{"id":14624,"date":"2026-06-28T18:13:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/?p=14624"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:13:31","slug":"structural-incitement-what-are-the-consequences-of-living-without-a-syrian-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/structural-incitement-what-are-the-consequences-of-living-without-a-syrian-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Structural Incitement: What Are the Consequences of Living Without a &#8220;Syrian Myth\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">&#8220;Myth&#8221; constitutes a fundamental subject of inquiry in contemporary political theory and a topic of major debate among its various currents, with a general tendency to move past formulations that diminish the value of myth or assume a perfectly &#8220;rational politics.&#8221; Generally speaking, myth is not the antithesis of rationality or truth, and it is certainly not synonymous with superstition. Rather, it is a narrative or conception of a foundational nature, endowed with symbolic condensation and capable of intellectual, emotional, and visceral stimulation. This renders it a catalyst for collective will, providing answers to questions of creation, origin, and the ideal.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">However, its propositions should not be treated according to standard principles of verification<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">that is, the strict criteria of truth and falsehood. Like any narrative or image, it will inevitably contain condensation, selection, exaggeration, and minimization, among other narrative and structural mechanisms necessary for the production of meaning. People may rebel against one of their founding myths, modifying or transcending it, but this does not mean they will live in a world devoid of myths; they will soon produce a new narrative about the self and the world that gradually acquires the characteristics of a myth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In this sense, there are no human societies without myths; they are one of the primary methods for producing and ensuring the continuity of cohesion for both the group and the self, answering the simplest yet most decisive questions: Why do we live together? What is the meaning of our shared existence? What is the origin and justification of our lifestyles and rules? And where should we be headed? Thinking of a world where science and reason alone sufficiently answer these questions and motivate human beings is, ultimately, mythical thinking itself. It mythologizes science and reason and cannot be described as &#8220;scientific&#8221; thinking because it fails to account for the limits of rationality and scientific empiricism themselves. In practice, humans have never stopped making myths, from the earliest totemic and fetishistic forms to contemporary myths arising in politics, markets, and the media, including scientism.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Perhaps the last of the great defenders of rational liberal politics was the American thinker John Rawls in his famous theory of justice, when he postulated rational criteria for managing the social order from behind a &#8220;veil of ignorance.&#8221; That is, individuals rationally conceive the most appropriate conditions for the entire system through an intentional theoretical blindness and abstraction, disregarding social position, class, gender, race, and other determinants that produce the social self. This abstraction, in which one envisions the best system as a totality for all its members regardless of one&#8217;s personal position within it, is the possible philosophical foundation for liberal justice and a transcendence of the myths that drive social conflicts, which see nothing but the political self of their actors.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">However, this theory, which dominated Anglo-Saxon political thought for a period, quickly faced extensive criticism, leading to the emergence of an entire critical current known as &#8220;Communitarianism.&#8221; This current criticized the concept of the isolated rational individual capable of rational abstraction and judging from behind a &#8220;veil of ignorance&#8221; to achieve fairness. Instead, it focused on identity, culture, and community, which determine the primary conditions of an individual&#8217;s existence and their basic capacity for judgment. It also attached paramount importance to &#8220;recognition&#8221;<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">that is, individuals obtaining societal and official recognition for their identities, positions, orientations, and interests. Rawls himself absorbed these numerous criticisms in his later works, becoming more understanding of the complexity of social and cultural conflicts and their role in producing values and rationality itself. Thus, contemporary liberalism gradually shifted from rational individualist abstraction to identitarianism and the demand for recognition, and it could no longer ignore the myths associated with them or hide them behind a veil.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">From another philosophical perspective, J<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u00fc<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">rgen Habermas worked on his theory of &#8220;constitutional patriotism&#8221; (Verfassungspatriotismus), which could transcend the political myths for which Europe paid a heavy price. He focused on the communicative space provided by constitutional institutions, which allows human beings, regardless of their positions, to deliberate and debate norms, ultimately producing a bond based on belonging to the traditions and institutions of a free public sphere. However, Habermas is too complex and critical to believe he has bypassed myths, or to downplay the importance of myth in human thought and the need to translate the &#8220;truth&#8221; it contains into a language understood by all participants in the public sphere, contributing to the production of their social and political norms and values.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Furthermore, he ultimately called for a &#8220;patriotism&#8221;<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">meaning a commonality based on belonging and emotional attachment<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">which gives public meaning to coexistence based on bonds that are not devoid of a socially agreed-upon narrative. In his philosophy and political conduct, he was a defender of grand narratives, foremost among them modernity and rationality themselves, which he considered an incomplete historical project that still has something to say in both the local constitutionalized and global communicative spheres. Likewise, he worked to place principles such as overcoming the tragedies of the Nazi past and the exceptionalism of the Holocaust<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">as a foundational, incomparable historical event<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">at the forefront of the contemporary German self, and even as a founding myth for the Federal Republic of Germany. What Habermas actually sought were &#8220;diluted myths,&#8221; open to negotiation, modification, and reconstruction, rather than heavy myths that crush human beings and turn them into their instruments.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">From the perspective of republican thought, the Irish thinker Philip Pettit attempted to reconstruct republican principles on the basis of a condensed definition of freedom: non-domination. That is, it is not enough for the citizens of a republican commonwealth to be free from direct oppression; rather, the republican condition must be built on limiting the possibilities and conditions for producing authoritarian domination. Consequently, all principles characterizing republican thought<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">including the concept of the &#8220;public interest,&#8221; &#8220;civic virtue,&#8221; a secular culture supportive of critical thinking, and popular oversight<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">must be directed toward comprehensive liberation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Thus, the answers to questions such as &#8220;Who are we?&#8221; and &#8220;Why are we here together?&#8221; carry mythical features that cannot be ignored, such as: &#8220;We are a society of free equals, protecting one another from domination through accountable institutions that bear the spirit of virtue and civic courage, drawing upon the heritage of free activists and thinkers.&#8221; Generally, it is difficult to find contemporary thought more characterized by glowing mythical symbols and the revival of political myths from the Roman and Greek eras than republican thought, ever since its most radical founding with the French Revolution.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">This tense relationship with political myth<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">which includes recognizing its necessity and its rootedness in human consciousness on one hand, and attempting to restrict it and produce an institutional, constitutional, and legal framework that strips it of its oppressiveness on the other<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">is present in the currents most celebratory of contemporary Western democracy, such as liberalism, republicanism, critical theory, and constitutionalism. Let alone the radical left, which revived the importance of myth, as found in anti-liberal thinkers who were even influential in fascism, such as Carl Schmitt and Georges Sorel. This is clearly visible in the work of Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and the current of &#8220;left populism&#8221; in general, which called for producing myths for a coalition of multiple groups and demands called &#8220;the people.&#8221; This coalition is built on the binary of &#8220;us&#8221; and &#8220;them&#8221; (the enemies of the people) and formulates its own &#8220;signifiers of hegemony&#8221;<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">that is, symbols that embody and condense within themselves the plurality of demands and the subjects carrying them. We also see this in Antonio Negri, who spoke of the necessity of Georges Sorel&#8217;s concept of the &#8220;vital myth&#8221; in social movements against the &#8220;Empire.&#8221; The vital myth means the mental image capable of moving the collective will and producing solidarity through emotion and struggle; it is a vital force that generates action, not a rigid, transcendent concept.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In short, concepts such as citizenship, public freedoms, individual and collective rights, and even secularism cannot serve as substitutes for the founding myth. They address a different domain entirely<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">the social contract, laws, and general rules<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">but they do not answer questions of social existence, historical presence, and the political self. Therefore, there has never been a state that did not build its myth, no matter how distant it might be from ideologies described as totalitarian, such as communism, fascism, and ultra-nationalism.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In America, we have the myth of the constitutional revolution, the Founding Fathers, and the &#8220;American Dream&#8221;; in Germany, the myth of overcoming the Nazi past and the Holocaust toward a future based on prosperity; France has disseminated the myth of the revolution and the republic globally; while Britain exported its myth as a pluralistic empire that combined respect for tradition, specificity, and historical gradualism with the highest degrees of modernity and social freedoms. These myths are what it means to be American, German, French, or British, and a member of the political and constitutional commonwealths of those nations. Without them, constitutions, rights, and belonging to them would lose any political or social meaning, and the group would lose its cohesion.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">No matter how many social and cultural movements emerge questioning or even mocking the myth, existing myths can absorb and integrate them, viewing their mere existence as a testament to their own expansiveness and the intellectual spaces they afford. Generally, core Western myths remain capable of enduring, and even expanding in many instances, possessing a minimum capacity for adaptation and self-modification, keeping most conflicts over narrative and story within their broader general framework.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Syria is no exception to the necessity of a political myth. It is, ultimately, a geographical expanse that brings together highly complex and diverse population groups, and its borders appear largely arbitrary. It is necessary to search for some justification to bring all these human beings together within these borders and find a common ground among them<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">a question that Syrians seem to have failed to provide a convincing answer to throughout their history. They have often sought to bypass it toward something larger: an Arab nation with an eternal message, uniting twenty-two countries with hundreds of millions of inhabitants; or major historical battles against colonialism, imperialism, and Zionism; or an &#8220;Islam&#8221; that will return to its former glory and master the world. These are founding myths that may have been effective in certain historical eras despite all their oppressiveness, and even their eliminationist nature toward peoples who found no place within the &#8220;nation,&#8221; such as the Kurds, Jews, and others. However, they are no longer convincing today, and they can no longer achieve a minimum level of consensus or produce the &#8220;people&#8221; of the nation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Can these population blocs continue together in the absence of a convincing myth? Or is it too late to establish a &#8220;Syrian myth&#8221; after decades of bloody conflicts and civil wars? And what possible form of authority and discourse can exist among a human diaspora incapable of finding its commonalities and answering its most vital foundational questions?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\"><b>Mythological Domains<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">A distinction must be made between the concept of &#8220;political myth&#8221; and other proximate concepts that blend with it and contribute to its formation, foremost among them &#8220;collective memory,&#8221; &#8220;founding narrative,&#8221; and &#8220;identity.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Collective memory is the collection of events, figures, traditions, and historical conditions transmitted among humans and contested between them, whereby remembering<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">its manner and details<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">as well as forgetting or overlooking, becomes a highly problematic political issue. Here, states and political and cultural movements play a primary role in reproducing collective memory through a founding narrative that crafts an integrated, logical, and clearly meaningful story. It determines what must actually be remembered, what should be focused on, what we must forget or ignore, and how we arrange, magnify, or minimize events.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">However, not every narrative is a myth; a narrative may simply be an organized story to fix a certain perspective on a historical event. Myth, on the other hand, is a general framework that provides the overarching, most consistent, and integrated foundational and constitutive meaning for the existence of societies that share historical memory and narrative. For example, the standard story of Arab national liberation from European colonialism can be considered a founding narrative, whereas the assertion of an Arab nation that has existed uninterruptedly throughout history, possessing a mission that can only be fulfilled by destroying global colonialism<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">that is the myth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In conclusion, political &#8220;identity&#8221; is the result of organizing memory through narrative and imparting a constitutive meaning to the narrative through myth. Thus, we gain integrated elements to answer the questions of identity, chief among them the question: &#8220;Who are we?&#8221;, which we consider what distinguishes us from the other and upon which we organize our lives.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Returning to Georges Sorel, he deeply focused on the vitality of myth so that it would not become lost and frozen in concepts of narrative, identity, and memory. According to him, myth must remain a creative force, not frozen in a fixed essence; it is a mental image that is emotionally resonant more than it is a story, which grants it an overflowing capacity to influence, mobilize, and sharpen the will.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In Syria, a shared memory does indeed exist, and it is intensely painful and bloody. Every group, and perhaps every individual, holds memories of violations, injustices, massacres, and existential threats from the other, alongside a sense of victimhood on one hand, and entitlement and superiority on the other. Injustice in collective memory is often interpreted as the result of a religious, moral, or social superiority that had to be curbed and erased by the other\/the enemy, who is always inferior, even if they occasionally acquire supernatural traits in terms of their capacity for conspiracy, destruction, and evil.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In the past, a founding narrative was established to deal with the bloody Syrian memory, built upon the idea of Arab liberation from Ottoman rule and its tragedies, followed by the clash with European colonialism and the struggle against it leading to independence, then the Zionist usurpation of Palestine and the war against them leading to liberation. This war carries cosmic dimensions, as it is a confrontation with the entire global colonial system, and society must be mobilized within the framework of this historical battle, transcending the effects of any defeat. What was produced was an Arab identity with Syria at its heart as a vanguard country in Arabism, confronting colonialism and Zionism. Internal conflicts were viewed as seditions (fitnas) produced by Ottoman backwardness, Western colonialism, and the Zionist conspiracy; internal infighting was merely one aspect of the grand battle of liberation, which is not limited to confronting external enemies, but also destroying internal enemies, perhaps even before dedicating oneself to the battle with the external enemy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">All of this produced an Arab\/Islamic identity based on melting all &#8220;components&#8221; into it and eliminating any independent existence outside of it. Christians were considered &#8220;culturally Muslim&#8221; and in total agreement with Arab-Islamic privilege as the primary element of the unifying identity. Non-Arabs were seen as Arab peoples who had forgotten their origins and language, or as arrivals from other countries and nations, nothing more than guests of the Arabs. Meanwhile, the Islamization of all non-standard religions and sects, such as Alawism and Druzeism, was consolidated. As for the Jewish presence, it was treated as if it never existed, or as a fifth column within the nation whose evil intentions became apparent with the rise of Zionism; or, at best, Jews were considered individuals deceived by Zionism and imperialism, driven to refuse living within the Arab nation that had always embraced them despite their lack of belonging and their malice.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">The Syrian myth was the &#8220;nation&#8221; uninterrupted throughout history, which, despite all the setbacks and defeats it suffered, would reclaim its glorious past. It was a myth that united Arab nationalists and Islamists, despite differences over priority of focus: Is it Arab before being Islamic, or is Arabism a secondary detail within the Islamism of the nation? This does not mean that nationalists were not Islamic in their realization of Islam&#8217;s monotheistic role and its ability to mobilize the masses in the battles of the nation, and their consent to its legislative and cultural privilege. Nor does it mean that Islamists succeeded in completely transcending the Arab nationalist perspective in their handling of non-Arab issues, such as the Kurdish and Amazigh questions, as they remained consistently opposed to recognizing the distinctiveness and legitimacy of the causes of non-Arab Muslim peoples.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Today, the nationalist\/Islamic narrative is no longer convincing or unifying. There is no agreement on anything: not the stance on the Ottoman Empire, nor foreign occupation, nor the Syrian national entity, nor even the Palestinian cause, which has lost much of its mobilizing power among Syrians in particular. As for identity, it is no longer unifying and has been abandoned by many groups whose existence was organic to demonstrating the inclusivity of the nationalist self. For what is the meaning of an Arab nationalism without Christians, Alawites, and Druze? And what is the meaning of an Islamic civilization that has come to be regarded by many minorities as an extended historical assault on life and existence? What remains of a Syrian entity that cannot provide meaning for its existence except through rhetorical phrases about unity, tolerance, and love<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">phrases that have mostly become objects of mockery and cynicism, taken seriously perhaps not even by those who repeat them?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Today, there is no form of a Syrian myth, even a nationalist-Arab or Islamic one. There is only a narrative about a &#8220;revolution&#8221; that broke out due to &#8220;Sunni victimhood at the hands of the Alawite regime,&#8221; producing &#8220;the rule of the majority after the hegemony of minorities.&#8221; It is clear that such a narrative cannot be unifying, and it is far too shabby to produce a founding myth, for a myth cannot simply be desires for revenge, humiliation, and the reproduction of the regime&#8217;s imagined practices, but this time at the hands of those who triumphed over it. It seems that the existing structures in Syria today are incapable of generating narrative, creating myth, or producing identity. But where will all this decrepitude lead?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\"><b>The Ideology of Permanent Incitement<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">The current sectarian and ethnic incitement in Syria is often considered a result of extremism or a deviation from correct patriotism, and the authority, if it wishes to continue, must limit it. However, this conception fails to account for the structural nature of incitement in the discourse of the ruling militias.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">The &#8220;nation,&#8221; which used to be Arab\/Islamic, is no longer a unifying slogan that includes various groups within a certain hierarchy of privilege; rather, it has fragmented to become the victory of a single group, the &#8220;Sunnis,&#8221; over all others. Entering the nation has come to mean accepting Sunni rule, submitting to all its phases and fluctuations, and completely relinquishing any demand for rights or participation, because the mere survival of non-Sunnis is a favor granted by them after their victory. Therefore, the equation is: submission to the nation to avoid annihilation. Meanwhile, the past is a &#8220;victimhood&#8221; caused by the attempts of minorities to prevent Sunnis from taking their natural position as rulers and dominators, controlling the life and death of others according to what is assumed to be their law and culture.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Furthermore, the &#8220;Sunnis&#8221; are not even a unifying religious sect, as they do not recognize the rights of other Sunni Muslims, namely the Kurds, and do not hesitate to incite against them, even calling for their annihilation or glorifying incidents of ethnic cleansing they were subjected to, such as the attack on Afrin. The &#8220;nation&#8221; we are talking about, then, is less than even a religious sect; it is a mixture of sectarian, nationalist, and ethnic extremism. Again, this is less than a narrative, less than a national identity, and certainly far less than a unifying myth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">If the controlling militias and their public have built their discourse on such a conception of the historical event and the nation, they have surrounded themselves with the &#8220;enemies of the nation,&#8221; who are the Alawites first, then the rest of the minorities, the Kurds as a distinct people, and certainly everyone who does not conform to the ideal image of a son of the &#8220;Sunni nation.&#8221; This will lead to the &#8220;minoritization of the Sunnis&#8221; themselves, meaning the gradual transformation of regions and groups among them into &#8220;Semi-minorities&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Under such a condition, permanent incitement is not merely a &#8220;mistake&#8221; that can be bypassed or combated, but is &#8220;power&#8221; itself and its way of understanding its political and social presence. Nor is it merely an attempt to divert attention from the failure or shabbiness of authority, but rather its primary efficacy and its way of dealing with social conflicts and problems. It is an &#8220;authentic&#8221; and unifying component of the militias and their supporters, securing the cohesion of their coalition and their networks of loyalty and dependency. It may form its own myth (the Sunni nation, superior yet victimized, which will erect towers and missiles after eliminating its enemies and reclaiming its glories), but it can never become a Syrian myth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">But do we really need a Syrian myth? Perhaps that makes no sense at all, not only because of everything that has happened in past years, but because the dissolution of the Arab\/Islamic nation, upon which the previous Syrian myth was built, is what led to the pattern of the current &#8220;nation.&#8221; Arab-Islamic privilege was at the very heart of that myth, implicitly assuming that &#8220;real&#8221; Arab Muslims<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">meaning Arab Sunnis<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">are the &#8220;body of the nation&#8221; and its primary component. Consequently, dissolution toward sectarianism and incitement was embedded in the heart of the Syrian myth. Perhaps reaching the current result was not inevitable, but restoring Arab\/Islamic nationalism after it has arrived here seems absurd. Is it required, for instance, for Christians to return to outdoing others in Arabism, or for Alawites to urgently seek to prove their Islam?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">This may lead us to another question: Can a Syrian myth exist separate from Arab\/Islamic nationalism? Some believe this is possible, but what would the meaning of &#8220;Syria&#8221; be then? We have seen that citizenship, rights, and secularism alone do not answer the question of meaning, identity, and historical narrative, nor do they explain the reason that obliges these population blocs to live together.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">It may be most appropriate to search for a post-Syrian meaning<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">that is, formulas for coexistence based on mutual recognition, protection from aggression and domination, and exiting the monolithic, eliminationist nation, driven by the desire that tragedies never be repeated. However, these formulas cannot endure unless the bloody collective memory is reorganized, and the nationalist and Islamic narratives, as well as the simplistic sectarian narrative stemming from the &#8220;Syrian Revolution,&#8221; are transcended.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\" align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue, serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">All of this must be driven by some myth, and the most appropriate in our case might be the famous slogan: &#8220;Never Again.&#8221; It is based, first, on recognizing the bloody past, the crimes caused by our nationalist and religious pattern that has prevailed since the inception of the &#8220;nation,&#8221; and the genocides we committed; and second, on charging current and new generations with the responsibility of ensuring it never happens again. The mythologized meaning here: our existence together is justified if we can consciously transcend the tragedies we created and succeed in managing life, allowing it to flourish despite the heavy historical legacy. We are no longer ourselves, but in a process of transcending ourselves, and that process is what makes us &#8220;post-Syrians&#8221; and can give us a promise for the future.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Myth&#8221; constitutes a fundamental subject of inquiry in contemporary political theory and a topic of major debate among its various currents, with a general tendency to move past formulations that diminish the value of myth or assume a perfectly &#8220;rational politics.&#8221; Generally speaking, myth is not the antithesis of rationality or truth, and it is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1648,"featured_media":14625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[55,1317,40,964],"ppma_author":[1080],"class_list":["post-14624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-europe","tag-german","tag-syria","tag-united-states"],"authors":[{"term_id":1080,"user_id":1648,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mohammad-sami-al-kayal","display_name":"Mohammad Sami Al-Kayal","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-04-01-at-23.38.58.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-04-01-at-23.38.58.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1648"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14626,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14624\/revisions\/14626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14624"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=14624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}