Ghadir al-Khayer beäugt misstrauisch die mit Sturmmasken vermummten Rebellenkämpfer, die gerade aus einem Geländewagen mit getönten Scheiben aussteigen. Sie schreiten selbstbewusst in den verkohlten Prunkbau, der das verkörpert, was sie hassen: das Regime des gestürzten Gewaltherrschers Baschar al-Assad. Hier in Qardaha, dem Heimatort des Assad-Clans, liegt Hafiz al-Assad begraben, der Begründer der Familiendynastie, die länger als 54 Jahre über Syrien herrschte. Aufständische hatten das Mausoleum vor einigen Tagen in Brand gesteckt. Jetzt kommen siegreiche Milizionäre, um es zu besichtigen. Sie sind die neuen Machthaber. Aber anders als Ghadir al-Khayer, ein Staatsangestellter aus Qardaha, sind sie Fremde hier.
Qardaha liegt im Bergland an der Küste, dem Kernland der Alawiten. Jener Minderheit, deren Gefolgschaft eine tragende Säule des alten Regimes war. Alawiten saßen auf zentralen Posten in Geheimdienst und Militär, waren Assads grausame Folterknechte, richteten bestialische Massaker an den Gegnern des Präsidenten an, kommandierten Belagerungen, um Rebellenhochburgen auszuhungern. Zugleich waren sie Kanonenfutter in Assads Krieg gegen die Aufständischen. Jetzt fühlen sie sich wie die großen Verlierer des Kriegs. Im Stich gelassen von Assad, der sich klammheimlich aus dem Staub gemacht hat. Seine Leute hat er verwirrt und verängstigt zurückgelassen.
Ghadir al-Khayer versucht noch abzuschätzen, ob die schwer bewaffneten Männer, die aus der Millionenstadt Aleppo im Norden Syriens kommen, freundlich oder feindlich gesinnt sind. Da geht der bärtige Anführer des Trupps schon auf ihn zu und sagt: „Du und ich, wir sind eins. Ganz Syrien ist eins.“ Es entspinnt sich eine freundliche Unterhaltung, an deren Ende die Männer einander mit einer Umarmung und Wangenküssen verabschieden. Es könnte eine Szene aus einem Werbefilm der neuen Herrscher für ein besseres Syrien sein: Auf den rauchenden Trümmern des alten Regimes finden die Syrer zusammen, um ein neues Land aufzubauen.
Doch kurz nach den Wangenküssen im Mausoleum, nur wenige Schritte die Straße herunter, sitzt eine verängstigte Familie in ihrem Wohnzimmer und berichtet von Drohungen, Beschimpfungen und Übergriffen durch islamistische Rebellen. „Sie tragen Rachegelüste in ihren Herzen“, sagt ein früherer Soldat. Eine alte Frau tritt in den Raum. „Sie schießen oben am Mausoleum“, sagt sie. Anscheinend lässt nur irgendjemand seine Wut am Assad-Grab aus, wie es immer wieder mal passiert. Aber Leute rennen in Panik davon. Das Gespräch wird abgebrochen, noch bevor der obligatorische Kaffee serviert werden kann.
Später gibt es Feuergefechte in der Stadt. Wer da genau auf wen geschossen hat und aus welchen Gründen, bleibt unklar. In der ganzen Region werden offene Rechnungen beglichen, private und politische. Aber was auch immer an diesem Tag in Qardaha geschehen ist: Die Angst der Alawiten vor den neuen Machthabern ist hier noch einmal verstärkt worden.
Den Zusicherungen der neuen Machthaber schenkt er wenig Glauben
Schüsse und Küsse liegen in diesen Tagen ebenso eng beieinander wie Hoffnung und Horror. Als Ghadir al-Khayer nach dem Vorfall am Mausoleum in seinem Haus am Esstisch Platz nimmt, hat sich sein Ton geändert. Er hatte zuvor wie viele andere Alawiten gesagt, er sei nach Assads Sturz hin- und hergerissen zwischen Freude vor dem Ende der Unterdrückung und Sorge, dass Syrien von einer alawitischen Diktatur unter die Herrschaft einer islamistischen Diktatur geraten könne. Jetzt gerade überwiegt die Angst. „Wie kann man Leuten trauen, die neben der Flagge des neuen Syriens immer auch ihre islamistischen Banner aufhängen?“, schimpft er. Einer seiner Brüder, ein Elektriker, witzelt düster: „Mach lieber noch ein Foto von uns, bevor sie uns die Köpfe abschlagen.“
Der Zusicherung des neuen starken Mannes Abu Muhammad al-Golani, des Anführers der Islamistenallianz „Hay’at Tahrir al-Scham“ (HTS), dessen Männer den Checkpoint am Ortseingang von Qardaha bemannen, schenkt er wenig Glauben. Golani hat seinen Kampfnamen abgelegt, benutzt nun seinen bürgerlichen Namen Ahmed Schara’a. Er hat angekündigt, Minderheiten würden geschützt, ihre Religionsfreiheit und ihre Sicherheit gewahrt. Ghadir al-Khayer sagt: „Jetzt gerade benehmen sie sich – aber wer weiß, wie lange?“
Ghadir al-Khayer’s house has become a retreat for his family. And at the same time it is a place where not only the inner conflict of many Alawites is reflected, but also the fault lines within the community. Ghadir al-Khayer has long despised the regime. One of the two brothers who moved in with him was a general in the army from Damascus, responsible for tank maintenance. Now he is left with nothing and has been left out in the cold.
Asked how it felt that Assad simply left the army behind after years of bloodshed, that all the bloodshed was completely in vain, the former general struggled for an answer and ended up evasive. Ghadir al-Khayer, on the other hand, celebrates the question to his brother as if his favorite soccer team had just scored a goal.
The brother himself clings to the hope that the thousands of officers who have now been sidelined will be needed again. The second brother who moved in with Ghadir al-Khayer – he is an electrician – has less difficulty with how painful it is to ask yourself what you have actually lived for in the past few years. “They were all lies,” he says of the slogans of the old rulers. They made him believe that they were standing against American imperialism, against the rise to power of political Islam, which would wipe out the Alawites.
As if the regime had vanished into thin air
For both brothers, however, anger at Assad is the predominant feeling. “He stabbed us in the back,” says the general about the tyrant’s silent escape. He says he didn’t receive an official order. A friend called him at three in the morning and said it was over and that he should go home and protect his family. So he drove off. His daughter, he says, behaved more honorably than the president. “She was obsessed with us saving our two little chickens so they wouldn’t get killed.”
Not only in Qardaha, but in the entire Alawite coastal region, it is as if the regime has suddenly vanished into thin air. They simply disappeared, it is said everywhere when asked about the high cadres of the old regime, the warlords and mafia godfathers who pursued their dark business under the regime’s protection. The highways between major cities like Tartus and Latakia are lined with tanks and military trucks that have simply been abandoned. The countless military checkpoints are deserted. When it gets dark, hardly anyone dares go outside the door.
A baker who sells flatbreads on one of the highways is not only afraid of revenge from the Islamists, but also of lawlessness. “Today they found two bodies again under the bridge over there,” he reports. His father, who has been running the business for decades, looks up briefly from the smoking stove and says: “Only God protects us.”
For decades, the Assad regime had told the Alawites that they were their only protection. It had a secular appearance, but was at the same time confessional. Generations of Alawites grew up firmly believing that their existence was threatened by the Sunnis, who make up the majority in Syria. The Alawites are followers of a secret religion that emerged from the Shiite branch of Islam. They are considered infidels by Sunni zealots. Their collective memory is marked by persecution by Sunni rulers and by a hard life in poverty.
Hafiz al-Assad, who came to power in 1971, made the Alawites hostages of the regime. His son Bashar took advantage of this when he faced an uprising in 2011. And the hatred of Alawites that many Sunni insurgents harbored, exacerbated by the atrocities committed by the army and secret service, played into his hands. Today, demands are being made in Alawite homes that they want to take down Assad themselves – that he should ideally be hanged in every Alawite town and village.
It dawned on many Alawites years before the regime collapsed that they were being deceived by the ruling family. They had defended the rule of Bashar al-Assad, but they remained poor while the regime’s favorites became very rich and warlords and drug lords became powerful. The regime had long been rotten and Assad’s credibility had long been undermined by the everyday struggle for economic survival. “Many people here in Qardaha would have to borrow money to be able to offer you coffee,” says Ghadir al-Khayer, who also lives in simple circumstances.
“Now Syria is free, I can speak openly”
The Assads’ hometown is marked by economic hardship and neglect. Beyond the magnificent mausoleum, the regime did not add any splendor to the small town in the mountainous region off the coast. In a landscape of bucolic beauty, dotted with orange groves, stand weather-beaten houses in which many families struggle for daily survival. There are no developed roads leading into the town and there is no modern hospital there. Hafiz al-Assad, a riser from the Alawite military proletariat, had also marginalized the traditional Alawite elites.
Saad Mohammed comes from one of the great Alawite houses. He has worked discreetly for years to undermine the regime’s narrative and free its people from being held hostage by the Assad clan. He served on the Syrian Charter Council, which is drafting a new Syrian social contract and designed to challenge the Assads’ toxic narrative. And then the regime suddenly collapsed, completely unexpectedly.
“Now Syria is free, I can speak openly,” cheers Saad Mohammed. The Alawites’ eyes have finally been opened. “But the realization that they were just puppets of the regime, that they were only defending the rule of the Assads and not the country, came late.” Maybe it is due to his political work or his hatred of the Assads – but with Saad Mohammed Joy and optimism predominate. In Tartus, where he lives, everyday life is slowly returning, he reports. The new rulers behaved like “statesmen” and worked to get the administration and the economy running. There were meetings with Alawite dignitaries and they were assured that the Alawites had nothing to fear. “The fears are legitimate,” says Saad Mohammed. “The future is still uncertain.” But he wants to continue working to spread confidence among his people. They desperately need this.
Many are like the shopkeeper in the coastal town of Latakia, who struggles to support his family, who mourns the loss of a brother who was burned to death in Assad’s forces. Who is afraid of the revenge of the victors and of having to spend the rest of his life in the Syrian outskirts into which the Alawites have maneuvered themselves. In Latakia, where the cartel’s rich profiteers at the top of the state celebrated lavish parties, bearded militiamen have now occupied the upscale holiday resorts and are strolling on the coastal promenade.
The Sunnis, who make up a large portion of Latakia’s population, celebrate in the streets. When a large demonstration was organized on Friday, one of the slums not only rejoiced over a “free Syria”, but also praised the greatness of God “Allahu Akbar”. An Alawite passer-by who watched the cheerful demonstration said it frightened him.
Hard work lies ahead for Alawite figures like Saad Mohammed who want to offer their people a way out of marginalization and fear. “We need reconciliation,” he says. And it must be a reconciliation that not only recognizes the crimes of the Alawites, but also their suffering. Many were murderers – and at the same time victims of coercion and delusion. The Alawites were bled dry like no other population group. Some Alawite villages have lost almost an entire generation of young men.
“It wasn’t their fault,” says an old man who is checking on things at an orphaned military cemetery in Latakia. Who knows whether the compensation will continue to be paid to the surviving dependents. When the buses that most mourners usually take will run again. Many of them, he says, are now afraid of the future. “You have to remember them too,” he says, looking at the burial ground. A frayed flag of the old regime still flies here. Powerful pictures of Assad still hang here next to the portraits of the fallen. The sun has bleached them so much that some faces are no longer recognizable.