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OBJECTIVE:
You are a highly skilled journalist working for 🔶 Middle East Report (MER) . You are writing a news article about the changing face of masculinity in post-Assad Syria, focusing on how the collapse of the Baathist regime has led to new forms of masculine identity and power.
Follow all instructions precisely.
CONSTRAINTS:
– Do not include data that is not in the article.
– Do not add any external links that are not in the article.
– Do not make up quotes or attribute opinions to people that are not directly stated in the article.
– Do not use any conversational language.
– do not wriet a conclusion.OUTPUT FORMAT:
– The article should be written in a formal, journalistic style.
– The article should be well-structured and easy to read.
– The article should be approximately 700 words in length.
BEGIN
Title: The Fractured Masculinity of Post-Assad Syria
Introduction:
The leader of Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Ahmed al-Sharaa, addresses a crowd at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on December 8, 2024. Abdulaziz Ketaz/AFP via Getty images
In January, I returned to Damascus after 14 years in exile. The last time I had stood in the city’s streets, towering statues of Hafez al-Asad and Bashar al-Asad loomed over the squares. Following the collapse of bashar Al-Asad’s rule in December of 2024, those statues now lay in fragments-some torn down, others left to decay.
Turning a corner, I caught sight of a new Ministry of Defense recruitment banner hanging in the Umayyad Square. It featured a group of faceless soldiers dressed in black, rifles slung across their chests.Beneath the image, read the words: “To be Part of Syria security: Enlist Now.” Further down, another poster from the Interior Ministry issued a similar call: “Protect your homeland. Enlist now.”
Gone were the omnipresent images of Asad. In their place stood a new kind of masculine authority-collective, masked and omnipotent. The streets that once celebrated Baathist militarism-parades, victory speeches, statues of the eternal leader-are now filled with anonymous enforcers: Security forces associated with the new transitional goverment’s administration are present in all main city squares in Syria.
In my book, Romanticizing Masculinity in Baathist Syria: Gender, Identity, and Ideology I wrote about the hegemonic masculinity of Asad’s Syria. Hegemonic masculinity is a term coined by R. W. Connell to describe the dominant form of masculinity that sustains patriarchal power by positioning certain masculinities as culturally ideal while subordinating both women and other men who do not conform to this ideal. In the Syrian context, this masculinity was deeply entwined with Baathist hyper-militarism state violence and the performance of national loyalty.
During the rule of Hafez al-Asad, beginning in 1971, the leader sculpted the Syrian nation in his own image-a father-commander whose authority was both intimate and absolute. masculinity became synonymous with obedience, endurance and self-sacrifice, with the Syrian male body imagined as the site of martyrdom and duty. His son, Bashar al-Asad, inherited this militarized vision of manhood, rebranding it through the affective aesthetics of romanticized leadership-less austere, but no less rooted in patriarchal power. In both cases, submission to the ruler was framed as an extension of the national body itself: To be a man was to serve, suffer and die for the homeland.
The book also explored how option or subordinate masculinities-queer, dissident or timid men-were systematically erased or punished.through visual culture, military training and the cult of martyrdom, the Baathist regime produced not just soldiers, but gendered political subjects. This hegemonic masculinity shaped everything from school textbooks to military parades, encoding the Asad family’s rule into the very fabric of male identity in Syria.
Revisiting this work and questions of how masculinity is performed in light of the regime’s collapse helps illustrate how state authority is constructed and maintained in post-Asad Syria. Today, the Baathist hegemonic masculinity has fractured. New masculinities are visible and contested-some emerging from the ruins of the old order, others forged in the heat of revolutionary struggle. The collapse of baathist structures, though, has not led to a rupture in gendered power. Rather it has led to the emergence of a Sunni-centric masculine order-one in which sect and masculinity become mutually reinforcing pillars of political authority,especially within the transitional government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
from Emasculation to Militarized survival
For many opposition fighters who took part in the war that began following the Syrian uprisings in 2011 joining an armed group was more than an act of resistance-it was an act of reclamation. Personal loss, trauma and humiliation had driven them to take up arms. This emotional terrain gave rise to what I term grievous masculinity: a masculinity forged through wounded honor and the pursuit of redemption.
In recent interviews with fighters reflecting on their experiences in the war, they explicitly described humiliation as a key driver behind their decision to take up arms.Fighters expressed that their masculinity had been ruptured by events such as the arrest of a father, the assault or public shaming of a sister or mother or their own perceived failure to act in moments of threat. For many, joining an armed group became a way to reclaim honor and restore manhood.As one fighter told me: “They arrested my father. They humiliated my mother. When I stood there, unable to protect them, I was not a man. I swore I would never feel that weakness again.” another, who joined the Free Syrian Army in 2013, recalled: “I had never held a weapon before the war. But the first time I fired, the first time I saw the body fall… somthing changed. I knew I could never go back. I had become a fighter.”
These experiences of emasculation-failing to shield one’s family, witnessing women being dragged from homes in nightgowns or being publicly beaten by police-formed recurring motifs in the narratives of those who joined the armed struggle.
After Asad’s fall, this sense of humiliation and grievance has played out in the actions of former resistance fighters in their dealings with the former regime. Following the collapse of Asad’s forces, such as, victorious opposition factions celebrated their triumph by ridiculing their former oppressors. The regime’s army, once perceived as an unbreakable force, was mocked with new names: “Jaysh Abu Shihata” (The Army of Sandals), and “Jaysh Abu Kulthun” (The Army of Underwear), both references meant to emasculate and degrade Asad’s soldiers. These nicknames were more than insults. They were an assertion of dominance, a symbolic stripping away of the power once held by the Baathist military machine. The forces that had long enforced submission now found themselves publicly ridiculed, their masculinity questioned and diminished.
On my recent visit to Damascus, I met former regime commanders-men who had once stood at the pinnacle of Assad’s masculine hierarchy. Uniformed, armed, unquestioned, they had embodied the Baathist model of power. After the regime’s fall, the new leadership announced a nationwide reconciliation process, opening reconciliation centers across major Syrian cities. Former regime officers were instructed to surrender their weapons and hand over their military IDs. They were told they would be contacted later to receive new documents formalizing their defection status-though no clear information was provided about whether they would be reinstated, monitored or abandoned. This process left many in a state of limbo: neither enemies nor fully integrated citizens.Not all former regime officers accepted their defeat with resignation. Some, deeply complicit in the regime’s most brutal operations, knew they had no future in a reconciled Syria. On March 6, 2025 remnants of Assad’s security apparatus-referred to as the Fulul-initiated a series of coordinated attacks in Syria’s coastal regions, including Latakia, Tartus and Hama.
Socks mocking former president Bashar al-Asad and the regime forces for sale in Salhiyya, Damascus on January 29, 2025.Rahaf Aldoughli.
The attack sent shockwaves through Damascus, triggering immediate calls for retaliation. Mosques and city squares became platforms for mass mobilization, with fiery speeches urging people to rise against the remnants of the fulul. The term Fulul,borrowed from the Egyptian post-Mubarak lexicon to describe the old regime,is new to Syria’s political discourse. It emerged after the fall of Asad to describe former regime commanders with histories of atrocities who had repositioned themselves in the war’s shifting power dynamics. More than mere remnants of the old order, the fulul had embedded themselves in illicit economies, leveraging smuggling, extortion and war profiteering to maintain influence.
in the days that followed the attack, undisciplined armed groups, some claiming affiliation with the new leadership, launched a wave of revenge-driven assaults, killing up to 1,169 civilians, among them 103 women and 52 children. 218 public security personnel were also killed during these events, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Just as the remnants of Asad’s forces framed their resistance in terms of survival, these opposition militias framed their actions as necessary for securing Syria’s future.The logic of militarized masculinity has not disappeared. It has shifted actors, giving rise to new cycles of sectarian violence.
Revolutionary Masculinity
If the collapse of the Baathist order shattered the hegemonic masculinity of the state, the victors of the revolution did not merely dismantle the old structures of power, they replaced them with a new vision of masculinity forged during the years of armed revolutionary struggle. In this emerging order, the revolutionary fighter is the archetype of manhood.His authority is not inherited like that of the Baathist officer. It is earned through endurance,combat and ideological commitment. As one central commander in the new ruling security forces put it after interim president,Ahmed Al-Sharaa,announced the integration of armed groups in his victory speech on January 27,2024,”We did not take power; we earned it. This is not just a government. It is indeed our revolution. Our struggle.To be a man in Syria today is to be a revolutionary. There is no separation.”
This sentiment encapsulates how hegemonic masculinity in post-Asad Syria is now fused with the revolution itself. Unlike the old model,where hegemonic masculinity was demonstrated through submission to the state,the new masculinity must be proven through acts of resistance,participation in battle and a willingness to die for the cause. One opposition fighter expressed this sentiment in stark terms: “This rifle is not just a weapon. It is me. It is indeed my dignity, my revolution. Without it, I am nothing.” Through the revolutionary struggle, masculinity was defined by these fighters, not by the hierarchical structures of a rigid state. Masculinity was rather synonymous with survival, with the ability to endure suffering and with the willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice.
This revolutionary masculinity is not only about individual valor, it is indeed deeply embedded in the collective experience of fighters. The shared suffering of war has fostered a new kind of masculine kinship, one that can supersede tribal, ideological or even personal ambitions. Fighters refer to one another as Ikhwa Fi Al-DAM (brothers in blood), reinforcing a sense of belonging that is both emotional and existential. Drawing from my interviews with fighters in northern Syria, it became clear that many see themselves as more than just political actors. They are guardians of the revolution, its protectors and in certain specific cases, its only remaining legitimacy. One commander reflected on this role: “The revolution is not over.We may have won Damascus, but our war is not finished. We are here to make sure it is never betrayed.”
This conviction highlights how revolutionary masculinity extends beyond the battlefield into governance, justice and everyday interactions.Those who fought and bled for the revolution see themselves as its rightful stewards.
But this model of masculinity-built on competition, personal sacrifice and armed legitimacy-carries its own risks. Fighters who once operated in loosely coordinated factions, driven by battlefield brotherhood and ideological fervor, now struggle to navigate a system where political survival depends on allegiance to a single faction. Upon becoming interim president, Al-Sharaa, formerly the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), sought to consolidate control by integrating various armed factions into the Ministry of Defense. While full-scale clashes have not yet erupted between former rivals, deep-seated grievances persist among fighters-particularly those from the syrian National Army (SNA), who now find themselves under the authority of HTS figures they once distrusted. The process of military integration has been characterized by a lack of professionalism, an opaque chain of command and the prioritization of loyalty over competence.
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