section_path: Background
section_name: Background
paragraph_text: Background
  
  The Assad family had ruled Syria since 1971, when Hafez al-Assad seized power and became the president of Syria under the Syrian Ba'ath Party. After his death in June 2000, he was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad.
  
  Hafez al-Assad built his governmental system as a bureaucracy that was marked by a distinct cult of personality. Images, portraits, quotes and praises of Assad were displayed everywhere from schools to public markets and government offices. He was referred to as the "Immortal Leader" and the "Sanctified One" (al-Muqaddas). Assad reorganised Syrian society along militaristic lines, persistently invoked conspiratorial rhetoric on the dangers of foreign-backed plots abetted by fifth columnists, and promoted the armed forces as a central aspect of public life.
  
  After Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power in 1970, state propaganda promoted a new national discourse based on unifying Syrians under "a single imagined Ba'athist identity," as well as Assadism. Fervently loyalist paramilitaries known as the Shabiha (transl. 'ghosts') deified Assad and pursued psychological warfare against non-conformist populations.