In general, there is no need to discuss the issue of naming Syria and defining a Syrian, because we consider that a Syrian is someone who possesses documents proving his Syrian nationality and declares his Syrian affiliation, The borders of the Syrian state are known and internationally recognized, However, in practice, the matter is not that simple, There are forces that want to brand Syria with the Arab stigma, as an extension and continuation of what happened 1440 years ago in terms of Arabization and Islamization, most or all of which was forced, such as the recent naming of Syria as the Arab Republic, the army as the Arab Army, and the constitution that affirms the Arabness of Syria, or the denial of Kurdish nationality, and all of this includes the practice of national and religious racism, religious because there is a strong overlap between Arab nationalism and the Muhammadan religion, as Arab nationalism or Arabism means Islam and vice versa.

Assimilation between peoples is inherent to human nature, and no people exists that is completely isolated , However, the forms and degrees of assimilation vary from one people to another, There is voluntary, spontaneous, and fluid assimilation, where each party benefits from the other—a kind of positive interaction, On the other hand, there is another type of forced assimilation, as in settler colonialism, where assimilation remains within limits defined by the colonizing settler, This is also the case in the Arab form of assimilation, where it required changing the nature of the colonized peoples to conform to the nature of the colonizer, The Arab Bedouin occupation of the Levant was a unique type of assimilation, Here, both the strongholds and the minds were occupied, and all of this manifested itself in Arabization and Islamization according to the terms of the Pact of Umar. That is, a new human being was created with his language and religious affiliation to conform to the language and religion of the conquerors, thus ensuring the continuation of colonialism for a long time—much longer than the expected lifespan of a known type of occupation, There are significant differences. Between colonial occupation and colonial possession (conquest), colonial occupation does not change the characteristics of peoples such as language, religion and other features of human belonging, while possession such as Bedouin conquests does change features of human belonging such as language and religion, Therefore, the League of Nations prohibited “conquests” by a resolution issued after the First World War.

  They tell us that we are Arabs, and if we are not Arabs we must become Arabs, otherwise there is the sword, then the siege by belts like the Arab belt and then the Alawite belt in the eastern regions of Syria, then there is displacement or withdrawal of citizenship and other things, All of that happened to everyone who does not want to belong to Arabism, especially the Kurds, There are those who accepted that for a long time until reality showed the failure of Arabism and the criminality of Arab nationalist thought.

The horror of the Arab catastrophe is represented by forced Arabization, forced Islamization, and then by the Bedouin colonialism’s dealings with the inhabitants of the Levant, for example, in terms of paying tribute while they are humiliated, and by the provisions of Sharia, which see the Bedouin as the best nation. This has provoked all other peoples of the world in this era and prompted them to deal with the Arab in a despised, contemptuous, and hostile manner, especially after the terrorist practices carried out by the Arabs in all parts of the world. The Arabs have not respected others, so others do not respect them.

The failure of Arabism led to the decline of the Arab nationalist trend and to the birth of what is called “regionalism,” i.e., the Syrian region, for example. There are those in Syria who refuse to be integrated into Arabism, which has turned for them into a calamity, The “regionalists” ask about the benefits and advantages of integration into the crucible of Arabism, and why should Syrians be forced to belong to Arabism? Is the migration of some tribes from the Arabian Peninsula to the southern regions of the Levant, fleeing from hardship and searching for water and pasture, a reason for Syrians to consider themselves Arabs? These tribes came peacefully and lived in peace and were not invaders, so they are welcome.

   Things changed after the birth of the new religion, and the military power of the Caliphate developed and established rules and regulations for dividing the spoils or loot with the Prophet and his successors (the rule of the fifth), which encouraged the Bedouin of the island to participate in the invasion of the Levant, which was under Roman-Byzantine occupation as was the case in Syria, or Persian occupation as was the case in Iraq. In Syria, Greek was the language of the Syrians before the Arab invasion. The people were Arameans who mixed with the Greeks and Romans on Syrian soil.

  The entire Levant region was subjected to the rule of the Quraysh Caliphate, and this occupation was justified by various fabricated justifications such as liberation or spreading the religion, The interaction between the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and the people of the Levant was not mutually acceptable due to the numerous massacres, the terms of the Pact of Umar, the jizya (poll tax), Arabization, the rulings of Sharia, and others. There was no give and take, only taking by the force of the sword, i.e., jizya and war booty. As a result, the land became desertified, petrified, and frozen, In addition, there were many harassments and extortions such as “convert to Islam and be safe,” and other violence and barbarity that came with the new religion. Compared to the Roman era, the conquests accomplished nothing but acquisition, All that we see in the Levant of colossal monuments was built in the Roman era. The people of the Levant were highly civilized, which is incomparable to the primitiveness, barbarity, and backwardness of the Bedouin.

The situation continued as it began until the Caliphate passed to the Ottomans, where the frozen Ottoman era continued, which breathed its last after a wave of Turkification, After the First World War, the project of establishing states according to the wishes of the victor in this war began, and the victors over the Ottoman Sultanate decided to establish states in the Ottoman colonies. Among these states was the state of Syria with a good area of ​​185,000 km2 and international recognition. On the resources of this state, an Arab nationalist current and another political Islamic current took control. The matter ended after a century with the failure of the Syrian experiment, which objectively had all the conditions for success.

 It is natural and logical in this case for the Syrian to analyze the reasons for the failure and to distance himself from its causes, Therefore, people distanced themselves from Arab nationalist thought, which was a reflection of Islamic thought, To the extent that they distanced themselves from Arabism, people drew closer to Syrian affiliation, which means that the Syrian realizes his Syrian identity as a consciousness, means, and goal, Arab Islamic nationalist thought has gone bankrupt and has not even been able to preserve what Sykes-Picot offered him.

   The Syrian people view the Arabs as a people who migrated to Syria, then occupied it, interacting with Syrians in a colonial, settler-colonial, and militaristic manner, Despite this, there is no inclination towards retribution or vindictiveness. The Syrian people are composed of Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, Syriacs, Assyrians, Turkmens, Circassians, and others—all Syrians, Their enduring characteristic is their Syrian identity and belonging, which differs greatly from Arab or Islamic affiliation, The Syrian people are the origin of Syria, and Syria is their belonging and their goal, In Syria, there is a creative diversity; in diversity, there is unity, There is a Syrian civilization that is more than 7,000 years old, and Syria did not come into being 1,440 years ago.