Robert Worth on sectarian polarization in Syria and the tragedy of the Syrian Alawites

 
Ibtisam Ali Aboud (with her son Jafar) says that her husband, a Syrian Alawite, was killed by his Sunni friend.

I have been planning for a while to blog on this topic, which is one dimension of the larger Syrian catastrophe, and I may get around to that in the next few days.

Meanwhile, I urge everyone to read Robert Worth's powerful  and insightful piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, "The Price of Loyalty in Syria".  I expect that most readers will find it illuminating, and any decent person who reads it thoughtfully should also find it moving and terrifying..

(For a little more historical background on Syria's ethno-sectarian mosaic, the socio-political system of what might be called 'despotic multi-culturalism' that is now imploding so spectacularly in Syria, and the place of the Alawite minority in that picture ... see here.)

—Jeff Weintraub