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You are correct, a photo taken from the Golan Heights towards Syria can not tell the whole truth. But a truth is, it's very neglected .These areas belong to Sunni arabs. The ruling Alawite Ba'athist party and the Alawite community, to which the family belongs, has dominated leadership of the Syrian state. The top brass in the Syrian army, intelligence services, and security establishment were also drawn from the Alawite community. Alawite religion is connected to Twelver Shi’ism (the majority strand of Shi'ism and the majority of Iran’s population). Alawites also live in Syria's major cities, and are estimated at about 12 percent of the country's population (2.6 million, out of a total population of 22 million). I think if you are not part of a ruling class,you will be very neglected.
Some beliefs they have are: Alawites hold that they were originally stars or divine lights that were cast out of heaven through disobedience and must undergo repeated reincarnation (or metempsychosis) before returning to heaven. They can be reincarnated as Christians or others through sin and as animals if they become infidels. Their book Kitab al Majmu, which is allegedly a central source of Alawite doctrine; and the belief that women do not have souls.
The emergence of the Alawite Baathist regime in the mid-1960s marked a crucial turning point in Syria's modern political history. As a result, it engendered distrust among many of the Sunni population of the Alawites and the Baath party. Many Sunnis regarded the Alawite Baathist regime as illegitimate, oppressive and anti-Islamic. According to Sunni Muslims, the Alawite minority had seized power by armed force, imposing harsh measures, such as restricting religious education and ulema (Muslim scholars). This severely injured Sunnis' religious feelings and their socioeconomic interests. In a country where two-thirds of the population are Sunni, these facts severely alienated the Alawite regime from its subjects. "A minority can dominate a majority if it has political, military or economic superiority", became the reality in Syria.
