Who's Afraid of Syrian Nationalism - Eyal Zisser

Who’s Afraid of Syrian Nationalism?National and State Identity in Syria

EYAL ZISSER

The death of Hafiz al-Assad on 10 June 2000 marked the end of an era in the historyof modern Syria. Assad was often described, with considerable justification, as thefounding father of the state, or at the very least as the first effective president it hadsince it attained independence on 17 April 1946. He left his imprint on many areas inthe country, so much so that an argument can be made for the near totalidentification of the Syrian state with its leader. Hafiz al-Assad’s role as president ofSyria was taken over by his son Bashshar. This came as no surprise, for in the finalyears of his life Assad senior did everything possible to assure his son’s succession.Still, the transfer of power from father to son, smooth and free of turbulence as itwas, evoked ripples of derision and criticism within and outside the country,especially regarding the suitability of the young son to lead the country at that time.

Not surprisingly, Bashshar’s philosophy attracted much attention among scholarsand Syria watchers. At first, there was the hope that the young ruler, conversant withWestern ways of thinking and Western life style, would revolutionize Syria ineverything to do with his regime’s policies, both domestic and foreign. But those whohad high expectations of Bashshar were in for a great disappointment. Bashshar hadspent most of his life in his father’s home in Damascus.1 Indeed, one of Bashshar’sassociates explained that ‘In Israel and in the West there were those who expectedthat since Bashshar was educated in the West he would be ready to give up hisprinciples in order to ensure his rule. But Bashshar chose to follow his father’slegacy. After all, he was raised in Damascus, the incubator of resistance in the Arabworld.’2 Bashshar himself explained: ‘Those who thought I’d be more moderate andpragmatic than my father were proved wrong. The Americans think that ourgeneration is more pragmatic than that of my father but in reality our generationshows more commitment to pan-Arab nationalist principles then the generation ofmy father.’3

Ostensibly, Bashshar’s commitment to Arabism required no substantiation. Hefrequently stressed his loyalty to the Arab nation in public statements and depictedSyria as a fortress of Arabism. As the regime organ, Tishrin, wrote in 2003:

Bashshar al-Assad is the clearest and most explicit national voice today,articulating the goals of the Arab nation and its values and principles with vigor

Middle Eastern Studies,Vol. 42, No. 2, 179 – 198, March 2006

ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/06/020179-20 ª 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00263200500417512

and courage but also with logic, wisdom and discretion. He represents not onlySyria, which in itself constitutes an Arab and a regional force of importance, butthe aspirations of the [Arab] nation wherever it is, from the [Atlantic] Ocean tothe [Arabian] Gulf, its hopes and its fears.4

Bashshar himself explained, in this context:

Many have tried in the past to destroy the Arab national perception byattempting to position it in confrontation with feelings of ‘local patriotism’which ostensibly are contaminated by separatism. Some tried to positionArabism in confrontation with Islam. . . . Others even tried to turn Arabism intothe equivalent of backwardness and isolationism. . . . But none of this, of course,is correct.5

Still, despite his resolute statements regarding his commitment to Arabism,Bashshar was often perceived as having a Syrian nationalist identity no lesspronounced, and perhaps even more pronounced, than his Arab identity. This wasnot far-fetched, for he had grown up in Assad’s Syria, a state unencumbered, as ithad been in the past, by insecurity over its capacity or even its right to exist as anindependent entity. His commitment to this state, therefore, was free of any doubt orimpediment.

Statements by him over the years, starting before his rule, reflect a Syro-Arabideology that sanctifies the territorial Syrian state and views it as a cornerstone of theregional and international policy of Damascus, albeit with an Arab colouration. Anexplicit example of this Syrian-centred outlook is to be found on the Internet site ofthe Syrian Computer Society, chaired by Bashshar. The site, inaugurated by him inApril 1998, informs the surfer that events that transpired in Syria or, moreaccurately, in the Syrian Lands, made a decisive contribution to civilization, namely‘the invention of the first alphabet, the first musical composition, the firstagricultural revolution, the planting of wheat, the first musical instruments knowntoday . . . and . . . the first database management and library system ever’. The sitealso states:

Throughout the hundreds of thousands of years of Syria’s history, since the firsthuman beings lived there, Syria never initiated aggression against anothercountry. It was invaded by many but the great heart and deep roots of Syriamanaged to turn that into a true interaction and contributed to every civilizationshe dealt with. [For example] Syria gave [the] Roman [Empire] five . . . emperorsand one of the greatest architects ever: Appolodoros the Damascene.6

This viewpoint explains the choice of a gift presented by Bashshar to Pope John PaulII as a souvenir of his visit to Damascus in May 2001 – a statuette of Philip theArabian, emperor of Rome in 244–49. In a statement to the press, the presidentialspokesman noted:

Marcus Julius Philippus Antonius, called ‘Philip the Arabian’, ruled Romein 244–49. He was born in Shahba in southern Syria in 200, and his

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accomplishments during his rule include the abolition of slavery, the pardoningof prisoners, and granting permission to political exiles to return to their homes.Philip was also known for his commitment to the principle of rule by law andfor fostering religious tolerance. Historians view him as the first to have signed apeace agreement with the Persian Empire.7

Implicit in this account is a link between the Syrian-born Roman emperor and thecontemporary Syrian ruler – similarly enlightened and purposeful. Bashshar too wasportrayed by the media as advocating the adoption of the principle of law andfostering religious tolerance, as well as having freed prisoners and permitted thereturn of political exiles.

Moreover, according to the Syrian narrative, the Syrian Lands bequeathed notonly Roman emperors to humanity but popes as well. In welcoming Pope John Paulto Damascus, Bashshar observed:

You tread on the land of Syria, the cradle of human history and the birthplaceof the oldest civilizations. . . . Today you are a guest of a rare people who allworship the one God and draw their inspiration from Him. . . . They are proudof their noble past and of the many cultures of their forebears. These ancestorshave bequeathed them a rich historical heritage that turned Syria into a place oftolerance and love, a refuge for the persecuted and a meeting point for all themonotheistic religions, which spread out in it throughout history. Clearevidence of this are the many archaeological sites and places of worshipscattered throughout Syria, as well as the fact that three patriarchs of theEastern Church made Damascus the seat of their office, and, lastly, the fact thateight of Syria’s sons became popes in the Vatican.8

Prior to a visit to Rome in February 2002, Bashshar spoke warmly about the RomanEmpire which had ruled Syria for hundreds of years:

We Syrians were in effect citizens of the Roman Empire, for the fact that fiveSyrian emperors ruled in Rome shows that the residents of the empire lived incoexistence and brotherhood. Indeed, when we study [in school in Syria] about[the history of the Syrian Lands during the period of Roman rule], we do not usethe term ‘occupation’ but note the existence of the Roman Empire. For under astate of occupation the individual does not have civil rights, but this was not thesituation of the Syrians during the Roman period.9

During his visit to London in December 2002, he stated at a dinner given in hishonour by the mayor of London:

The geographic distance between states was never an obstacle to developingproductive relations. Throughout history we [the Syrians and the British]formed ties in many areas. The Phoenicians reached the British shores in theyear 1100 BC and the Roman Caesar Septimus Severus, who came fromSyria, is buried in York, for both countries were part of the RomanEmpire.10

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During his visit to the Hasaka province of Syria in September 2002, Bashshar toldthe residents of the city of Hasaka:

Some people try to prevent nations from existing in dignity and preserving theirself-respect. That is, there are people who are trying to prevent you from livingin dignity. . . . But if we go back in Syrian history, a 6,000-year-old history –and today we know that this history actually stretches back 10,000 years – wediscover that the word ‘surrender’ (hunu’) does not exist in the Syrian lexicon. Itdid not exist in this lexicon in the past, it does not exist there today, and you willnot find it there in the future either, for there is no force in the world that cancompel us to accept something we do not want, [that can compel us] torelinquish our rights.11

What was clearly missing in Bashshar’s welcoming remarks to the Pope, as well asin his message on the website of the computer society, was any reference toArabism, i.e., the fact that Syria is – first of all in the eyes of its own population –the beating heart of the Arab nation or even the cradle of Arabism. One can arguethat Bashshar’s message was aimed at Western ears. Still, it seemed that thewording was not chosen unwittingly, and that his remarks should be seen as partof a concerted effort by the Ba‘th regime long before Bashshar’s rise to power tomould a particular narrative of Syria’s history, or to revive an existing narrativethat had been discarded in the past. The goal was to use this narrative as a basisfor the coalescence of a distinctive Syrian consciousness or identity bound to adefined territory – an identity that was inclusive and multi-faceted, but not solelyArab.

An understanding of the thinking of the Syrian political elite over time may helpto reveal the sources of the Syrian consciousness or identity as a territorial state as itevolved during the last 150 years – an identity which the current Syrian regime seeksto entrench. One source lies in the Arab Islamic history of the Syrian Lands (Biladal-Sham). In the course of over thirteen centuries of Arab and Muslim history, aseries of events marked this territory as distinct in its own right, at least in thecollective memory and consciousness of its inhabitants. The first episode was theemergence of the Arab Umayyad dynasty, which ruled the Muslim Empireapproximately from the years 650 to 750, making Damascus its capital. It wasonly later that the heirs to the Umayyads, the Abbasids, moved the seat of thecaliphate to al-Kufa in Iraq and later still, made Baghdad their capital. Fourcenturies later, Bilad al-Sham was the site of two momentous battles in Arab andIslamic history. One was Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi’s rout of the Crusaders in 1187 atthe Horns of Hittin (located in Galilee), in the battle that augured the end of theCrusader presence in the region. Salah al-Din himself hailed from Tikrit, in Iraq, butspent most of his adult life in Syria as founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, which ruledSyria and Egypt. The second battle was that of ‘Ayn Jalud in 1260. Here Baibars, theMamluk sultan, defeated the Mongolian army and thus halted its invasion into theheart of the Arab and Islamic world. Lastly, the Arab national movement emerged inthe Syrian Lands at the close of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries,with Damascus as its centre. This Arab Islamic past was highlighted by many(political figures as well as intellectuals) who wanted to use the historic roots of Syria

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in an Arab past as a stage in the effort to realize the vision of Arab unity in whichBilad al-Sham would play an important role.12

Another, even older source of the Syrian identity was the pre-Islamic and pre-Arab past, which inspired Western – mainly French – intellectuals, along with Syrianand Lebanese thinkers, to advocate the establishment of a Syrian entity grounded inthe historical, mainly cultural heritage of the Syrian Lands preceding the arrival ofthe Arabs and Islam. Several of these thinkers went so far as to claim the existence ofa distinct Syrian civilization and even a nation, consisting of a merge of all thecultures and entities that existed in the region for millennia. This nation, they argued,could, with Western aid and sponsorship, renew its past within the framework of amodern Syrian state. The activity of this circle of thinkers and intellectuals ledindirectly to the establishment of the Syrian state by the French in the 1920s.Significantly, the current Syrian regime seeks to reinforce the legitimacy of the Syrianstate on the basis of this pre-Islamic and pre-Arab past, a past that the regimerejected or ignored for years.13

Arabism and ‘Syrianism’ signify the two poles between which Syrian identityoscillated throughout the twentieth century. Pan-Arabism, at the one pole, repre-sented a total commitment to the idea of Arab unity, to the extent of negating aseparate or independent Syrian entity. At the other pole, pan-Syrianism implieda total commitment to Syrian identity and the idea of a greater Syrian state (Biladal-Sham) within Syria’s natural geographic borders, while ignoring, negating orrepressing the Arab and Islamic elements in this identity.

Not surprisingly, most Syrian leaders and thinkers tended to search for a middleground that would integrate both Arabism and ‘Syrianism’. Some of these ideologistsmight be described as ‘Arab Syrianists’, since they gave priority to the Arab identityand thus to the vision of Arab unity, although they did show a readiness to come toterms, for lack of choice, with the existence of a separate Syrian state on the conditionthat it have an Arab colouration. The rest of the ideologues, in essence the majority,could be characterized as ‘Syrian Arabists’, giving priority to an authentic Syrianidentity and Syrian state, while enveloping it, for political convenience and perhapsbecause of a true emotional commitment, in the cloak of Arabism.

This question of national consciousness, not to mention historic roots and the verylegitimacy of the state, are not inconsequential, especially for a country like Syria,which lacks historical roots as a distinct entity and which was believed, and perhapsis still believed, by its own population to have been born in sin. Most Syriansactually rejected the idea of the Syrian state established for them by the French in the1920s, viewing it as part of the Western powers’ effort to formulate a new regionalorder in the Middle East that would ensure their hegemony over the region whileignoring the will of the local population, which favoured Arab unity then, oralternatively, the unity of the Syrian Lands. Furthermore, the population of Syriawas heterogeneous, characterized by religious and communal factionalization. TheSyrian state that was formed by the French was essentially a conglomerate ofgeographic regions and minority communities: Jabal Druze, the Alawite region, theJazira region, the Damascus area and the Aleppo area, each with distinctivedemographic and socio-economic patterns. They were all part of Bilad al-Sham buttheir coalescence into a Syrian state along the lines of the French Foreign Ministry’sdictate was not self-evident. Doubts by the Syrian population about the legitimacy


and viability of their state were reflected in the performance of the Syriangovernments throughout the 1950s and 60s. These governments had difficultymaintaining political stability and failed in their efforts to adopt and sustain a policythat sought to promote distinctively Syrian interests in contrast to pan-Arabinterests.

Each Syrian regime tried its own formula for entrenching a national Syrianidentity that would integrate the conflicting approaches to which the Syrian publichad been exposed over the years. Notably, both ideological concepts, as discussedabove, proved inadequate in legitimizing the Syrian state. The emphasis on the pre-Islamic past was ineffective, as it lacked relevance for most of the population, whichhad adopted an Arab identity. Similarly, the Syrian public did not respond to theattempts to identify Syria as the modern-day incarnation of Bilad al-Sham, in asmuch as the Syrian state had been carved out by the French Mandate and itsterritory did not correspond to the historic Syrian lands of the Ottoman period. Withthe weak and unstable functioning of the state in the early decades, the focus on theArab Muslim past (Bilad al-Sham) merely served to blur the uniqueness of the Syrianstate and to heighten doubts regarding its right to exist as an independent entitywithin its given borders.14

Nevertheless, the cumulative experience of the 80 years of Syria’s existence as amodern political entity, including 50 years as an independent state, fashioned adistinctive, if fragile, Syrian state identity. Although its roots lie in the Arab Islamicand even pre-Islamic past of the Syrian Lands, it has acquired a character of its ownwhich forms the basis for feelings of loyalty and commitment to the Syrian state.

This sense of Syrian national identity blossomed during Hafiz al-Assad’s rule(1970–2000). Under his leadership, a dramatic turnabout occurred in Syria’s status,from a weak and unstable country to a regional power setting its sights on influenceand hegemony over the countries surrounding it. This development lent considerableweight to attempts to portray modern Syria as the heir to Bilad al-Sham, even thoughcertain parts of those historic lands were not under Syrian sovereignty. The regimeadopted a narrative of glorification of Syria’s past, moulding an Arab Islamic and aneven more ancient pre-Islamic and pre-Arab past into a historical ethos for the Syrianstate once it stabilized and entrenched itself. At the core of this ethos lay the claim thatBilad al-Sham was the cradle of world civilization and, simultaneously, the cradle ofArabism. Thus, the frustration, disappointment and self-doubt of the Syrian public intheir state during the early decades was replaced by pride in the accomplishments ofthe modern Syrian state, bolstered by pride in a reworked or reconstructed past. Thissense of national belonging was also enhanced by yet another element – theincreasingly central role played by the state during Hafiz al-Assad’s 30-year rule in thelives of the people, especially in the socio-economic sphere.

The transformation in the image of the Syrian state was aptly reflected in aninterview with the prominent writer, George Sadiqani, in 1992. Sadiqani, a veteranmember of the Ba‘th Party who served as information minister under Hafiz al-Assad inthe early 1970s, and afterwards as head of the Arab Writers’ Association, explained:

In the 1950s I was one of those who attacked the Syrian nationalists for theirslogan ‘Syria for the Syrians’ and for their argument that the Syrian people is anation in its own right. I myself never opposed the slogan ‘Syria is for the

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Syrians’, but I opposed the concept that the people living in Syria constitute anation of its own. This would have meant that there is a difference betweenArab nationalism and Syrian nationalism. Apart from that, the Syriannationalists tried to prove that Syria has a personality of its own by emphasizingpast cultures [that existed in the Syrian Lands throughout history] at theexpense of Arab culture, a living and breathing culture to this day. I rememberthat I was offended when I read Anton Sa‘ada’s famous article, ‘TheBankruptcy of Arabism’ (al-‘Uruba Aflasat), although I know and understandtoday that the background for publishing the article was not ideological butpolitical . . . But the way of thinking (of the Syrian nationalists) underwent achange, or revolution, and they understand that the idea of Syrian unity is notcontradictory to the idea of Arab unity. I too understand that we must see theidea of Syrian unity as a stage on the road to the realization of Arab unity. Inthe days of the separatist regime (infisali) [1961–63, after Syria withdrew fromthe United Arab Republic], members of this regime used to attack Egypt andaccused it of adopting a Pharaonic perception. At that time I used to listen tospeeches delivered by the then Egyptian president, Jamal Abd al-Nasir and Irealized that he found it difficult to understand why a commitment to thePharaonic legacy is a crime. After all, he explained to his audience, Pharaonicculture had appeared and existed on Egyptian soil and nowhere else, and henceshould be a source of pride for all Egyptians, as it proved their roots inantiquity. Listening to him led me to change my mind and end my animositytowards the effort to emphasize the glory of the ancient cultures that existed inthe Syrian Lands. In the past, I thought that this reduced our commitment toArabism. Today I see these approaches as complementing each other. Today Ibelieve that we should be proud of the past cultures that flourished in Syria.After all, the beginning of human civilization was here. But we should not, ofcourse, forget the living civilization that still exists here, the Arab civilization.15

During the first decades of its independence, Syria’s attempts to negotiate betweenArabism and ‘Syrianism’ as ideological credos came at the price of an almost totalobfuscation of any distinctive Syrian identity. These efforts underscored the affinityof the Syrian state to the historic Syrian lands (Bilad al-Sham), but also theinseparability of Syria from the Arab world surrounding it – Syria as part of thewhole and in no case standing on its own. Assad Senior’s regime, however, succeededin turning the notions of Arabism and ‘Syrianism’ from a conflicting ideologicalburden to a source of enhancement of the image of the Syrian state in the eyes of itspopulation. The new Syrian identity that emerged reflected a commitment to theSyrian state achieved largely as a result of the concerted effort made by the Syrianregime through its government-controlled agents – the media, the educational systemand the Ba‘th Party apparatus – to mould a national consciousness and identitywhere none had existed before.

Even today, Syrians and the Syrian regime prefer referring to their state as al-Qutral-‘Arabi al-Suri – the Syrian Arab Region, in other words, a region (qutr) that is part of


the whole – the Arab homeland (al-Watan al-‘Arabi). The Arabism, or more precisely theSyrian Arabism that nourishes the Syrian state has several sources, as follows:

1. The Umayyad periodThe years (c.650–750), cover the Arab Islamic empire ruled from Damascus.Syria’s central position in the surrounding region, and in effect in the entire Arabworld, was determined in this period. The regime in Damascus depicted thisperiod as the origin of the modern Syrian political entity. Significantly, whenSyrian Defence Minister Mustafa Talas was asked which historical figure wasmost admired by President Hafiz al-Assad, he responded that even before Jamal‘Abd-al Nasir, or Salah al-Din, that figure was Mu‘awiyya bin Sufyan, the firstUmayyad caliph, who ruled in Damascus during 661–80. In Talas’s explanation,Mu‘awiyya was ‘the founder of the first Syrian state’.16 On another occasion,Talas remarked that ‘under Hafiz al-Assad, Syria witnessed political stability forthe first time since the days of Mu‘awiyya bin Sufyan’.17

2. Salah al-Din’s struggle against the CrusadersThe central role of Bilad al-Sham in the struggle waged by the Arabs against theCrusaders, and especially the fact that it was at the Horns of Hittin that Salahal-Din gained his historic victory, marking the beginning of the end of theCrusaders’ presence in the region, served the Syrian regime in underscoringSyria’s Arab roots. Although Salah al-Din (1138–93) was born in Tikrit in Iraq,he spent most of his adult life in the Syrian lands as founder of the Ayyubiddynasty, whose rule extended over the Syrian Lands and Egypt. Notably, he wasburied in Damascus. The Syrian regime made, and continues to make frequentuse of the figure of Salah al-Din. Currency notes bore his portrait, until it wasreplaced with that of Hafiz al-Assad after the president’s death. Main streets inDamascus and other cities were named after him. The Syrian press oftenpublished articles glorifying his image and comparing it with the modern-daySalah al-Din – Hafiz al-Assad. The Syrian government organ al-Thawra notedin an editorial in 1992 on the occasion of the commemoration of the OctoberWar that Assad was the hero of the October War, just as Salah al-Din al-Ayyubiwas the hero of the battle of Hittin, and Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir the hero of theSuez campaign.’18 The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger noted inhis book, Years of Upheaval, that when visiting Hafiz al-Assad in his officeduring the negotiations following the October War, he was impressed by the factthat the only picture Assad had in his office was that of the Battle of Hittin.19

Assad referred to Salah al-Din during his summit meeting with Bill Clinton inGeneva on 26 March 2000. Responding to the American president’scompromise proposal that Israel withdraw to the 4 June 1967 line but retainthe shore of the Sea of Galilee, Assad surprised Clinton by pointing out that thesea had been Arab since the days of Salah al-Din.20

3. The perception that the Syrian Lands served as the hothouse for Arab nation-alism as an ideology and as a political movementIn his book, al-Thawra al-Arabiyya al-Kubra (‘The Great Arab Revolt’),published in 1978, the Defence Minister, Mustafa Talas, emphasized the

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central role played by the Syrian Lands in the emergence of the Arabnational movement in the early twentieth century. Moreover, he portrayedthe revolt led by Sharif Husayn in the Arabian Peninsula as a pan-Arabrevolt whose source of inspiration lay in the Syrian Lands, while drawing acontiguous line between the revolt, the Arab national movement underlyingit, and Syria under Ba‘th leadership.21 The beginning of Arab nationalism, inTalas’s account, goes back to eighteenth-century Bilad al-Sham under therule of the Azm family in Damascus. Relations between the Ottoman Empireand the Arabs were tense, Talas stated, as the Ottomans were oppressiveoccupiers. He wrote:

The Sharif Husayn will be remembered as the person who led a jihad anda military struggle against the Ottoman Turks who had dishonoured anddefiled our Arab land for almost 400 years. The Arab revolt was thebeginning of a long journey to liberate our great nation from a Turkishoccupation that almost destroyed Arab values while cloaking itself in themantle of a Muslim caliphate.22

4. The Syrian state as the heir to Bilad al-ShamIn inculcating this perception, the regime capitalized on the affinity of mostSyrians for the concept of the Syrian Lands (Bilad al-Sham) as a defined regionyet at the same time part of the Arab world. Assad’s regime, benefiting fromSyria’s improved standing in the region, no longer viewed Syria as a passiveplayer in the Bilad al-Sham region but as a central player with hegemonicaims over the entire area. Significantly, Assad informed Yasir Arafat: ‘There isno Palestinian People or Palestinian entity, there is only Syria, and Palestineis an integral, unseparated part of Syria’.23 According to Defence MinisterTalas:

Assad believed in the unity of the peoples of these Lands, which are allArab lands. This is why Palestine and Jordan were just as important forhim as Syria. Assad’s declaration [in 1976] that the Golan Heights are inthe middle of Syria and not on its border stemmed from his unwillingnessto accept or recognize the Sykes–Picot Agreement and the artificial bordersthat were dictated based on it.24

Regarding Jordan, Assad declared in early 1981, during a conflict between thetwo states that nearly deteriorated into a military conflict: ‘The reactionaryregime of Jordan was established on a part of the Syrian lands, on part of theSyrian body. We and Jordan are one state, one people, one thing . . . The Britishgave King Abdallah I part of the Syrian Lands and told him to become an amiron this land, and thus Jordan was created’.25

The Syrian regime’s attempt to reinforce a Syrian identity based not only on theArab or Muslim past of Bilad al-Sham, but by drawing on Syria’s existence as amodern state, both during the French Mandate period and, mainly as an


independent state, is plainly demonstrated by its commemorative national holidays,recalling past and more recent milestones. The Syrian calendar contains thefollowing national holidays: Arab National Unity Day, 22 February; IndependenceDay, 17 April; Memorial Day, 6 May; Army Day, 1 August; October WarAnniversary, 6 October; Ba‘th Party commemorative dates – the establishment of theBa‘th Party, 7 April, and Ba‘th Revolution Day, 8 March; and the date of Hafizal-Assad’s rise to power, 16 November. These holidays and commemorativeoccasions reveal that the moulding of a national consciousness and identity drew onthe following series of historic experiences:

1. The Arab-Ottoman conflict, subsequently the Syrian–Turkish conflictThis conflict, marked by Memorial Day on 6 May, commemorates the death byhanging of a group of Arab nationalists by order of Jamal Pasha, the Ottomangovernor of Syria, on 6 May 1916. Conflict broke out between Arab nationalistforces and the Ottoman authorities in the Syrian Lands on the eve of the FirstWorld War, but was supported by only a small minority of the local population,as most subjects remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire until its collapse at theend of the war. The Syrian regime aimed not only to destroy the positive imageof the empire as historically acceptable to a majority of the Arab population inthe Syrian Lands, but to create a link between the Arab–Ottoman struggle thenand the later struggle between modern Syria and Turkey, depicted by theSyrians as the heir to the Ottoman Empire.

Over two decades later, the Turkish–Syrian conflict emerged as one of themajor long-term challenges to the modern Syrian state. It involved the lossof Syrian sovereignty over the Alexandretta District (Iskandarun) which tothis day the Syrians view as occupied Syrian territory, with the transfer ofthis territory to Turkey in 1939 following a French–Turkish agreement. Theconflict continued with the crisis of 1957, in which Turkey played a rolealongside the USA in an effort to bring down the Syrian regime. The nextepisode involved a series of bilateral disagreements between Syria and Turkeyin the early 1980s. Turkey accused Syria of assisting the Kurdish under-ground movement – the PKK – of backing terrorist attacks in Turkey, whileSyria accused Turkey of blocking the flow of Euphrates River water intoSyria. From the early 1990s onward, the developing alliance between Turkeyand Israel contributed to exacerbating the conflict between Syria and Turkey,which deteriorated in 1998 to the brink of war between the two countries.War was prevented at the last minute when Syria acceded to a Turkishultimatum and halted, so far as could be observed, support for the KurdishPKK in its struggle against Turkey.26

2. The Arab State under Faysal, 1918–20This short-lived state was formed in October 1918 upon the conquest ofDamascus, or, more correctly, upon the entry of the Arab army into Damascusafter it had been captured by the British army.27 The state came to an end withthe battle of Maysalun in July 1920 with the defeat of Faysal’s Arab–Syrianarmy by the French.28 A considerable number of scholars claim that Faysal’sshort-lived state cannot be viewed as one of the sources of the Syrian state.

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While this view cannot be dismissed out of hand, since Faysal’s state at the veryleast determined Syria’s modern borders by the fact of its separation fromLebanon, Palestine and Transjordan, the existence of any other connecting linkbetween Faysal’s period and developments that followed is doubtful. Accordingto James Gelvin, in his book, Divided Loyalties, Nationalism and Mass Politicsin Syria at the Close of Empire, the Faysal era in Syria reinforced Syria’s earlyterritorial identity with Bilad al-Sham, i.e. Syria’s territories within its historicalgeographic borders. Gelvin also claims that in the perception of the populationof the historic Bilad al-Sham, who viewed the territory in which they lived as ahistoric entity with the right to exist, the idea of Arab unity seemed artificial andlacking in legitimacy. The contribution of the Faysal era, therefore, is that itprompted many Syrians to consider the notion of ‘Syrianism’ rather than pan-Arabism, as was to occur once again during the period of the United ArabRepublic 40 years later.29

3. The struggle for independence from France under the French Mandate, 1920–46The evacuation of the last of the French troops from Syrian soil on 17 April1946 is commemorated on Syrian Independence Day (‘Id al-Jala’), 17 April. Thelong struggle against the French is a significant component of Syrian nationalidentity. It began with the Battle of Maysalun on 20 July 1920, in which Faysal’sarmy was routed by the French. A series of uprisings thereafter during theFrench occupation of Syria are referred to in the Syrian narrative, especially theSyrian revolt of 1925–27 and the uprising 1945. May 29th, known as InternalSecurity Forces Day (Yawm Qiwa al-Amn al-Dakhili), commemorates theFrench–Syrian conflagration of 29–30 May 1945, during which Damascus andother Syrian cities were bombed by the French. The first of August, Army Day,commemorates the transfer of the Syrian army from the French to the Syriangovernment on that date in 1945.30

4. The formation of the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958Arab Unity Day (‘Id al-Wahda), celebrated on 22 February, commemorates theformation of the UAR. A referendum held in Syria on that day in 1958 showedthat 98 per cent of the voters supported the unification with Egypt and thecandidacy of Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir as president of the Union. Arab Unity Day isa reminder of Syria’s commitment to the idea of pan-Arab unity, but it alsorecalls a traumatic experience in the Syrian national consciousness – theengulfment of the Syrian state by Egypt, its Arab elder sister.31

5. The struggle against Israel and the Palestinian Question.The struggle against Israel is marked in the Syrian calendar on 6 October, whichcommemorates the anniversary of the October 1973 war – the ‘October War ofLiberation’ (Harb Tishrin al-Tahririyya). The date commemorates a distinctiveSyrian experience that incorporates, inter alia, a sense of pride andaccomplishment. In itself, the war was not a success militarily. Syria’s aim inthe war – the liberation of the Golan Heights from Israeli control – was notachieved, and, moreover, Israeli forces had advanced to less then 40 km fromDamascus by the end of the war. Furthermore, Syria, unlike Egypt, failed to


sustain the military achievements of the first days of the war and translate theminto diplomatic achievements. The disengagement agreement with Israel signedby Syria in May 1974 did not lead, as in the Egyptian case, to the start of apeace process that would restore the Golan Heights to Syria. All that Syriaretrieved was the city of Qunaytra, which it turned into a memorial site toperpetuate the memory of Israel’s destruction of it. In contrast to Egypt, wherethe liberation of the Sinai Peninsula on 26 April 1982 became a nationalholiday, the date of the return of Qunaytra, 28 June 1974, has been given arelatively low profile, marked only by a ceremony at the preserved ruins of thecity.32

Syria’s position on the Israeli–Arab conflict, especially since the 1980s, hasbeen used by the regime to legitimize its rule as well as to legitimize theexistence of Syria as an independent state. It has also served to underscoreSyria’s distinctiveness in recent decades as the only Arab state still totallycommitted to the struggle against Israel and to concern with the Palestinianquestion.

6. The anniversary of the Ba‘th Party, founded on 7 April 1947The Ba‘th Party is a wholly Syrian creation, founded by Syrian politicians onSyrian soil in response to concrete Syrian needs. The party’s political aims, itsdemographic composition, and especially its accession to the leadership of thecountry were grounded in the Syrian realities of the 1950s and ’60s. In itsbeginnings, the Ba‘th represented the urban middle class in Damascus and theirefforts to gain a leading position in Syrian political life. Subsequently, the partyproved to be a conduit for the social mobility of the rural population andminority sects. Its success in overcoming domestic rivals in the struggle for thecontrol of Syria was reflected in its ability to mould the Syrian identity as ablend of Arabism, ‘Syrianism’ and elements of Islam.33

7. The anniversary of the Ba‘th revolution of 8 March 1963The Ba‘th revolution restructured Syria domestically and put it on a newcourse. The revolution was fuelled by a coalition of social strata that untilthen had been politically, socially and economically marginal. In the wake ofthe revolution, these sectors quickly rose to form the leadership of thecountry. They included members of minority sects – mainly the Alawites,along with members of the Sunni sect from the country’s rural areas andperiphery. This turned Syria into a state representing all of its population,unlike in the past when it was a state that catered to a small elite of notablefamilies, and later an elite of army officers and urban politicians. The Ba‘threvolution, therefore, may be viewed as the real turning point in Syria’smodern history.34 This was aptly expressed by Husayn al-Zu‘bi, a lecturer atthe University of Damascus, who, addressing one of the forums heldthroughout Syria during the ‘Damascus Spring’ in early 2001, noted thatwere it not for the Ba‘th Party, ‘I could not have studied and become auniversity lecturer. My father was a simple peasant exploited by feudal lordsand the bourgeoisie. Therefore, one cannot claim that the regime in power inSyria has done nothing positive.’35

190 E. Zisser

8. The anniversary of the ‘Corrective Movement’, 16 November 1970This date, commemorating Hafiz al-Assad’s rise to power, ushered inunprecedented stability in Syria, turning it into a viable state and, moreover,a state that projected strength and vitality, viewed by some as influential andambitious for hegemony in the surrounding region. This perception wastypically reflected in an interview granted in 1998 by former Syrian chief of staffAli Aslan, who declared:

The Corrective Movement marked the beginning of a new era in Syriaand for the entire Arab nation. The national and pioneering positions ofHafiz al-Assad granted Syria its real place as a pivotal state in the Arabhomeland and in the entire region, and enabled it to play a positive role inall the crucial issues facing the Arab nation – the issues of land, existenceand identity.36

Hafiz al-Assad’s assumption of power ended Syria’s chronic instability vergingon anarchy that characterized its history during the first decades of itsindependence. Conceivably, Syria’s traumatic formative period, which ulti-mately led to the establishment of the UAR and the suicide of the Syrian state,may account for the determination by many Syrians today to maintain thestatus quo, i.e., the current Ba‘th regime led by Bashshar al-Assad, in the fearthat Syria will deteriorate once again into a state of instability, military coups orcivil war. A well-known Syrian commentator, Fawzi al-Shu‘aybi, admitted thathe preferred an oppressive regime to a state of anarchy, arguing that no one inSyria is interested in unlimited political openness that might take Syria back tothe 1950s and 60s.37

The question remains whether the commemorative days in the Syriancalendar, i.e., Syria’s formative experiences as a state, are sufficient to forge acollective memory and a national identity, especially since over two-thirds of theSyrian population was born after Hafiz al-Assad seized power, and Syria underhis rule is the only reality they know.

Although the dominant Arabist element of Syria’s national identity was discordantwith the pre-Arab and pre-Islamic past, the Ba‘th regime could hardly avoid dealingwith this ancient heritage, if only because of the plethora of major archaeologicalsites – assessed at over 3,500 – scattered throughout Syria. Some of these sites,excavated during the latter twentieth century, revealed finds that had an importantimpact on the scientific community throughout the world.

One such find was the city of Ebla, the capital of a flourishing kingdom thatexisted in the latter half of the third century BC. The remains of the city were foundat Tel Mardach, 70 km south of Aleppo, in a 560-dunam site that began to beexcavated in 1964. Only in 1975, however, was the city’s palace discovered, and in itan archive of 20,000 potsherds of written tablets, some in the Sumerian language andothers in another, unknown language referred to as Western Sumerian. Scholarseventually named this language Eblai. The texts of the tablets included prose andverse with striking similarities to the stories of the Bible. An earlier discovery, in


1928, was the city of Ugarit, 10 km north of the port city of Ladhiqiyya. Ugarit ismentioned in the Tel Amarna letters. Excavations there continued during the 1930sand 40s, revealing that the city was a commercial centre in the third century BC.Among the important findings there were potsherds of tablets in cuneiform scriptthat may be the most ancient of the known western Semitic languages. It was namedUgaritic. These tablets, too, contained verses about gods and heroes that arereminiscent of biblical stories.38

These findings eventually served the Ba‘th regime in its attempts to create aterritorial identity for Syria. Patrick Seale made this point in his book, Assadof Syria, observing that alongside the accomplishments of Assad’s regime in thestate’s social and economic development, and in enhancing Syria’s regional andinternational status, the regime made constructive use of the glory of the territorialpast:

Archaeological finds at Ebla, south of Aleppo, capital of a trading and militarystate 2500 years BC, and at Mary on the Euphrates, seat of a Sumerian kingdomof the same millennium, gave a great boost to Syrian national pride. The 15,000tablets of the Ebla royal archive discovered in 1974–5 were found to be writtenin a Semitic tongue which Syrian scholars claimed located the origins of theArabic language and monotheism itself in their country. Together with the25,000 tablets of the Mary archive and the 300-room palace of the city, with itsheated bathrooms, plumbing and kitchen utensils, the Ebla finds provideSyrians with evidence of their ancient superiority over the Hebrews to the southand their equality with the great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia.39

By the 1980s, the Syrian regime appeared less reluctant to refer to a more distantheritage as a means of strengthening national pride in Syria, and began merging thishistory into the Syrian historical narrative. ‘Syria’s space is and always has beenlimited, but its reputation has spread far and its influence is worldwide’, stated aSyrian history textbook published in 1984 by the Ba‘th Party’s Office of Culture andParty Training. The book notes:

Many studies, including archaeological research, teach us that even before theCommon Era, Syria enjoyed importance and standing. It was on its soil thatman ground flour, worked iron and copper, and invented the alphabet . . . Thediscovery of the Atlantic Ocean by the Phoenicians is a prominent example ofthe significant contribution made by Syrian civilization to human progress.Syria is one of the earliest places on earth inhabited by man.40

Nevertheless, the findings in Ebla, Ugarit, Mary, Qadesh and and other sites posed adistinct challenge to the Syrian regime, namely the obvious link between the Eblaiand the Ugaritic languages with Hebrew; and moreover, the link between the texts inthe tablets and biblical stories. These links could prove Israel’s claims about thehistorical roots of the people of Israel in the ancient East. The head of Syria’sdepartment of antiquities and museums, Ali al-Bahansawi, complained: ‘TheWestern reader, whose culture is based on knowledge of the Bible, wants to hearabout Ebla only in terms of what concerns the Bible. No wonder the Zionists want to

192 E. Zisser

use this erroneous interpretation of the findings for the purpose of justifying theirexistence and thereby acquiring the approval of history.’41

In this context, a report submitted to the UN in 2001 by the Syrian foreignministry about Israel’s activity in the Golan Heights, titled ‘The Policy of InculcatingIgnorance and Cultural and Historical Misinformation’, charged that the Arabhistory curricula imposed by Israel in the Druze schools in the Golan Heights sincethe Israeli occupation focus on tribal conflict, religious fanaticism and shameful lovepoetry, while ignoring the great Arab poets and writers. These curricula, the reportclaimed, use cruel and distorted selectivity regarding Arab history, such as describingArabs as Bedouin, while ignoring the Arab civilizations that existed in Mesopota-mia, Egypt and Greater Syria in the pre-Islamic period. One example cited was asixth-grade textbook that depicts [Caliph] ‘Abd al-Malik bin Marwan as having builtthe Mosque of Umar in [Jerusalem in] 691 because of his war with Ibn Zubayr sothat Muslims would halt the practice of the pilgrimage to Mecca. The suggestion isthat the establishment of these two sites was the result of a political struggle,implying that they are not sacred to Islam.42

Another problem posed by Syria’s pre-Arab and pre-Islamic past was that itlacked relevance for the majority of the Syrians, who view themselves as Arab.Worse, this legacy could weaken the Arab aspect of Syria. The solution formulatedby the Ba‘th regime for this problem was the ‘Arabization’ of the pre-Islamic andpre-Arab past, or as Bahansawi himself suggested: ‘The findings of Ebla areimportant to the Syrians, as they are important to the Arabs themselves, becausethey constitute proof of the antiquity of the Arab nation and the depth of the rootsof its culture. After all, this and other kingdoms that existed for almost more than4,500 years were all Arab.’43

As reported in December 2000 in the regime-sponsored Tishrin, a lecture given inDamascus by Syrian historian, Dr. Ahmad Shaykh Da’ud, titled ‘Our CulturalHistory Between Truth and Falsehood’, criticized the attempt to separate Arabsfrom their early history, i.e., the attempt to view the advent of Islam as the beginningof Arab history, and to regard the history of the pre-existing kingdoms in the Syrianlands as disconnected from the history of the Arab nation. Da’ud claimed that thesewere uninterrupted periods marked by internal cohesion and continuity. Moreover,he asserted: ‘At the time that Syrian culture flourished, with agricultural towns anddeveloped industry, Europe was still in the Stone Age.’ It was the Syrians who firstsettled in Italy and in fact established Rome, he averred, and it was they whocontrolled the ancient commercial routes, including the Mediterranean Sea routes – asea that should be considered Syrian.44 Da’ud’s argument regarding the Arab natureof the ancient Syrian lands was first presented in 1997 in his book, Tarikh Suriyyaal-Qadim – Tashih wa Tahrir (The Ancient History of Syria – Correction andLiberation). The reason this past was forgotten, he explained in the book, has to dowith the reservations many Arabs have about dealing with the history of the Arabnation in the pre-Islamic period, an era regarded by them as pagan. They havedifficulty beginning the narrative of their history in the Jahiliyya with the Bedouin astheir ancestors. This is a mistake, Da’ud argued, because the Phoenicians were Arab,as were the Aramaeans and other peoples [in the region] as well.45

In a similar vein, the Syrian press repeatedly reported the argument that Jesus wasnot of Hebrew origin but was Syrian. The periodical Sumar, published in Damascus


in the early 1990s by a group of intellectuals associated with the Syrian NationalistParty (the PPS, advocates of the Greater Syria notion), explained in March 1992 thatJeshua was the name of a Syrian cleric (mu‘allim), which in Greek transliterationbecame Jesus. His nickname, ‘the Nazarene’, refers to the birthplace of his virginmother. Jesus himself was born in Bethlehem and returned at age 12 to Nazareth inthe Galilee, where he began spreading his religious belief.46

Ba‘th approval of the resurrection of the ancient past was also reflected in the Syrianmedia’s wide coverage of the discovery of Syrian antiquities, for the consumption notonly of foreign tourists but the Syrian public at large. Typically, an article published inJuly 2000 in al-Thawra, titled ‘Apamea, the Capital of Ancient Syria’, states: ‘The city’santiquities, its broad streets, theatres, markets, bathhouses and the walls of the housesare quite simply evidence from the farthest reaches of history proving the achievementsof Syrian man and his ability to achieve great things.’47

Other articles discuss historical museums opened during Assad Senior’s era, forexample museums that were opened or expanded and refurbished in Tadmor(Palmyra), Aleppo, Damascus and Suwayda. One newspaper noted that the findingsexhibited in the Suwayda museum show the link between Arab and Greek culture,especially in the reign of the emperor Philip the Arabian, who was a native of thatregion.48 Other cultural endeavours also capitalized on the distant Syrian past, forexample the Ugarit horse race or the Busra theatre festival held annually in a Romanamphitheatre discovered in the town of Busra, located 125 km south of Damascus.The festival was inaugurated in 1978 by the then minister for culture, Najjahal-‘Attar, who stated:

Two thousand years have passed, and this ship of civilization continues toplough the waves of history. It has not gone astray . . . neither did we, the defiantcrew, abandon the sail to the folly of the winds . . . It remained like a loftymountain, like a solitary banner . . . an eternal marvel. It remained a symbol ofthe civilizations that perished and yet survived with us. Defying extinction, givingtestimony to the richness of this pure land in whose depths reside the forefathers’bequest to their descendants . . . Today we are restoring the course of history . . .This is the first Busra theatre festival in the country’s history, and it will berepeated in September each year. In this way, we are joining together that whichwas severed, as if 2,000 years were a blink of the eye . . . as if those (Romans)who built the Busra theatre and those (Ayyubis) who later built the fort aroundit, had known that we shall be the noblest of inheritors . . . and that we shallrevive the nights in which the moon illuminated this archaeological gem.49

Leftist intellectuals who formed an organization called ‘the committees in defence ofcivil rights’ named a periodical they founded in Damascus in March 2001 Amraji,which in the 3,000-year-old Sumerian dialect means freedom.50 In the periodicalSumar, several articles about the distinctiveness of Syrian history dealt with Zenobia,the third-century queen of Palmyra (Tadmor).51 The importance of this city grew inthe third century of the Christian era under Odanathus and his wife and successor,Zenobia, known throughout the ancient East for her beauty and political acumen.Zenobia became the effective ruler of the city in 287, and soon thereafter challengedthe Romans in an effort to establish an independent kingdom. Roman troops

194 E. Zisser

dispatched by the emperor Uralian in 273 captured the city, destroyed it, and tookZenobia in chains to Rome. Zenobia is the heroine of a history of Syria written byElias Dib Matar in1874. The story of Tadmur is distinctive because the populationof this city kingdom – the Tadmurites, like the Nabateans of Petra, and the sixth-and seventh-century inhabitants of the kingdom of Ghassan, located south ofDamascus, were of Arab origin, thereby reinforcing the argument that the pre-Islamic past of Syria has an Arab character.52

Whether the effort to rewrite Syria’s pre-Islamic and pre-Arab past is meaningfulfor Syrians will be known only in time. Undoubtedly, it is taken seriously by theregime. An interview given by Bashshar to the Spanish press before he visited Spainin April 2001 is revealing in this respect. Asked what significance Andalusia has forhim, Bashshar replied:

Andalusia brings us back to the era of the flourishing and flowering of our jointhistory (the Arab and the Spanish), but this is not the only period that we shouldremember, because there are other periods that predate Andalusia’s flourishing.I mean, for example, the Phoenician era, which led and contributed to theflourishing of entire empires. I often ask myself how humanity reached culturalachievements hundreds of thousands of years ago, while we who live in the ageof digital communication do not succeed in reaching the same level ofprogress . . . the contacts between Ugarit and Qadesh, a city kingdom near Homs4,000 years ago, were filled with deepermeaning than those between people today.53

Syria’s attempts to formulate a distinctive national identity replicate similar effortsby all the states in the modern Middle East. These include Lebanon’s use of thePhoenician legacy, Egypt’s use of the Pharaonic legacy, the Palestinians’ use of theCanaanite past, the attempts by the Shah of Persia to present himself as the heir toCyrus, Saddam Husayn’s attempts to portray himself as the heir to Hammurabi andNebuchadnezzar, and the attempts by the Turkish Republic to present the Turks asthe descendants of the Hittites. The results of these efforts were inconclusive, sincethe populations of these countries are mainly Arab or Muslim and have difficultyidentifying with the pre-Arab or pre-Islamic past. Still, the Egyptian case inparticular shows that the glory of the past, even a pre-Arab or pre-Islamic past, canbe accepted as a stratum in the political or national identity of the populations inthe Middle East. Conceivably, something similar will occur, or may already behappening, in the case of Syria.54

Ostensibly, the roots of the modern Syrian state lie in Arabism, i.e., in the Arab–Muslim past of the Syrian Lands (Bilad al-Sham) and thus in the Arab national ideathat emerged in the region in the early twentieth century. Yet, it was the perceptionof a distinctly Syrian civilization that led France to establish the Syrian state in the1920s. Thus, Syria – the state as well as the population – found itself oscillatingbetween ‘Syrianism’ and Arabism over a period of half a century. Moreover, bothsources of inspiration, Syrianism and Arabism, proved to be insufficient to mouldand entrench a distinctive Syrian identity and thus provide legitimacy for theterritorial Syrian state, first and foremost in the eyes of its population.


It was only under Hafiz al-Assad’s regime (1970–2000), when Syria achievedpolitical stability and the state began projecting an image of strength, that a return toSyria’s ancient roots, and the prospect of using this trend to enhance the status andlegitimacy of the state, became an attractive possibility. Ultimately, the Assad regimecreated a new ethos regarding the sources of the Syrian state and the identity of thepeople living in it. This perception based the identity of the state on the cumulativeexperiences over the eighty years of the existence of Syria as a political entity, mergedwith all that came before: the regional Arab experience as well as the pre-Arab andpre-Islamic past of the Syrian lands.

Statements by Bashshar al-Assad, and a careful study of Syrian public discourse,in so far as it is reflected in the Syrian media, show that the seeds of this ethos wereplanted on fertile ground. Bashshar’s political behaviour reveals him to be a Syrianwhose outlook was definitively shaped during Hafiz al-Assad’s era, and who hadexperienced no other reality than that of the Syrian territorial state. This state is nolonger fragile, but rather is self-confident. Significantly, the philosophy that drew itsinspiration from a perception of the ‘historic Syria’ or ‘Greater Syria’ (Biladal-Sham) became once again widespread in Damascus in recent years. This wasevident in the cordiality shown by the Ba‘th regime to the representatives of theSyrian Nationalist Party (PPS), which espouses the Greater Syria perception. TheMinister of Defence, Mustafa Talas, commenting on the publication in 2001 of hisbook entitled Suriyya al-Tabi‘iyya, Dirasa Geo-Bulitik‘iyya wa Geo-TarikhiyyaPhysical Syria (A Geopolitical and Geohistoric Study), stated:

The book does not negate Ba‘th thought, for the unity of Greater Syria canserve as the nucleus of Arab unity and the basis for the ingathering of Arabexiles. Greater Syria should initiate the process of unification of the three othermain regions that make up the Arab world: the Arabian Peninsula, the NileValley and North Africa. Furthermore, Greater Syria was the starting point ofthe Islamic conquests by the Umayyads. We seek this unity as a temporary goalthat will lead to Arab unification, which is our strategic aim.55

However, if Talas projected a commitment to the vision of a Greater Syria, Bashsharappeared to be focused on the more constricted Syrian territorial state, i.e., Syriafirst. Notably, he was only five years old when his father took control of thegovernment, so that his outlook was moulded by Hafiz al-Assad’s rule. He hadexperienced no other reality than that of the Syrian territorial state.

The strictly Syrian state identity, however, has not yet supplanted the initialArabist or the Syrian identities, but coexists with them somewhat uncertainly. Itsentrenchment is conditional, first and foremost, on the ability of the Syrian territorialstate to survive and to project stability, a reality that is still in its early stages.

Notes

1. al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, 8 Feb. 2001; see also Eyal Zisser, ‘Does Bashshar al-Assad Rule Syria’,

Middle East Quarterly, Vol.10, No.1 (2003), pp.15–23; see also Eyal Zisser, ‘A False Spring in

Damascus’, Orient, Vol.44, No.1 (2003), pp.39–62.

2. See al-Safir, Beirut, 5 Aug. 2001.

3. Al-Shira‘, Beirut, 11 Dec. see also al-Safir, 30 Dec. 2000.

196 E. Zisser

4. Tishrin, Damascus, 16 Dec. 2002.

5. Radio Damascus, 28 Nov. 2002.

6. For the Association’s Website, see www.scs-syria.com

7. Al-Hayat, London, 6 May 2001.

8. Radio Damascus, 6 May 2001.

9. Al-Hayat, 21 Feb. 2001.

10. Syrian TV, 18 Dec. 2002.

11. Tishrin, 18 Sept. 2002.

12. See Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp.57–101; see also Kamal

Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, the History of Lebanon Reconsidered (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988),

pp.57–71; Wiliam Harris, The Levant, a Fractured Mosaic (Princeton, NJ: Marcus Weiner Publishers,

2003).

13. See James L. Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of

Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Philip S., Khoury, Syria and the French

Mandate, the Politics of Arab Nationalism 1920–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1987).

14. See Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965); Andrew Rathmell,

Secret War in the Middle East, the Covert Struggle for Syria (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995).

15. Sumar (Damascus), 31 March 1992, pp.5–7.

16. See al-Hayat (London), 11 March 1999.

17. Syrian TV, 1 Aug. 2000.

18. Al-Thawra, 4 Oct. 1992.

19. See Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982), p.779.

20. Ma‘ariv (Tel Aviv), 30 March 2000; Yedi‘ot Aharonot (Tel Aviv), 30 March 2000.

21. See Mustafa Talas, al-Tahwra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubra (The Great Arab Revolt) (Beirut: Dar al-Shura,

1978).

22. Ibid., pp.48–49.

23. See Kamal Junbalat, I Speak for Lebanon (London: Zed Press, 1982), p.28.

24. Radio Damascus, 20 July 2000.

25. See Tishrin, 11 Jan. 1981.

26. For more, see Eyal Zisser, ‘Remembering the Past, Looking Back to the Future: Syrian-Turkish

Relations and their Place in Political Discourse in the Formation of Historical Memory in Syria,’

paper presented at MESA (Middle Eastern Studies Association) conference, Chicago, 4–7 Dec. 1998.

See also Robert Olson, Turkey, Relations with Iran, Israel, and Russia, 1991–2000, the Kurdish and

Islamist Questions (Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, Inc., 2001).

27. See Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and other Middle Eastern Studies (Hanover, New

Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1984), pp.33–47.

28. Khayriyya Qasimiyya, al-Hukuma al-‘Arabiyya fi Dimashq, 1918–1920 (The Arab Government of

Damascus, 1918–1920) (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-‘Arabiyya li-Dirasat wal-Nashar, 1982).

29. James L. Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, pp.50–51, 287–298; Philip S, Khoury, Syria and the French

Mandate, the Politics of Arab Nationalism 1920–1945, pp.27–150.

30. See the Ba‘th Party offical website, www.bath-party.org

31. See Elie Podeh, The Decline of Arab Unity, the Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic (Brighton:

Sussex Academic Press, 1999).

32. See Patrick Seale, Assad of Syria: the Struggle for the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 1988), p.213.

33. See Itamar Rabinovich, Syria under the Ba‘th, 1963–66, the Army–Party Symbiosis (Jerusalem: Israel

Universities Press, 1972).

34. For more on the Ba‘th Party and the Neo-Ba‘th regime in Syria, see Kamal Abu-Jaber, The Arab Ba‘th

Socialist Party: History, Ideology and Organization (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1966);

Nikolaos Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995).

35. Al-Hayat, 25 April 2001.

36. For Asalan’s interview, see al-Jaysh al-Lubnani (Beirut), 14 March 1998.

37. Al-Hayat, 15 April 2001.

38. See Ross Burns, Monuments of Syria, an Historical Guide (London: I.B. Tauris, 1990); Warwick Ball,

Syria, a Historical and Architectural Guide (Essex: Scorpion Publishing, 1994).

39. Patrick Seale, Assad of Syria, pp.446–7.


40. Hizb al-Ba‘th Al-Arabi al-Ishtiraki, al-Qiyda al-Qawmiyya, Maktab al-Thaqafa wal-I’dad

al-Hizbi, al-Qutr al-‘Arabi al-Suri, Dirasa ‘Amma (Thr Syrian Arab Region, General Study)

(Dimashq, 1984), p.5.

41. For al-Bahansawi’s remarks, see Tishrin, 20 Sept. 1977.

42. Al-Hayat, 5 Aug. 2001.

43. Tishrin, 20 Sept. 1977.

44. Tishrin, Jan. 2000.

45. Ahmad Da’ud, Tarikh Suriyya al-Qadim – Tashih wa Tahrir (The Ancient History of Syria –

Correction and Liberation) (Dimashq: Dar al-Katib al-‘Arabi, 1997).

46. Sumar, Damascus, 31 March 1992.

47. Al-Tahwra, 5 July 2000.

48. Al-Thawra, Damascus, 25 Aug. 2000; Tishrin, 27 April 1999.

49. Al-Ba‘th, Damascus, 11 Sep. 1978. See also Amatzia Baram, ‘Territorial Nationalism in the Middle

East’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.26, No.4, pp.425–48.

50. Al-Zaman, London, 15 May 2001.

52. See Sumar, 31 March, 15 Aug. 1992.

52. See Sumar, 31 March 1992. See also Y. Choueiri, ‘Two Histories of Syria and the Demise of Syrian

Patriotism,’ Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.23, No.4 (Oct.1987), pp.497–511.

53. See Radio Damascus, 1 May 2001.

54. Amatzia Baram, ‘Territorial Nationalism in the Middle East.’

55. See Mustafa Talas, Suriyya al-Tabi‘iyya, Dirasa Geo-Bulitikiyya wa Geo-Tarikhiyya (Physical Syria,

a Geopolitical and Geohistoric Study) (Dar Talas lil-Dirasat wal-Tarjama wal-Nashr, 2001)

pp.xvii–xxv.

198 E. Zisser

Documents

Who's Afraid of Syrian Nationalism - Eyal Zisser