AN EXCELLENT PIECE
by Joshua Landis
Friday, March 25th, 2011
"The regime has been rocked by protests and is offering to make changes even as it clings to power. But divisions of sect and social class mean that its fate may rest with the choices of the Sunni social elite.
The Ba’athist regime that has ruled Syria for 48 years is on the ropes. Even President Bashar al-Assad himself seems to have been shocked by the level of violence used by Syria’s security forces to suppress demonstrations that began a week ago.....
In order to mount a serious challenge to the regime’s iron grip on power, opposition activists will have to move their protest actions beyond Dera’a and its surrounding villages, and extend it to the major cities. Their attempt to do so presents the country with a choice of great consequence: They must decide if Syria is more like Egypt and Tunisia, where the people achieved sufficient unity to peacefully oust their rulers, or whether Syria is more like Iraq and Lebanon, which slipped into civil war and endless factionalism.....
Key to a successful revolution is splitting Syria’s elite, which comprises the Alawite officer class of the security forces, and the great Sunni merchant and industrial families, who preside over the economy as well as Syria’s moral and cultural universe. If those elites stick together, it is difficult to envisage widespread but scattered popular revolts overturning the regime. But an Alawite-Sunni split within the elite would doom the regime. The cohesion of those elites, though, is a question of social class as much as of confession.....
Having been brought up in privilege in Damascus, the President has more in common with the capital’s elite than he does with the Alawites of the coastal mountains who brought his father to power. When Bashar al-Assad took over after his father’s death in 2000, he began liberalizing the economy and society. High culture has boomed. Foreign imports, tourism and the arts are being revived. Today, Syria is a wonderful place to be wealthy; life is fun and vibrant for the well-heeled.
For the impoverished majority, however, the picture is grim. One third of the population lives on two dollars a day or less. Unemployment is rampant, and four years of drought has reduced Syria’s eastern countryside to a wasteland of dusty and destitute towns and cities like Dera’a. The last thing wealthy Aleppines, Homsis and Damascenes want is a revolution that brings to power a new political class based in the rural poor, or for the country to slip into chaos and possible civil war.
The Arab rebellion is “sorting out” the countries of the Middle East, distinguishing those that have become true nations, with a cohesive political community, and an ability to leave behind the post-colonial era of dictatorship and repression, from those doomed to struggle by divisions of ethnicity, sect and tribe. Lebanon and Iraq have both stumbled. Libya is crashing before our eyes, and Yemen may also follow in a downward spiral.
In all likelihood, there is no soft landing for the Syrian regime, whether it comes sooner or later. Fearful of being pushed from power and persecuted, Alawite military leaders are likely to stick by the president. What remains to be seen is whether the Sunni elite, which has stood by the Assad family for over four decades in the name of security and stability, will continue to do so [EM] or whether President Assad is willing to risk making profound and risky changes."
Friday, March 25th, 2011
"The regime has been rocked by protests and is offering to make changes even as it clings to power. But divisions of sect and social class mean that its fate may rest with the choices of the Sunni social elite.
The Ba’athist regime that has ruled Syria for 48 years is on the ropes. Even President Bashar al-Assad himself seems to have been shocked by the level of violence used by Syria’s security forces to suppress demonstrations that began a week ago.....
In order to mount a serious challenge to the regime’s iron grip on power, opposition activists will have to move their protest actions beyond Dera’a and its surrounding villages, and extend it to the major cities. Their attempt to do so presents the country with a choice of great consequence: They must decide if Syria is more like Egypt and Tunisia, where the people achieved sufficient unity to peacefully oust their rulers, or whether Syria is more like Iraq and Lebanon, which slipped into civil war and endless factionalism.....
Key to a successful revolution is splitting Syria’s elite, which comprises the Alawite officer class of the security forces, and the great Sunni merchant and industrial families, who preside over the economy as well as Syria’s moral and cultural universe. If those elites stick together, it is difficult to envisage widespread but scattered popular revolts overturning the regime. But an Alawite-Sunni split within the elite would doom the regime. The cohesion of those elites, though, is a question of social class as much as of confession.....
Having been brought up in privilege in Damascus, the President has more in common with the capital’s elite than he does with the Alawites of the coastal mountains who brought his father to power. When Bashar al-Assad took over after his father’s death in 2000, he began liberalizing the economy and society. High culture has boomed. Foreign imports, tourism and the arts are being revived. Today, Syria is a wonderful place to be wealthy; life is fun and vibrant for the well-heeled.
For the impoverished majority, however, the picture is grim. One third of the population lives on two dollars a day or less. Unemployment is rampant, and four years of drought has reduced Syria’s eastern countryside to a wasteland of dusty and destitute towns and cities like Dera’a. The last thing wealthy Aleppines, Homsis and Damascenes want is a revolution that brings to power a new political class based in the rural poor, or for the country to slip into chaos and possible civil war.
The Arab rebellion is “sorting out” the countries of the Middle East, distinguishing those that have become true nations, with a cohesive political community, and an ability to leave behind the post-colonial era of dictatorship and repression, from those doomed to struggle by divisions of ethnicity, sect and tribe. Lebanon and Iraq have both stumbled. Libya is crashing before our eyes, and Yemen may also follow in a downward spiral.
In all likelihood, there is no soft landing for the Syrian regime, whether it comes sooner or later. Fearful of being pushed from power and persecuted, Alawite military leaders are likely to stick by the president. What remains to be seen is whether the Sunni elite, which has stood by the Assad family for over four decades in the name of security and stability, will continue to do so [EM] or whether President Assad is willing to risk making profound and risky changes."
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