Summary
The government of President Assad of Syria is under threat. So too is the secretive Shia sect known as the Alawis - or Alawites - to which he and many of the governing party and security officials belong. Hostility towards the minority Alawi population is such that one leading commentator predicts they are likely to be the victims of the world's next genocide. Presenter Owen Bennett Jones investigates the Alawis' origins, history and culture and asks how these once marginalised people came to power in a Sunni majority state. He discovers that for many their fortunes changed fifty years ago when the Baath party seized power in a coup d'etat. Alawis were dominant among the army officers who took control. They set about modernising the country and rolling out a secular agenda. Now, as Syria's revolution has morphed into a civil war, many Alawis believe their only choice is to kill or be killed. Are the majority of Alawis right to be convinced that the Assad regime is all that stands between them and a return to second-class status, or worse? If the opposition wins in Syria, are warnings about pogroms against the Alawis alarmist, or inevitable? Presenter: Owen Bennett Jones Producer: Damian Quinn.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Thank you for downloading this edition of Analysis from the BBC. |
| 0:40.1 | Owen Bennett Jones examines the history and culture of the Alawites, |
| 0:43.7 | the sect Syria's President Bashar-Larsad belongs to. |
| 0:47.2 | How did these once marginalised people come to power |
| 0:50.7 | in a Sunni majority state. |
| 0:55.0 | Alawites often tell a story going back to the early 1500s. |
| 1:02.0 | Some Alawite religious leaders were summoned to one of the Ottoman |
| 1:06.3 | empire's most fabled and important cities, Aleppo. They went for talks with some of the |
| 1:11.8 | Sunni Muslim officials there. |
| 1:13.2 | As they waited, the clerics gathered in one of Valepo's ancient squares, |
| 1:17.6 | but it was a trick, a trap. |
| 1:20.4 | The Alawite's religious leaders were first physically restrained and then one by one decapitated. |
| 1:27.0 | Alawite fears of persecution run deep. I think there's a very real risk that the world's next genocide will be against |
| 1:40.3 | the aloeytes. |
| 1:41.3 | Peter Galbraith advised the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about Syria. |
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