Realistically, no sect can dominate another in the long term, whether the dominant sect is large or small, The drive for dominance may have alternatives, such as genocide, as Saddam Hussein’s regime did in Halabja with chemical weapons, or as Assad’s regime or Islamist militias did in the Ghouta massacre with sarin gas, which killed thousands of people and animals, There is a third way to get rid of a group that belongs to a different religious sect than the dominant one, as happened with the Christians in Syria and Iraq, They were persecuted, their lands and property seized, as the al julani forces did in the town of Ghassaniyah, near Idlib,They were forced to pay the jizya (tribute), then their homes, lands, and property were confiscated, and they were displaced,Then came Trump’s orders to allow their return and the rebuilding of their homes, They returned, took a final look at their houses, and then went back to their refugee , certain that life was impossible alongside the al julani Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated, ISIS-backed groups, The methods of domination were the perpetration of massacres, that is, the organic elimination of the existence of others, as happened in the massacres of the coast, and as happened in the south with the Druze to eliminate them, which was thwarted by Israeli intervention!
The social fragmentation in Iraq during Saddam’s era was due to the dominance of the Sunnis and the Ba’athist hegemony that lasted for about half a century, which was the outer shell of a complex sectarian religious hegemony under the name of nationalism and Arabism, and not to the American invasion as some claim, If Saddam’s authority had been democratic, there would have been no social fragmentation,The proof of this was the increase in social fragmentation after the departure of the majority of American forces, and after a few weeks the rest of them will leave, So can we expect Iraqi national unity after this departure!!!
The social fragmentation in Syria is similar even without the American occupation, However, the Syrian situation is similar in that it is a theocratic dictatorship and represents what is called complex sectarianism, Complex sectarianism has several forms, and so do the reactions to it, However, the essence of complex sectarianism is one, and the reactions to it are essentially the same, The current structure of complex sectarianism in Syria is not fundamentally different from that in Iraq, and it is not even different from the Assad regime, Assadism established a new sectarianism, while the al julani revived a kind of ancient historical sectarianism (Umayyad), which originated about 1440 years ago, In comparison, it can be said that the al julanism was worse than both Saddam’s regime and Assad’s regime, because the corruption of the majority is difficult to address, and getting rid of a dictatorship of the dominant majority is more difficult than getting rid of a dictatorship of a minority with a sectarian essence,The majority’s attachment to power is generally stronger than the attachment of a religious minority to power, Furthermore, there is no pressing need for “faith campaigns” when The overwhelming majority, the minority Saddam was forced in his last days to stick the phrase “God is Great” on the Iraqi flag, and for the Assad regime there was a Sunni cover represented by the participation of Sunnis in the government and in the Assad regime’s close relationship with Sunni religious figures such as al-Bouti and Mufti Hassoun, Then Hafez al-Assad was able, through official documents, to prove that he was a Muslim, and thus succeeded, at least for a while, in his faith campaign.
Despite Assad’s success in his faith campaign and his ability to silence the Sunnis by involving them in the corruption-rent project, Syria remained threatened by internal fragmentation, which was completed by al julani, The Assad regime was unable to organize its rule within political and institutional frameworks responsible to the law, which was nothing more than ink on paper, As for the al julanism, it did not even think about what is called law, because it is not possible to integrate civil law with Sharia in any law , Here, the al julani chose Sharia and practically abolished the law, that is, it moved from what is called pre-national state to pre-religious sectarian state.
The Assad regime, then the Saddam regime, and more recently the al julani regime, have demonstrated the failure of the hegemonic project, especially the hegemony of the majority, i.e., the overwhelming majority, The Assad regime ruled for half a century, and the Sunni Ba’ath Party ruled in Iraq for half a century as well, and both were minority regimes, Meanwhile, we observe the erosion of the aljulani regime, theoretically representing the overwhelming majority, very shortly after assuming power, This suggests that minority rule is, by conclusion, more stable than majority rule, This situation has several causes, including the inability of minorities to monopolize power completely, forcing them to include others in governance,The overwhelming majority, on the other hand, has no need to include others and therefore monopolizes power entirely, which exposes it to rapid erosion. The overwhelming majority is prone to blatant excesses, losing all morality, This encourages ethical individuals within the overwhelming majority to revolt against the system of monopolizing power, and consequently, the monopoly on corruption, tyranny, crime, lawlessness, arrogance, and arbitrariness, etc. All of this accelerates its bankruptcy and eventual downfall after it transforms into a minority,Rejected even by those who belong to her own sect, and this is what happened and is happening with the “Umayyad” group, Of course, there are many other reasons for the fall, The al julani did not realize the existence of rational and honorable people among the Sunnis, and thought that all Sunnis were highway robbers like the late Abu Amsha and his ilk.
All of the above proves that the rule of a sectarian majority is no less sectarian than the rule of a sectarian minority, and proves that the need for “participation” among the minority is higher than the need for participation among the sectarian majority, Hafez al-Assad realized this throughout his rule, and Bashar al-Assad realized this in the early years of his rule, but he forgot all of that in the later years of his rule, which led to his downfall automatically without his opponents bringing him down, Hafez al-Assad was able to control the sectarian situation, while Bashar al-Assad was only able to control it in the early years of his rule, As for the al julani, it began to fail from its very first days!
Realistically, no sect can dominate another in the long term, whether the dominant sect is large or small, The drive for dominance may have alternatives, such as genocide, as Saddam Hussein’s regime did in Halabja with chemical weapons, or as Assad’s regime or Islamist militias did in the Ghouta massacre with sarin gas, which killed thousands of people and animals, There is a third way to get rid of a group that belongs to a different religious sect than the dominant one, as happened with the Christians in Syria and Iraq, They were persecuted, their lands and property seized, as the al julani forces did in the town of Ghassaniyah, near Idlib,They were forced to pay the jizya (tribute), then their homes, lands, and property were confiscated, and they were displaced,Then came Trump’s orders to allow their return and the rebuilding of their homes, They returned, took a final look at their houses, and then went back to their refugee , certain that life was impossible alongside the al julani Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated, ISIS-backed groups, The methods of domination were the perpetration of massacres, that is, the organic elimination of the existence of others, as happened in the massacres of the coast, and as happened in the south with the Druze to eliminate them, which was thwarted by Israeli intervention!