The Masks of Tyranny: Syria Between the Hammer of Sanctity and the Anvil of Silent Conformity

In Syria’s theater of shadows, where political specters toss embers of power between them, a new existential cycle of tyranny emerges—draped in the robe of salvation, and pleading in the language of sanctity. It is the tale of a regime that never truly dies, but rather reincarnates in new rhetorical molds—like a serpent shedding its skin only to preserve the same venom beneath. The regime of Ahmad al-Shar’a, who rose to power waving promises of rebuilding from the ashes of war, soon laid bare its skeleton: an old despotism now dancing to the tune of religion instead of the national anthem.

The religious attire is but a darkened mirror reflecting another face of Baathist totalitarianism—two opposing faces of the same coin, minted long ago by the machinery of repression. Just as Hafez al-Assad forged Arab nationalism into a blade wielded against the necks of the different and the defiant, today Shar’a fashions a religious discourse that morphs into an altar upon which pluralism is sacrificed in the name of illusion. It is the same carnival of warped mirrors: under the guise of “protecting the constants,” dissenting voices are suffocated-;- in the name of “intellectual apostasy,” dreams of change are crushed—just as they once were under banners of “patriotism” and “resistance.” In the end, there is little difference between the sacred and the secular when both are wielded as guillotines.

These mutations reflect a fundamental law in the philosophy of power: tyranny is a shape-shifter. It wears the masks of the age and conceals its true face with cunning. The new regime, despite its rhetoric of a "righteous state," merely reproduces old monolithic thinking—this time with more sophisticated tools. The media that once hymned the “inspired leader” now sanctifies “the religious authority.” Schools that once fed Baathist slogans to young minds have become pulpits for a singular religious interpretation. Even intellectuals—those who resisted yesterday’s tyranny—find themselves silenced by a new jailer, this time with the gag of “doctrinal deviance.” History, it seems, repeats itself in a darker tongue.

At the heart of this complex equation arises a haunting question: can tyranny be born from the very womb of revolution? Shar’a rode the crest of a popular wave yearning for freedom, only to turn his back on its dreams of participation. Instead, he fortified a security state under the banner of “public morality.” Independent civic councils are branded as separatist cells. Cultural initiatives are besieged as “Western infiltration.” It’s a déjà vu of the Baathist era—where every group outside the party was a dormant threat. It is the eternal fear of diversity—the ghost that haunts every totalitarian regime, turning it into a beast that devours its own children lest they grow strong enough to rebel.

What stands out in this tragic drama is the new regime’s hollow core—its absence of a true political vision beyond slogans of absolute identity. As cities collapse beneath economic ruin, the ruler offers moral sermons as painkillers to a bleeding nation—like a doctor treating cancer with aspirin. There is no reconstruction plan beyond rebuilding prisons-;- no transitional justice but the victor’s justice, rewritten in Friday sermons. This so-called "renaissance" differs from the previous era only as an iron shackle differs from a wooden one.

A discerning eye will notice the structural parallels in emotional manipulation. Just as Assad once invested in the wound of humiliated Arab nationalism, today Shar’a bets on the primal fear of the sectarian “Other,” weaponizing religion not as a bond of spirit but as an instrument of domination. The official discourse inflames a sanctified arrogance—as if the nation were Noah’s Ark, open only to those bearing a certain sectarian ID. This strategy does not merely stoke the fires of division-;- it turns the homeland into an arena of perpetual identity wars, where loyalty to the leader becomes an extension of loyalty to God.

Perhaps the most dangerous face of this masked continuity is the transformation of violence into a sacred ritual. Where the Baathist regime once cloaked its crimes in the language of “border defense,” its successors now justify mass murder as the "righteous wrath of the faithful street"—as if blood is spilled by divine will, not by intelligence orders. It is the intellectualization of savagery, dressing orchestrated chaos in the garments of “holy vengeance,” evoking memories of inquisitions where dissenters were burned in the name of the Lord.

In the end, Syria’s “new” reality is but a shattered mirror, reflecting the face of an old tyranny in modern makeup. Today’s regime breathes through religious lungs, yet it is the same Baathist dragon—only now it has mastered the art of disguise. Change lies only in the surface, not the substance-;- in the speech, not the structure. As Ibn Khaldun once wrote, “Dominion belongs to those who wear the armor of iron,” but in Damascus today, iron has been replaced with silken whips of religious rhetoric—while the national wound bleeds with the same old blood.

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