Ten weeks after a Sunni Islamist group took over Syria, the country’s rich religious diversity is on display at nearly every turn.
In the northern area of Homs, the distinctive call to prayer rings out from 35 mosques belonging to the minority, Shiite-affiliated Alawite sect. Last week, Jewish Syrians returned to their Damascus neighborhood and held public prayers in a synagogue for the first time in decades.
And in Maaloula, the Islamist government is working with the mayor, a woman, to revitalize religious tourism to the ancient Christian town.
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It has been a pressing question regarding Syria’s new rulers. How would an Islamist group with a jihadist past treat religious freedom in a diverse country? For Syria’s religious minorities, the answer has been encouraging, but incomplete.
Yet beneath these faith groups’ proud and public expressions is an underlying fear for their security, stoked by a spate of kidnappings and killings.
What good are these newfound freedoms, Syria’s religious minorities ask, without the safety to enjoy them?
It highlights a fresh challenge facing the ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose security forces are spread thin as it attempts to govern the war-torn country.
“We have freedom, but there is uncertainty,” says Christian Ghaith Bakhair, who runs a grocery store next to the Convent of Saint Thakla in Maaloula. “We don’t dare go out at night. We need safety and security in order to move forward as communities and a nation.”
New freedoms flourish
Initial fears among Syrians of revenge attacks by the hard-line HTS, or of the repression of religious minorities after the Dec. 8 toppling of Alawite dictator Bashar al-Assad, have not come to pass.
At the Imam Ali Ibn Talib mosque in the Alawite neighborhood of Wadi Dhahab in Homs, Alawite and Sunni prayergoers intermingle.
The few skirmishes that have broken out – such as an Uzbek fighter objecting to the Alawite call to prayer – have been extinguished quickly by the authorities.
Sheikh Mahieddine Saloum, president of the Alawite Islamic Council in Homs, says HTS has responded within “two minutes” to signs of trouble.
“We blessed the revolution and differentiated the Assadist sect from the Alawite sect. We are part of this new era,” says Sheikh Saloum.
Meanwhile, the government is working to improve services in the Aramaic-speaking Christian town of Maaloula. A previous iteration of HTS, Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, overran the mountaintop town 11 years ago and kidnapped 18 nuns.
“Peace in Maaloula is much stronger than misinformation would have you believe,” says Maaloula Mayor Maha al-Chaer. While dozens of families fled in fear to Damascus when HTS swept to power, she says, most have returned. “We practice our religion, we pray all our prayers, and we are living our normal lives, 100%.”
To facilitate the peace, the HTS government works through well-known local intermediaries, selected from among former municipal and community leaders.
This winter, the government is helping Maaloula obtain emergency vehicles and snowplows to keep the roads clear. Mayor Chaer is already working with the government to encourage the hospitality sector to promote tourism.
“I pick up the phone and request something [from the government]; the same day there is a response,” she says. “I am very optimistic about the future.”
Safety is sometimes elusive
Spoiling these newfound freedoms and good faith is a spate of kidnappings and killings of Alawites, though community leaders of different sects say HTS is not to blame.
Rather, they say, the attacks are acts of revenge by private citizens against former regime members, or by hard-line groups taking advantage of the interim government’s inability to provide comprehensive security across Syria.
Communities are asking for more security from HTS, and a redeployment of Syria’s police and army.
The bulk of the recent kidnappings and killings have occurred in Homs, a city that saw some of the most brutal fighting in the yearslong civil war as well as attempts by the Assad regime to drive out Sunni Muslims.
HTS-installed concrete barriers block streets and close off sectarian neighborhoods from one another: Alawite, Shiite, predominately Christian, and Sunni. Masked HTS security personnel maintain checkpoints throughout the town, saying they are “defending the peace.”
The HTS government, which has arrested dozens of Alawite men suspected of committing atrocities on behalf of the Assad regime, declined to comment.
The checkpoints are nevertheless a welcome sight for Alawites in Homs who fear revenge attacks and refuse to leave their homes after dark.
Alaa Ibrahim, an activist and volunteer who has emerged as a key liaison between the Alawite community and HTS, registers kidnapping cases and follows up on arrests.
He says he asked HTS to allow local faith communities to form neighborhood watch groups in coordination with the interim government, but has been rebuffed.
“I believe the fear will disappear immediately if security forces open the door for participation by local communities,” Mr. Ibrahim says.
And in Maaloula, despite its cooperation with the government, checkpoints at the entrance to town are now manned at night only by unarmed volunteers.
“We need police and an army that is made up of all Syria’s segments of society, not just representing HTS. Factionalism will not lead to safety or stability,” says Father Fadi Barki of the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus Monastery.
Mr. Barki says he defused a recent threat of intercommunal violence by turning over to the new government a Christian man who had shot a Muslim looter.
“If there is no safety or security, the fate of Christians is to leave Maaloula and migrate from Syria,” he warns.
Argue first, eat together later …
In a bid to avoid intercommunal violence, grassroots activists have launched dialogues and neighborhood watch groups.
In Homs, Civil Peace, a network of more than 1,000 Syrians of different faiths, has been working to keep the peace. But it does not always succeed.
A series of discussion sessions the group hosted was suspended Jan. 15 in the wake of heated exchanges.
“There are kidnappings now,” says Mattar Hassan, a Civil Peace volunteer. “You can’t talk about dialogue when you can’t guarantee participants’ safety.
“You extend your hand to help, but it may be seen by the other side as trying to strike them.”
In another attempt at dialogue in Homs, community and faith leaders gathered in mid-February for an HTS-guarded open talk, hosted by a tribal figure, on the subject “what the homeland requires from the citizen.”
The event turned sour, as Christian and Alawite leaders expressed concerns for their safety.
Father Michelle Naaman, who was kidnapped during the civil war, complained that foreign fighters were manning some checkpoints, confusing the question of who represents the government and who are militia members.
“There is no civil peace. Where’s the security?” he asked participants.
Yet afterward the participants all went to dinner together.
With HTS guards outside, Christian, Alawite, and Sunni Muslim figures gathered in a restaurant and broke bread, sharing platters of lamb and rice.
It was a symbol, they say, that Syrians can peacefully resolve their differences and protect diversity on their own, provided they have security.
Alawite cleric Sheikh Saloum’s message to the world? “Leave us be.”
“As long as there is no foreign interference,” he says, “we Syrians will be able to solve our problems ourselves.”
