Syria Under Turkish Tutelage… Even in Its School Textbooks!

Momentous developments are unfolding behind the scenes in Syria. Their outcome will determine the identity of a country that emerged less than two years ago from a long ordeal that began with the Baath Party’s seizure of power on March 8, 1963, and culminated in the minority rule of the Assad dynasty. The groundwork for that rule was laid by the February 23, 1966 coup, led by Alawite officers. It marked a turning point in their takeover of the “Syrian Arab Army” and the security services, which became the country’s real rulers.

For more than half a century, from 1970 to 2024, Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar ruled Syria. Throughout that period, Israel served as a guarantor of the Syrian regime, which never showed any willingness to reclaim the Golan Heights, occupied since 1967. But who will now guarantee the new Syrian regime, which appears to have come, at least for the foreseeable future, under Turkish tutelage?

Has Syria, as a regime, moved from Israeli guarantees to a form of Turkish tutelage? It should not be forgotten that Iran, too, was a partner alongside Israel in providing guarantees for Syria’s Alawite regime. In fact, Israel had tacitly accepted the Iranian presence in Syria as long as Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar were prepared, on the one hand, to ensure security on the Golan Heights and, on the other, to keep southern Lebanon as an “arena” for exchanging messages.

A revealing indication of Turkey’s tutelage over Syria emerged on social media in recent days. A wave of criticism targeted the Syrian Ministry of Education over changes introduced in the latest editions of school textbooks. These included the removal of photographs and illustrations depicting women and girls, including young children and women without headscarves. There is apparently no longer room in Syrian textbooks for an unveiled woman, in a country where people of different religions lived together for centuries before Hafez al-Assad sowed the seeds of division between Alawites and Sunnis while marginalizing Christians, Druze and even Ismailis.

The revisions, introduced under the pretext of removing symbols of the “former regime,” also involved deleting images of partially nude statues and sculptures. It takes a particular kind of absurdity to dress the image of a pharaonic statue in a shirt simply to conceal its bare chest. Apparently, an ancient Egyptian statue showing an uncovered torso now offends public decency, violates the law and runs counter to Syria’s traditions and culture. More remarkably still, an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa was removed from a school textbook because the woman in the painting is not wearing a headscarf. The explanation of the painting’s significance was retained, but the image of what is widely considered the world’s most famous painting was removed…

The criticism circulating on social media also concerned revisions to the political and historical content of the curriculum. Among these was the removal of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, annexed by Turkey in 1939, from maps of Syria in school textbooks generally. The territory once known as the “stolen Sanjak” is now described as an area with “special status,” according to the new interpretation adopted by the Syrian Ministry of Education or, more accurately, by Syria’s new regime!

Another issue that sparked widespread controversy was the reported cancellation of Martyrs’ Day commemorations, honoring the Syrian patriots executed by the Ottoman authorities in 1916. These historical figures, regarded as Syrian national heroes, were reportedly described as Western spies who collaborated with non-Muslims to fight the “Ottoman Caliphate.” Meanwhile, Jamal Pasha, the Turkish military governor responsible for the executions, is no longer portrayed as a “butcher,” but merely as an ordinary official who administered Syria when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.

Several conclusions follow.

• Through its revisions of school curricula, the new Syrian regime is seeking to Islamize society from an early age, prohibiting the depiction of girls and women without headscarves even in photographs and illustrations intended for children.

• The regime wants to erase from children’s minds any historical event suggesting that Ottoman Turkey was an occupying power in Syria. In the new regime’s version of history, there was an Islamic “Caliphate State” of which Syria formed a part. That state was the Ottoman Empire.

• Most importantly, the new Syrian regime, headed by transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa, appears to have lost its bearings. It seems caught between rival factions battling one another behind the scenes. Each is attempting to impose its own vision of society and Syria’s identity under a new political order far removed from the true values of Islam. Yet the principal disagreement between these competing factions concerns timing. Ahmad al-Sharaa wants to Islamize Syria along Muslim Brotherhood lines, but intends to do so gradually. He wants sufficient time to consolidate his rule. Other factions within the regime, by contrast, want to Islamize Syria as quickly as possible, regardless of reactions from abroad or the consequences for domestic stability and social cohesion.

Ultimately, Turkey is working to impose its own pace on Syria’s Islamization, following a model shaped by the Muslim Brotherhood. It increasingly resembles the country’s new tutelary power… As though Israel had ceased to exist, as though it had given up any ambition to shape Syria’s future and cared only about making its occupation of the Golan Heights permanent… regardless of Turkey’s ambitions in Syria.