Episode 324: Syria’s Shifting Identity and Political Landscape with Ola Rifai

In this episode of the International Risk Podcast, Dominic Bowen speaks with Ola Rifai about the evolution of Syrian identity and how competing narratives of nationalism, sectarianism, and statehood have shaped Syria’s political trajectory and risk before and after 2011.

Find out more about how identity was managed under the Assad regime, how sectarianisation unfolded differently in cities such as Homs and Damascus, and why collective memory, displacement, and institutional weakness continue to influence Syria’s fragile post-conflict landscape. Syria’s shifting identity and political landscape present a myriad of international risks to communites and the wider region.

The conversation also examines citizenship, state formation, and the structural challenges of rebuilding trust between communities after prolonged violence. Ola Rifai explores whether a unified Syrian national identity can be reconstructed, and what role education, transitional justice, and institutional reform will play in that process.

Finally, they discuss the regional and geopolitical dimensions of Syria’s transformation, the risks posed by unresolved identity fractures, and the indicators policymakers and risk professionals should monitor as Syria navigates its next phase.

Ola Rifai is Deputy Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies (CSS) at the University of St Andrews, where her research focuses on the international politics of the Middle East. Her work examines identity politics, nationalism, sectarianism, and ethnic conflict, with particular attention to Syria and the broader contemporary region.

Her scholarship engages with the ways in which state formation, citizenship, and communal identities intersect with political violence and structural transformation. Through both historical and post-2011 analysis, Ola Rifai’s research provides critical insight into how identity is shaped, mobilised, and contested during periods of upheaval.

Ola Rifai holds an MA in International Politics from City University London (2011) and an M.Phil in International Relations from the University of St Andrews (2013).

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

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Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Dominic is the go-to business advisor for leaders navigating risk, crisis, and strategy; trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage. Dominic equips today’s business leaders with the insight and confidence to lead through disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.

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Transcript

00:00
Ola Rifai
I see that there’s a window of opportunity in Syria today, but it won’t last forever. The current government should take this into account and try to address all the challenges at home, more than addressing challenges at the foreign policy end of diplomacy. 

00:19
Elisa Garbil
Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide. 

00:29
Dominic Bowen
Today’s episode is sponsored by Conducttr. They’re a crisis exercising software that’s built for corporates, consultants, humanitarian teams, and defence and security organisation. It lets you build exercises fast using its intuitive scenario editor and ready to make content. I’ve used Conducttr and I can testify that if you use PowerPoint or Excel still, well it’s time to start looking at Conducttr. If you want your teams to be genuinely ready for the next crisis, then Conducttr is certainly worth a look. And before we start today, I have a quick favour to ask you. If you listen to The International Risk Podcast and you find it useful, please follow and subscribe wherever you are watching and listening today. In return, my commitment to you is simple that every week we will keep raising the bar with better guests, sharper questions and more practical takeaways for you that you can use to make better decisions. And if there is someone you want on the show, tell me. We read all of your comments, and we act on them. Let’s get onto the show.  

01:32
Dominic Bowen
Syria is a country where the headlines are often about geopolitics, about conflict and violence. But there’s a much deeper story, and that’s about how communities have fractured, how they’ve adapted, and how they’re trying to rebuild after years of conflict. I’m Dominic Bowen, host of The International Risk podcast, and I’m joining you from Damascus in Syria. And today we’re talking about identity, we’re talking about how it was governed in Syria under the Assad regime before 2011, how it was weaponized and reshaped during the conflict years, and also what it means to reconstruct identity and how to reconstruct identity balances when trust is thin, institutions are reforming, and external powers are still shaping many incentives on the ground. My guest today is Ola Rifai. She’s the Deputy Director for Outreach at the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews and her work explores identity politics, nationalism, sectarian dynamics, and she unpacks why places like Homs and Damascus can experience the same national crisis, but emerge with very different social fabrics. Ola, welcome to the International Risk Podcast.

02:42
Ola Rifai
Hello, Dominic. Thank you for having me.

02:45
Dominic Bowen
Ola, I’ve been really excited about our conversation and I know you’ve got a lot of history in Syria and you’ve got so much experience, so thanks very much. I’m really looking forward to unpacking and hearing more of your insights today and to begin with, when you look at Syria today, what do you think is the most important thing for people who are outside the country to understand about the situation in Syria? So for our listeners that might not be following developments closely, what’s happening in Syria today that people need to know about?

03:15
Ola Rifai
Well, one year after the fall of the Assad regime, the country is still undergoing massive transformation, as you might have seen since you’re in Damascus. The situation today in Syria is not optimal at all. However, there have been many concrete achievements, more at foreign policy, diplomacy. There are many challenges today in Syria at the domestic level facing the new government, they consist many threats for the transition. 

03:45
Dominic Bowen
One of the things I really liked you talking about with the potential risks inside Syria, I’ve really been looking at this for some time. And the things that concern me, I think there’s three main ones, and that’s around legitimacy. Does the new government have legitimacy? Are the people accepting the new order? And from what I’m seeing in the street, whether I speak to government officials, security services, who are clearly going to be biased towards the government, but also when I speak to taxi drivers, people in restaurants, when I speak to people in the in the street and I think they really are accepting the new order. So I’ve been really pleased to sort of informally give it a green tick for legitimacy. But then we look at capacity. Can the state deliver the basics? This was something that’s very different to be a rebel force controlling parts of northern Syria to being an actual government controlling the entire state. And that’s something else that I’ve been really pleasantly surprised about. About the electricity, the water utilities, the effectiveness of things like traffic control, of the ordered society, how taxis are operating. It’s been really, really impressive. And the third one is cohesion. And that’s, can the government prevent identity-based conflicts? And this is really where we could we could have some really great conversations today. So, beyond the headlines, and you’ve, of course, spent so much of your time studying identity and studying identity in Syria, why is it so central to understanding what’s happening in Syria today? What is so special about the topic of identity when it comes to Syria and understanding what’s going on?

05:08
Ola Rifai
Because as you mentioned, the social cohesion is very important for state building. Social cohesion interacts with social contacts and social convenance. So three of them are different concepts, but interact with each other and they all interact with the identity balance, especially in a post-conflict situation like Syria that’s suffered in the past from identity clashes. And why we suffered in the past during this 13 years of conflict that started as peaceful uprising and sadly turned into a bloody conflict for power, because identity clashes and identity issue was one trigger of the uprising.

05:48
Dominic Bowen
If we look at some of the timelines before 2011, it wasn’t so much that the system was stable. It’s just that the Assad regime really tightly controlled everything. And I think this is a common playbook. We see authoritarian systems around the world. They don’t necessarily i.e. eliminate identity competition, they simply, they warehouse it, they pull it out when they want to, they police it, and they use it as a tool. So I’d love to hear from you. If we look at the pre-2011, so before the Civil War, how did the Assad regime shape identity, maybe boundaries? How did they use institutions, security services, patronage, narratives, corruptions? And what were the tensions that the Assad regime were trying to manage and suppress before the Civil War?

06:32
Ola Rifai
Very good question, we always need to go back to history. Yes, if you look at the identity balance in Syria, it did function for about 50 years, half a century, and then it broke down. Why? Because when Hafez al-Assad did build this identity balance in the early 70s, he built that in a contradictory way. The identity balance in Syria consists of three main identities, Arab nationalism identity, Islamic identity, and Syrian national identity. So Hafez al-Assad, he constructed the identity balance, put Arab nationalism identity as umbrella identity, under which would come Islamic identity and Syrian national identity. He did this for, as you said, the main aim was his own survival and legitimacy. We know that the Syrian community is a mosaic of community, we have a lot of religious communities, Christian, Alawites, Druze, Sunnis. Hafiz al-Assad. When he created this identity balance in a contradictory way, he reinforced Arab nationalists as umbrella identity, but it’s a secular Ba’athist ideology on the one hand, he was reinforcing Islamic identity from above, trying to strengthen a particular version of a Sunni Sufi identity to maintain power. On the other hand, he was emphasizing Syrian national identity, but he was relying on Asabiyya, the Ibn Khaldun brilliant theory of group solidarity and this functioned for 50 years, but it was a trigger for the uprising and it was a result of the uprising. There was a daily process of reconstruction of Alawite identity, Sunni identity, and we see all sub-state identities, sectarian identities, like Sunni, Alawite, Christian, and Druze, try to compete for power. They are all stuck in a security dilemma, each group fearing the domination of the other.

08:32
Dominic Bowen
Now, your work, Ola, you’ve compared Homs and Damascus, this is really powerful because it really breaks down that single story narrative. And I’ve had the real blessing since 2013 of working in the north of Syria on the crisis that is affecting the northern part of the country. So it’s been really powerful for me to actually see Damascus and see the other side of what was what was occurring. Because it’s not a single story narrative. Yes, there was a war over the entire country since 2011, but very different trajectories and the war affected different communities and in very different ways. Can you help us understand, what were the key drivers that made this play out very differently in Homs versus Damascus? Was it demography? Was it the local political economy? Was it the security architecture? Was it displacement patterns? Or is there something else that we don’t understand?

9:18
Ola Rifai
Actually all of them. So why I picked Damascus and Homs and tried to compare, it was part of a project by Professor Raymond Hinnebusch to try to identify, describe, explain sectarianism and sectarianisation during the conflict. We argue that there is a variation in sectarianism. Like sectarianism is not the same in all cities in Syria, and this variation depends on many variables and factors, like for instance, collective memory of violence, like the social structure, the external actors, how they intervene. Why I compared Homs to Damascus? Because both represent interesting cases. Damascus is the capital city where the regime stayed in power there. It was his stronghold. However, on the other hand, in Homs, which was epicenter for sectarianisation in 2012, of the status quo collapse, there is a collective memory of violence and the social class structure way different. And here’s as to answer your question, what factors trigger sectarianism? It’s one, the collective memory of violence. Like for instance, in Damascus, and here I’m not talking about the suburbs of Damascus, there was no collective memory of sectarian clashes, but in Homs, there are many, many massacres and many events where Alawites would attack a Sunni neighbor and violent clashes would appear. The social class structure as well, like Hafez al-Assad, when he came to power in the early 70s, he established an alliance with the Sunni elite of Damascus to safeguard his survival. And we can see that this alliance kept in power, during the uprising. As I said, the variation in sectarianisation during the conflict depends on many factors and that’s why it can be misunderstanding to say that all Sunnis are against all Alawites. No, not all Sunnis are against all Alawites. Some Sunnis are, during the 14 years of conflict.

11:22
Dominic Bowen
That’s really important because one thing I’ve seen around the world, and I’ve had the real blessing of working in so many communities that have been affected by war, and something that I see is identity often hardens. It can follow either incentives or, on the other side, fear. And that could be protection, access to jobs, safe passage through parts of the country, justice, revenge. Moral language can come a little bit later, but on a day to day basis, it’s that survival logic that comes first. If we look at the period from 2011 to 2024, what do you see as the main mechanisms that really intensified these identity boundaries? We saw militias form. We saw sieges. I mean, a lot of people might have forgotten back in 2014, 2015, we saw huge cities like Aleppo actually surrounded and sieged. And then there were other cities that suffered from that as well. Of course, there was forced displacement, property seizures. What were the things that really mattered over that 13-year period that really affected the identity that people clung to?

12:21
Ola Rifai
The collective memory of violence, as you said, in Muadhamiya which is at the suburb of Damascus, it’s a camp, so the security services, the regime forces, imposed a siege on Muadhamiya for 12 months. And until now, like just last week, next to Muadhamiya, there is an area called Tadamon at the edges of Damascus. They found the dead bodies. Until today, they are still finding bones. It plays a critical role in triggering identity clashes and provoking sectarianism.

12:56
Dominic Bowen
Another important word that that we might take for granted is citizenship. Citizenship determines mobility, property rights, access to services. And I think this can be very closely aligned with identity politics. Now, I know you’ve done quite a lot of work on state formation, on citizenship. Can you tell us how war displacement and administrative control in Syria has had a practical application on the people living there?

13:20
Ola Rifai
Yeah, great question. So as we know, citizenship implies equal treatment for all citizens. It means equality, balancing duties and responsibilities. But sadly, there is a crisis of citizenship in the Arab world, not only in Syria. And why there is a crisis of citizenship? Because citizenship should be embedded in state building. And here’s another dilemma. There’s a crisis of state building in the Arab world. State building should be parallel to nation building. So the Assad regime, his formula of state building was regime building, not state building. State building, you should empower institutions. Institutions were all monopoly of power to Assad regime for his own survival. And citizenship, it’s extremely important, but it should be embedded in state building. All the citizens are equal in front of law. You have to have institutions. Institutions mean state building. And this is another, in my opinion, an urgent challenge that should be addressed by the current government is to start the process of state building, to start empowering state institution. If we want to, to ask back to your point earlier, if you want to build social cohesion, we have to build it through social contract. If we want to rebuild social contract, we have to build it through institutions. If you want institutions to empower institutions, we have to have state building. So everything is interconnected.

14:51
Dominic Bowen
You’ve spoken a lot about state building. And of course, we’re now really firmly into that post-conflict reconstruction phase. But it’s not just about capital and resources and things like cements. It’s about social contracts. It’s about credible security. It’s about shared agreements, social contracts, about the rules that govern how we how we function as a society. And I think how people behave is going to be particularly important. In an interview with Jeremy Bowen about a year ago, the leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said, the old regime always played on sectarian divisions, but we won’t. I think the revolution can include everyone. There was a lot of people, myself included, that heard that and went, Oh, that’s great. I really hope he means it. So my question to you, Ola, is, do you think what you’ve seen over the last year, or, now 14, 15 months, is reconstruction possible in a context where identities have been hardened by so many years of violence, by displacement and cruel treatment by the Assad regime?

15:51
Ola Rifai
It is possible, but there should be a plan for it. There should be strategy to do it. It’s a process. It can’t be just enforced from above. And I agree with you, the current government and the president, since he arrived in power, he kept repeating that we want suria wahidat muahada, one united Syria. And we all want to see that. And I guess we’re getting close to one Syria after the military development in the northeast. But we’re not close to muahada, a united Syria. We still need a plan to do that. And as I said, and as you mentioned, it’s through building social contrast. The social contract is a key concept in any post-conflict situation. So building this social contract, we need to have social confidence, which is agreements between the various groups in the society. We need to rebuild the trust between the various groups in our society and then we need to rebuild the trust between the society and the state. How we can do that is again and again through institutions and empowering institutions. We need to have accountability. We need to see transparency. We need to see and that accountability is essential. We need to see transitional justice as a start to rebuild the social contract and the social convenance and to have the social cohesion.

17:21
Dominic Bowen
And if we look outside of Syria, what risks do you think any unresolved identity conflicts today pose to countries beyond Syria, to neighbouring countries across the region? And is this something that regional stability or international security could be impacted by?

17:38
Ola Rifai
In the past, yes, but now, no. Now everyone needs working toward a stable Syria having a democratic country is good for all the region, all the neighbors. When talking about geopolitical threats, there are many geopolitical threats, but Syria is not causing it. Syria has been subjected to it, this kind of geopolitical threat. And here, when we talk about geopolitical threats, we talk about regional alignments and alliances. Regional alignments always sit in the heart of Middle East politics. They have been shaped by Middle East politics and by the region and they have shaped the region as well. For instance, the new political order coming up from Syria now. But I believe that it’s not a geopolitical threat, unlike the new political order came after the U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which, had dangerous implication not only for Iraq for the whole region, we saw the radicalization, we saw sectarianisation, we saw the emergence of Shia block versus the Sunni block and all these alignments were clashing together and destabilizing the region. We don’t see this today, actually it’s the opposite. We see new regional old order, we see new alignments emerging and working towards the stabilization of Syria. We see that the U.S. playing a role not to let the vacuum filled by anyone else. So in my opinion, the political threat is not from Syria. Syria is subjected to this geopolitical threat mainly made in the south from Israel.

19:22
Dominic Bowen
I’d love to unpack that with you. Just in my short time in Damascus here, I’ve come across delegations from the USA, from Europe, from Saudi, and from Russia. That’s four large delegations, all operating independently, that just happens to all be here meeting with different high-level government officials, just in the short time I’m here. So I’d love to hear from you, how you think outside actors, including USA, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and of course, the Gulf states, how they’re shaping identity dynamics inside Syria today, sometimes intentionally, sometimes perhaps incidentally.

19:56
Ola Rifai
During the conflict, particular actors played role in radicalization and identity clashes, which were mainly Iran and Hezbollah, which did the more polarization, radicalization, and triggered sectarianisation of identity. On the other hand, we had Turkey, who played a lesser role in radicalization of a particular Sunni group. Between the Arabs and the courts, they played, in the past, negative roles in identity clashes, which caused more radicalization, more polarization. Speaking after the fall of the Assad, I see that all these actors they are working towards stabilizing Syria. Their interests are not clashing, unlike during the conflict, which is good. As you know, in politics, there is no permanent, as Henrik Kissinger once said, there’s no permanent, permanent friends or enemies, it’s only interests. So each of these actors that you named, they are following their own interests. But it happened that this time, their interests are not clashing in Syria. They’re pushing towards a peaceful transition.

21:08
Dominic Bowen
Yeah, definitely. It’s very, very interesting speaking to people on the street, once I’ve built a bit of a rapport and established a bit of a relationship with people, gently walking into the conversation about regional dynamics and foreign power influence. And it’s amazing to hear the opinions of people in Damascus about how they view Russia today and how they view Iran today and perhaps we can leave that for another podcast, but very, very interesting to hear people’s opinions today on what those foreign powers should and should not be doing in Syria today. But when we look forward, I really think education is just such a critical, critical element for any country. And we see that in the USA, we see how the education system has been a big focus of the second Trump administration and this is the same in all countries. Education can really become a factory for future grievances or future coexistence. And, you only need to read great books like 1984 or Brave New World to really understand that education is at the centre of the way we think and the way we operate. So I’d love to hear from you about, memory politics, about schooling, media narratives and community, and whether you’ve seen any examples over the last 12 or 13 months from the new government. Is this something that they’re actively engaging in? If so, is it something that you feel really good and it’s a healthy direction? Or are there some red flags popping up?

22:23
Ola Rifai
Sadly, I see some red flags. And I agree with you, education plays critical roles in constructing identity, or as they say, quote on quote, everyday identity. So education, flags, media, the material structure, plays an important role in constructing identities. Today, the curriculum in Syrian public schools stayed almost the same. They dropped the symbols of all Assad’s era. However, it’s leaning toward more Islamic identity, a Syrian national identity with the Islamic flavor. So you can see, for instance, phrases like lil-watan, for the nation, it’s a change to al-ilāh, for the God. Or you can see national symbols that were empowered in the Syrian curriculum, the Queen Zenobia, the Roman era queen, downplayed. On the other hand, we see that some symbols of Ottoman era, they’ve been empowered. Jamal Pasha, who used to be Ottoman figure who executed Syrian nationalists in 1919. They dropped the title butcher. They used to call him in the Syrian curriculum as Jamal Pasha Saffah, Jamal Pasha the butcher. So now he’s just Jamal Pasha. So you can see these small details like empowering Ottomanism. For long, I’ve studied that curriculum myself and for long believing that the Ottoman did their atrocity in Syria, so now this is kind of changing. It’s dangerous as well. It’s not only about changing history of the Ottoman era, it’s playing with the minds of a generation. It’s so dangerous.

24:11
Dominic Bowen
Fantastic example. And yes, definitely dropping the word butcher from someone’s colloquial name certainly would have some influence there. And when we look at the corporate risk management and strategic advisory sector, we don’t try and predict the future. What we do is we look for precursors or we establish key risk indicators with our clients and the skill really is in knowing which signals and which indicators correlate with a potential escalation. And it could be stock markets, currency fluctuations, government policy, regulation, taxes, whatever the case may be, or it could just be plain and simple security issues. But I wonder for you, what are some of the credible early warning indicators that you’re watching out for to see if tensions are escalating or if the society is developing in a positive way? And what are the things we should be monitoring over the coming months and year ahead?

24:58
Ola Rifai
Yeah, actually, we should be monitoring definitely three things. The first one is the Kurdish-Arab relations after the military, if we can say that, in the northeast Syria. So we have to try to monitor how the integration, not only that the integration of Kurdish forces into the army, but also the integration of the Kurds in the Syrian society. We have to monitor this so closely. The second, we go further to the south. In As Suwayda between the Druze and the Syrian forces. We see how things will end. There seems to be now a tentative ceasefire. There are no clashes, but there is a stalemate, the things are not going anywhere forward. So we have to monitor how would the Druze take some lessons from the Kurdish experience that happened two weeks ago. The third thing is, if we are still in the south, we see the border with Israel. There were talks between Syrian officials and Israeli officials. And they concluded what they framed as a security agreement or to try to monitor the de-escalation, to withdraw the Israeli forces from Quneitra. We have the Israeli forces at Quneitra, which is an hour drive from Damascus. So we have to see if things will escalate or if things will de-escalate.

26:22
Dominic Bowen
Thanks for explaining that. Yeah, there’s certainly quite a few things to be monitoring at the moment. And when you look more broadly, when you look around the world, Ola, what are the international risks that concern you the most?

26:33
Ola Rifai
The international risk that concerns me the most is that many actors at the international theater want to see Syria going forward. But Israel in the South does not want to see that, they want to see a weak divided Syria, and which, by the way, would create a threat for Israel. I think that one international risk is to see if there will be a ceasefire and if all the actors will genuinely push towards stability in Syria.

27:07
Dominic Bowen
Thank you very much for coming on the International Risk Podcast.

27:10
Ola Rifai
Of course, of course. Thank you. And if I can end with, I see that there is a window of opportunity in Syria today, but it won’t last forever. So maybe the current government should take this into account and try to address all the challenges at home more than addressing challenges at the foreign policy and diplomacy. And thank you so much, Dominic. I enjoyed it.

27:35
Dominic Bowen
Me too. Well, that was a great conversation with Ola Rifai. She’s the deputy director at the Centre for Serious Studies at the University of St Andrews. And a shout out to our sponsor, Conducttr. The geopolitical environment is volatile, but organisations are far better placed when they’ve tested themselves properly. And the real question isn’t whether you’ve got a plan, but whether you’re able to apply it when it’s under pressure. And with Conducttr, you can run your own crisis exercises that feel fast and uncomfortable in the same way that geopolitical shocks do. So you can try it for yourself at conducttr.com/demos. And today’s podcast was produced and coordinated by Ella Burden. I’m Dominic Bowen. Thanks very much for listening. We’ll speak again in the next couple of days.

28:15
Elisa Garbil
Thank you for listening to this episode of The International Risk Podcast. For more interviews and articles visit theinternationalriskpodcast.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, BlueSky and Instagram for the latest updates and to ask your questions to our host Dominic Bowen. See you next time.