The Baathist Model in Iraq and Syria

This time I stayed in Syria for half a month, unlike the previous 3-day stint two months earlier, which was basically a poor attempt at a booze-and-booty adventure in the vein of hypocritical Middle Eastern men, this trip was like Will Smith, very G-rated, family-oriented and fun. I found it extremely refreshing and got to spend half as much money as the first.

"Syria is a beautiful country." This is the first line Riverbend wrote in her last blogpost, of course, she quickly followed it by: "at least, I think it is." The addition is necessary because Syria is not beautiful in the modernized sense of Western civilization, its streets are dirty, the electricity cuts off an hour everyday, and autocracy assures you of its dominance in every inch of the streets. Riverbend attempts to explain her impression by saying that as an Iraqi she persumes she'd take safety and security as beautiful no matter what, but I feel this analysis to be in error*. 'Amman is significanly more pretty, chic and advanced in services and architecture than Damascus, but, in the words of an Algerian reporter I met last year "it has no soul", Damascus has loads of cultural (old city) historical(Umyyads) and natural soul(Qasiyoon), but most importantly, it resembles pre-war Iraq almost unbelievably.

Which brings us to the main point: the extra time allowed me to ponder a comparison I've tried to make ever since my first trip to Syria, to count the similarities between Baathist Syria and Baathist Iraq.

###########	Iraq	Syria
Independence	1932	1947
Flag (Longest Surviving)
Population	29 million - ([this year] – 2003) x 1 million)	19.4 million
Ruling Party	وحدة مرية اشترا كبة	وحدة مرية اشترا كبة
State Constitution	20% Sunni rules 60% Shia, Other minorities favor the 'secular' rule of the minority against the Islamic tendencies of the majority.	10% Alawi rules 74% Sunni, other minorities act the same as Iraq's.
Demographics	Shii (Imami), Sunni, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Armenians, Mandaeans, Yazidis, Shabak.	Sunni, "Shii" Alawi, Shii Imami, Shii Ismaili, Druze, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians.
Things That Make 9/11 Look Silly	Halabja (3,000) (Sunni Arabs vs Kurds) 91 Uprising (180,000) (Sunni vs Shia) Anfal (50,000)* (Sunni Arabs vs Kurds)	Hama (25,000) (Shia vs Sunni)
Government Sponsored Edutainment	Abu Gharib Prisons	Tadmur
Claims To Fame	Sumer, Babylon, Nineveh, Wheel, Writing, Saladin.	Oldest City In World, Ebla, ermm...?!?
Caliphates	Baghdad, Capital of Abbasid Caliphate	Damascus, Capital of Umayyad Caliphate

Death Counts are listed at their maximum for both Iraq and Syria, the 91 Uprising figure is from the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry.

The most interesting part of this comparison to me is the sectarian model of government, theoretically, the model is almost identical, both countries have a minority that rules under secular guises a majority it is historically hostile to. But the regime in Syria has been relatively much more cautious and gentle in its treatment of the majority, the reluctant diplomacy of the Syrian regime in comparison to the uncompromising Iraqi brutality is a trait that exhibits itself almost everywhere you look, even in the respective heads of state, as noted by US ambassador April Glaspie. So how could we explain this? Is it just a difference of temperament between Syrians and Iraqis?

Perhaps it plays an effect, but I think an important factor lies in the identity of the dominant minority sect in either country. The orthodox faction, the Sunnis, are 85-90% of the Muslim World, and so when they ruled in Iraq they assumed a supremacy that was historically natural. All the education books (history, and religion) we studied in elementary schools were 100% Sunni, sometimes even implicitly molded to counter Shia arguments (a chapter about the strong relationship between Ali and Umar, for example) The Sunnis stubbornly refused to accept the majority percentage of Shia in Iraq, before Iraq became independent, it was always ruled, except for brief interruptions, by Sunnis. So when push comes to shove with the rise of Shi'i Islamic movements as part of the general religious awakening in the whole Muslim world, the Sunni government found no qualms in entirely suppressing all religious Shia practices. The Shia, historically and religiously attuned to suppression and tyrannical rule, did not act against this ban with the veracity one would expect from a majority oppressed in its own homeland.

and so it is only natural that the Nusayri pseudo-Shia Alawi regime in Syria would manifest its Shia identity in Syria somewhat cautiously. To the Alawis, who are a very small minority who lived in the mountains and are considered extremists by Shia themselves, this moment of rule is historically without precedent. (the magnitude of such an accomplishment can be felt when imagining Saudi Arabia ruled by its minority Shia, or Iran by its minority Sunni) and so, education in Syria remains, as this excellent report shows, traditional, rigid, and entirely Sunni. Sunni worship is accommodated graciously, even after the Muslim Brotherhood Hama revolution and was never really made to feel actively threatened or assaulted full-on, in fact, the report goes so far as to say that Alawis have traded their religion for political power, effectively becoming Orthodox Sunnis, attempting a process of integration in the pan-Arab identity which is closely intertwined with Sunni Islam (read it).But I don't really think that they've abandoned their religion entirely, instead, they are coy in pushing up their own version ; for a 10% minority, they are ubiquitous, pictures of Bashar al-Assad and Hasan Nasrallah together are a no-brainer and are visible everywhere, hell, I even saw pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei together with the words 'Leaders of the Nation' plastered next to a clothes shop, something I haven't ever seen in Iraq. When I went to help the Ba'ath Party neighborhood official who owned the apartment of my relatives install Yahoo Messenger on his computer, the first thing I saw inside his house was a large poster of Nasrallah, at the corner of the street, I encounter a young man with 'Ya Ali' tattoed on his arm, many Iranians walk the streets, Shia books are sold side-by-side next to Sunni ones in the street, Kiosks turn on Shia sermons freely...the references are endless.

The question presents itself, if for some reason America decided to do to Syria what it did for Iraq, would they end up with the same results? Would the minority, supported by an unbreakable relationship with Iran, cause the same havoc the smug, historically confident minority in Iraq did? Or would they turn back to their mountains in acceptance of their historical outcast status vis-a-vis the majority Sunni and forget about it? I don't know, maybe, but it's too costly to find out, and Iraq is the biggest proof of that.

===================================

*("to be in error"?!? fuck, I'm getting too scholarly. Here's an extra fuck to balance it out: fuck. That's three fucks, and with the last one it's four, all hail Fred Durst for this lame joke.)