficult questions of the “Syrian question”—namely, the intersection of sect, ethnicity, nationality, class, and region. This requires an actual confrontation with what the Syrian entity has settled upon and the idea of “the Syrian people” itself, which will make reaching a “post-Syrian” formula necessary, and perhaps transforming sects, ethnicities, and regions into “peoples” that find some common ground or a certain contractual formula that secures the existence of a viable entity or entities.
