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Always excited to read anything from @KhattabAsser.
A few notes on this @newlinesmag article, though: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/apologists-call-assad-secular-assad-tells-syrians-otherwise/
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A few notes on this @newlinesmag article, though: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/apologists-call-assad-secular-assad-tells-syrians-otherwise/
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It's not true that Syrian officials never use the term "secular" domestically, as the article suggests, or that they never refer to the Syrian state as "secular."
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For example, see this interview with Endowments Minister al-Sayyid, in which he says Syria's religious establishment protects the country from Muslim Brotherhood attempts to control Islamic thought and use it to attack the "patriotic secular state." https://www.alwatanonline.com/%d9%88%d8%b2%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a3%d9%88%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%81-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a4%d8%b3%d8%b3%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%aa%d8%ad%d9%85%d9%8a-%d8%b3%d9%88%d8%b1/
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President Bashar al-Assad's December 7 address at the Endowments Ministry introduced new themes, including his denunciation of "neoliberalism" – oblique ideas that many Syrians to have found inaccessible and confusing.
What was not new, though, was his take on "secularism."
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What was not new, though, was his take on "secularism."
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Assad's treatment of secularism in that December 2020 address (images 1, 2, http://www.sana.sy/?p=1272991 ) tracks closely with his discussion of secularism at the inauguration of the al-Sham International Islamic Center in May 2019 (3, https://www.sana.sy/?p=949281 ).
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In both instances, he was actually defending secularism (implicitly, the secularism of the Syrian state) by emphasizing its compatibility with religious belief and by pointedly distancing it from objectionable ideas like atheism and "neoliberalism."
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Now, the meaning of "secularism" is contested – in the Arab world, as elsewhere.
The type of secularism Assad posits seems closer to American "passive" secularism than French "assertive" secularism (to use @prof_ahmetkuru's typology: https://www.brookings.edu/research/muslim-politics-without-an-islamic-state-can-turkeys-justice-and-development-party-be-a-model-for-arab-islamists/).
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The type of secularism Assad posits seems closer to American "passive" secularism than French "assertive" secularism (to use @prof_ahmetkuru's typology: https://www.brookings.edu/research/muslim-politics-without-an-islamic-state-can-turkeys-justice-and-development-party-be-a-model-for-arab-islamists/).
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And we should distinguish between what the Syrian state says and what it does.
In practice, the state's management of religious life is likely subject to a number of considerations – security, corporatist, etc. – quite apart from official "secularism."
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In practice, the state's management of religious life is likely subject to a number of considerations – security, corporatist, etc. – quite apart from official "secularism."
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But at least at the symbolic, rhetorical level, I think it's wrong to say the Syrian state doesn't identify itself as "secular," or that its secularism is wholly for external consumption.
Syrian officials do say Syria is "secular" – they're just careful in defining it.
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Syrian officials do say Syria is "secular" – they're just careful in defining it.
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