The political geography of the Middle East has never known a model more dangerous to its social components than the modern “nation-state,” a concept that originated in nineteenth-century Europe and was imported into pluralistic environments such as the Levant, Anatolia, and neighboring regions. Unlike ancient empires or traditional sultanates, which relied on multi-layered governance systems that allowed for a degree of coexistence among different ethnicities and sects under a higher authority, the nation-state came to impose an exclusionary logic on politically diverse societies. It introduced genocide, displacement, and forced assimilation into its daily agenda, as well as into its jurisprudence.
A glance at the 20th century in this region is enough to grasp the impact of this transformation
In the late Ottoman era, when the Sultanate transformed into a Turkish nationalist project, the doors were opened to massacres against Armenians, Pontic Greeks, Syriacs, and Assyrians, in what was known as the cleansing of the vital space for the new identity. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the same formula was repeated in less bloody but more deeply rooted forms over the long term: the forced Arabization of Kurds in Iraq and Syria, the dissolution of local identities, even those related to Arabism, and the restriction of communities that embody diversity within a state that constructs an authoritarian apparatus aimed at preemptive security against any groups or parties working to deter or reform the “necessarily barbaric nation-state.”
Today, Syria is experiencing the climax of this deadlock. Despite its historical Salafist character and its jihadist figures, the regime has found no other way to exercise power than through the “nation-state cloak.” However, this cloak has become increasingly rigid in its centralization, as centralization creates a homogeneous authoritarian apparatus without internal constraints. This authority does not allow for the existence of local forces or influence networks that support the state and challenge it, thus curbing the transformation of the state into a unilateral violence machine specialized in unleashing barbarism. Syrians have witnessed this naked face of authority since independence, when the state turned into a military-security machine confronting its society. This escalation reached its peak with Bashar al-Assad and continues today with the new rulers, after decades of dismantling all horizontal links and independent local centers.
In contrast, decentralized visions—whether those proposed by the Kurds or local ideas of self-rule among the Druze and Alawite communities—represent a structural resistance to this fraudulent authoritarian model. These resistance visions do not merely advocate for local governance; they undermine the core philosophy of the Levantine nation-state, which perceives pluralism as an existential threat rather than just a political nuisance. Herein lies the essence of the contemporary Syrian conflict: a struggle between a centralized, monolithic model that insists on monopolizing power and identity, and decentralized models that seek to redistribute power and recognize diversity as a natural fabric of the country.
Most notably, there is a surprising unity in the anti-decentralization discourse among seemingly contradictory parties: the Baath, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Salafi movements. Despite their ideological contradictions, all these forces converge in defending the centrality of the state and in a shared narrative of hatred against groups demanding recognition and self-representation. This reveals what can be called the “contemporary Umayyad formation”: a symbolic structure reminiscent of the ancient Umayyad model, centered around a tribal clan linked to Damascus, which practiced exclusion against peripheral groups—including Arab tribes. The Umayyad authority’s well-known manipulation of the Qaysi-Yaman dichotomy led to its collapse, ending more disastrously more on the hands of Khurasanis. Conversely, the “contemporary Abbasid-Khurasani formation” is emerging, represented by the diverse forces of the Syrian periphery seeking political protection and broader movement outside the grip of the center.
Thus, “contemporary Umayyadism” includes Salafism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Baath—all movements that implicitly agree on the centrality of the Arab-Sunni state or unilateral nationalism. They share a discourse of hatred and brutality against any pluralistic or decentralized approach, justifying acts of extermination and enslavement as expressions of freedom of speech and behavior.
Meanwhile, “contemporary Abbasid-Khurasaniism” encompasses the forces representing the Syrian periphery: Kurds, Alawites, and Druze—including Sunnis who are not subservient to the Umayyads. Historically, these groups sought political protection from the center. These decentralized forces are a contemporary extension of the Abbasid-Khurasani movement’s foundational idea, which overthrew the Umayyads—who refused change and adaptation to the multiplicity of centers of power, influence, and identity.
This contrast between “contemporary Umayyadism” and “contemporary Abbasid-Khurasaniism” is not purely ideological but metaphorical. It exposes the persistence of an ancient dynamic in the Levant: a struggle between a manipulative, jurisprudence-driven, unilateral center and a pluralistic periphery demanding political recognition. Without addressing this deep-seated historical divide, the nation-state model in Syria will continue to generate crises and reproduce violence whenever it harbors the illusion of exercising its “freedom” to eradicate.
The Fraudulent Nation-State
No form or concept of the state throughout history has ever institutionalized genocide as blatantly as the “fraudulent nation-state”, entrenched in the geography of the Levant, Anatolia, and their socially pluralistic surroundings. Despite the Salafist character of the new authority in Syria, and the availability of pathways for change and participation, it has chosen only the model of the nation-state, with an even more centralized grip on power. This is because centralization establishes a unilateral apparatus of violence, unchecked in its brutality and free to commit acts of genocide.
Today’s conflict in Syria revolves around two competing state models: centralization versus decentralization, genocide versus survival. This is why we see a unified discourse of hatred and rejection shared by Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Ba’ath Party—the elements of the modern Umayyad formation—against advocates of decentralization among Sunni democrats, Kurds, Alawites, and Druze—the components of the modern Abbasid–Khorasani formation. This Umayyad–Abbasid opposition in Syria is metaphorical rather than ideological, but it is not mere historical fiction either.
The roots of the nationalist version now ruling in Damascus—an extension of Syria’s centralist tradition—are not a direct product of the Committee of Union and Progress, despite the latter’s sectarian and organized violence after its catastrophic defeats in the Italian War and the Balkan Wars (1911–1913). Still, both Turkish and Arab elites cherry-picked concepts of the “nation” from the writings of Franc and European theorists and philosophers, especially from Germany and France. These “Enlightenment” ideas, once progressive in their own context, were later adopted with a deep psychological rage, and were reconfigured to form states that ended up deeply enmeshed in religious and tribal structures—reactionary in nature and harboring a criminal hostility to political power-sharing. To these regimes, any decentralized political arrangement is seen as a collapse of the invented historical state.
Over the past century, the nation-state model, in its most violent and failed form, has seen its golden age in the Middle East. Despite its abysmal failure in development and the rule of law, it has achieved exceptional success in reshaping public perception to revere the purity of the state and to consider any questioning of its nature a form of heresy. The nation-state has succeeded so profoundly that even opposition movements—supposedly its enemies—have been transformed to become carbon copies of it, particularly when it comes to defining the identity of the state: not as a racist, dominating entity, but as a “national” state composed of multiple, coexisting peoples sharing the same territory.
Thus, discussions of the nation-state’s failure in the Levant often obscure its success in institutionalizing racism and hatred—turning them into a common culture by continuously pumping out one-sided, misleading information that undermines the capacity of diverse social and national communities to defend themselves against genocide, mass murder, and enslavement.
What the Umayyad spectacle seeks is a state that is “nationalist” in name only, rather than a true nation-state. The aim is to Arabize Syria through deception—even deceiving nationalist and civil Sunni groups—under the pretense that the imagined (and historically false) Arabism of the Umayyads can accommodate everyone. This comes at the expense of building a unified state that acknowledges its true pluralism and reflects the reality of Syrian society.
Therefore, saving Syria from another collapse depends on ending the monopoly over the shape and substance of the state. The resilience of those advocating self-administration remains the only real answer to this forced export of internal aggression that already overflowing from Syrian armed factions in a society shattered on every level. Only an inclusive, civilized Arabism can offer salvation.
Accordingly, the self-administration in eastern Syria is likely to endure, as its reasons for holding out are far more compelling than any arguments for reintegration—especially as long as the only existing alternative remains the “aggressive state.” Meanwhile, attempts to impose racism on the emerging Syrian state continue.
But one must ask: Who truly benefits from the emergence of good governance in a Syrian geography brimming with opportunity?
