The holy religion and its book alone dictate most of the articles of constitutions, especially personal status laws, and thus impose on everyone what it deems to be in accordance with Sharia, and the flock has no choice but to obey! Otherwise, the sword will be raised against his neck after he has been declared an infidel!
The conduct of religious scholars and clerics has a religious form and a political heart, while the dictator has a political form and a religious heart, This “leader” does not see anyone in the country or the nation who is more competent than him. He is absolutely righteous, and his authority does not end even with his death,If he dies, he rules from the grave, He is sacred! He is the father, the mother, and the brother, He is the guardian of the affairs, and there is no one to dispute his authority,He is the identity-based tyrant who imposes his identity on everything: on man, land, and values.
In a country that has known nominal independence as a republic for over a hundred years, half a century of which has been under the rule of the Assad family, for power to become eternal, like the power of God, the despot must deify himself,A methodology must be devised that allows the republican president to become a hereditary king, a monarch, Kingship, like prophecy, requires a great deal of sanctity, so the drum must beat, promoting this sanctity, Thus, images, chants, marches, and slogans are mobilized, merging father, son, brother, and sister into a sacred, divine unity, They are all presidents and kings at once,The intention, indeed the goal, of presenting them in this unified and cohesive manner is to accustom the people to the formula of inheritance and to the formula of the tight link between the house or family and the state, It is the formula of the ruling house, Here, there is no disagreement about the names… president of a republic, or king of a kingdom. What mattered was the formula of Syria: “Assad”!
The figurehead president and the de facto king represent an anomalous situation that must be disguised, This disguise is achieved through masks, Thus, the mask of the “secular party” is placed over the face of the sectarian party, the mask of the “sect” over the face of the family, the mask of the “family” over the face of the household, and the mask of the “household” over the face of the individual, In other words, it flows from the party to the individual, and from the individual to the party, What the individual desires is accomplished through the figurehead party, To illustrate, let’s consider Article Eight, which states that the party is the leader of the state and society forever, This eternal leadership infiltrates through the aforementioned channels, concealed behind the masks mentioned—that is, from the party to the individual. Consequently, Assad becomes president forever, a king without a crown!
The sequence appears unidirectional, from the party to the individual, where the party is diminished and the individual is inflated until the individual becomes all-powerful, Thus, he can manipulate the dwindling, stunted party as easily as he manipulates pawns, castles, and knights in a chess game, The ease of manipulating these idols requires transforming the party’s members into mindless, intellectless henchmen, paid only by the people in subservience, like a tribute. There is no need for these henchmen to be ideologically driven; an ideological follower is burdensome compared to an opportunistic, privileged one, Therefore, not a single ideologue remains in the party, Most, or the vast majority, have become privileged or opportunistic, united by the drum and divided by the stick, They thrive on the terror of corruption, thuggery, and nepotism, They are above the law, like some religious figures who live off intimidation and bribery, The religious figures sat upon the Book, and the king sat upon Article Eight, The goal was to support the religious figures and the king, and to ensure the perpetual rule of both, This, in short, was the Syrian republic of Assad…!
No matter how much dictatorial regimes, which claim secularism (in form), disguise religion, they remain structurally religious in their behavior, internal structure, and hierarchy, Examples of political systems that claimed secularism while practicing religion abound, Gamal Abdel Nasser was the president who incorporated numerous religious provisions into the Egyptian constitution in the same year that he executed the Muslim Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb, Anwar Sadat’s behavior was no different from Nasser’s,In most other Arab countries, the Muslim Brotherhood occupies significant positions of power, imposing its religious laws on people in all aspects of life, rights and duties, public and private relations, penal codes, and marriage laws, Were it not for the Muslim Brotherhood’s dominance in many Arab countries, some of which claim secularism, polygamy would not exist (with the exception of Tunisia, where it has been prohibited since the 1950s), and it would not be possible to legalize dubious forms of marriage such as temporary marriage (mut’ah), temporary marriage (misyar), and child marriage, as is the case today. In Iraq… etc.