SHISHAKLI
AND THE DRUZES: INTEGRATION AND INTRANSIGENCE
|
Adib ash-Shishakli was born in Hamah, Syria in 1909 and was assassinated in Brazil on Sept. 27, 1964, by a Druze seeking revenge for Shishakli's bombardment of the Jabal Druze. He served as an officer under the French Mandate and fought valiently in Palestine during the 1948 War. He overthrew the Syrian government in December 1949 and dominated Syrian politics until his own overthrow in 1954. He was the third military strong-man to take power in 1949. He tried to rule through civilian politicians during the first part of his rule, but on April 6, 1952, he abolished all political parties and tried to fill the vacuum by creating his own party--the Arab Liberation Movement (ALM). In a July 1953 referendum, he had Syrians approve a new constitution making Syria a presidential republic with himslef as president. The subsequent Chamber of Deputies was packed with ALM deputies, the major parties having boycotted the election. |
Introduction
The relationship between the Jabal Druze (Druze Mountains) and Damascus has long been used as the test-case for questions of economic and cultural integration in Syria. Linda Schilcher, in her studies of nineteenth century Syria, argues that the Jabal Druze has been a "proving ground of national integration." She maintains that the economic links which began to connect the Jabal Druze to Damascus during the second half of the century formed the bedrock of later nationalist bonds which were established between the Druzes of the Jabal and the Sunnis of Damascus in the first half of the twentieth century.[1] Philip Khoury similarly uses the relationship between the political elites of the Jabal Druze and Damascus as the centerpiece of his "reinterpretation" of the nationalist movement during the years of the French Mandate. He concludes that by the end of the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925-1927 the leadership of the Druze rebels, headed by Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, had formed a "new broadly-based" alliance linking together the Druzes and Damascenes, and that it was "committed to a `successful assimilation of the Druze into a Syrian-Arab political community.'"[2] Based on his analysis of the Druze-Damascene alliance, Khoury proclaims the Great Syrian Revolt to be "a major watershed" in the evolution of national consciousness in Syria. It signalled the formation of a nationalist movement which "cut across regional, class, and religious lines."[3] In short, he argues, that "modern nationalism," like a powerful acid, began to "corrode loyalties to family, tribe, ethnic and confessional group, neighborhood, and village," replacing them with the "nationalist creed of Syrian unity preached by the nationalist elite in the capital."[4]
Other Syrianists such as Itamar Rabinovich and Yehoshua Porath, though more
skeptical than Khoury about the revolutionary impact of the Great Syrian
Revolt, likewise conclude that by independence in 1946 the leadership of the
Druzes had committed itself to relinquishing regional autonomy and to
incorporating the Jabal fully into the Syrian state.[5]
Porath writes:
The
leading Atrash family reached the conclusion that the cause of Druze autonomy
within Syria, to say nothing of secession and eventual union with Trans-Jordan,
was lost. In September 1944 they therefore decided to approach the Syrian National
Bloc Government and proposed full incorporation into the Syrian state, which
was carried out quite smoothly.[6]
On
the contrary, the incorporation of the Jabal Druze into the Syrian state was
not carried out smoothly. The Atrash family and other leading tribes of the
Jabal resisted the Syrian government's attempts to dismantle the administrative
autonomy of the Jabal Druze, just as they fought government attempts to
undermine their traditional authority in the Jabal community. The Atrash
leaders used both military and moral force in their attempt to preserve the
political independence and economic privileges their community had enjoyed
under the French and to resist the encroachment of central authority into
Druze politics.
The
four years of `Adib Shishakli's rule in Syria (December 1949 to February 1954)
illustrates the extent to which the process of national integration was carried
out by force. Shishakli pursued a relentless campaign to integrate the Druze
community into Syria and to destroy the independent power of its Druze
chieftains. The painful and often violent process of integrating the Jabal into
the Syrian state was from its inception political. Hardly a road was paved,
administrator appointed, or army unit stationed in the region without both
Suwayda', the administrative capital of the Jabal Druze, and Damascus carefully
considering its political impact. Shishakli believed that among his many
opponents in Syria, the Druzes were the most potentially dangerous, and he was
determined to crush them. He frequently proclaimed: "My enemies are like a
serpent: the head is the Jabal Druze, the stomach Homs, and the tail Aleppo. If
I crush the head the serpent will die."[7]
The
forced integration of the Jabal Druze left an ambiguous legacy. The Druze community
suffered a dramatic decline in its economic and political position in Syria as
a result of its opposition to Shishakli. Although Syria's military dictator
succeeded in breaking the back of traditional Druze particularism, his harsh
measures exacerbated Druze feelings that they were a persecuted minority and
treated unfairly by the state. A new form of Druze communal consciousness took
root among Druze civilian politicians and, most importantly, among Druze
military officers as a result of their early experience with the policies of
the independent Syrian state. The military revolt that ended Shishakli’s rule
in February 1954 was due in no small part to the concerted action of
disgruntled Druze officers. The ethnopolitics, which has characterized elite
competition in modern Syrian politics and complicated the ongoing process of
national integration, began to take shape well before the emergence of Alawite
officers on the national stage in 1963.[8]
The particularism and communal loyalties of the Druzes did not simply erode or
give way in the face of new national loyalties; rather, they were reshaped by
the early efforts of the Syrian government to assert its control over the
provinces, and took on new meaning within the context of the nation-state.
 |
The Druze (Arabic darazi, pl. druz) represent a small and distinct religious community, with members mainly in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan. In Syria, most Druze live in the Jabal al-Druz, a rugged and mountainous region in the southwest of the country, which is more than 90 percent Druze inhabited; some 120 villages are exclusively so. The remaining 10 percent is largely Christian.
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The
Jabal Druze in Syrian Nationalist History
The
Jabal Druze always played a far more important role in Syrian politics than its
comparatively small population would suggest. With a community of little more
than 100,000 in 1949, or roughly three percent of the Syrian population, the
Druzes of Syria's southeastern mountains constituted a potent force in Syrian
politics and played a leading role in the nationalist struggle against the
French. Under the military leadership of Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, the Druzes provided
much of the military force behind the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925-1927. In 1945
Amir Hasan al-Atrash, the paramount political leader of the Jabal, led the
Druze military units in a successful revolt against the French, making the
Jabal Druze the first and only region in Syria to liberate itself without
British assistance from French rule. No Syrians played a more heroic role in
the struggle against colonialism or shed more blood for independence than the
Druzes. At independence the Druzes, made confident by their successes, expected
that Damascus would reward them for their many sacrifices on the battlefield.
They demanded to keep their autonomous administration and many political
privileges accorded them by the French and sought generous economic assistance
from the newly independent government.
In
contrast to the Druzes, the Alawites of Syria's western mountains had little
political clout during the early independence era. Although they constituted
twelve percent of Syria's population and its largest compact minority, they did
not form a cohesive society as did the Druzes, and their tribal leaders held no
weight in nationalist circles because they had refused to participate in the
anti-French struggle. Following the suppression of the 1946 Alawite Revolt and
the hanging of its leader, Sulayman al-Murshid, local Alawite autonomy was
dismantled and the Alawite community all but disappeared from the national
stage until the 1960s.[9]
The
Kurds, Syria's other important compact minority constituting eight percent of
the population in the 1950s, were even less influential than the Alawites. The
Director General of Syrian Tribal Affairs in 1948 explained why the Kurdish
community situated on Syria's northeast boarder with Turkey was no threat to
Syria. Because the "Kurdish tribes were in reality akin to feudal
institutions," he said, the tribal chieftains owned all the land and could
control their "serfs." In turn the government had firm control over
the tribal leaders, he explained:
Practically
without exception the principal Kurdish leaders are under death sentence in
Turkey and were they to show signs of asserting too much independence of action
or to disregard the wishes of the Syrian Government in any important matter
they could be conveniently disposed of by arranging to have them fall into
Turkish hands.[10]
The
Druzes were determined that they would not be humiliated like the Alawites and
Kurds. Ably led by the Atrash household and jealous of their reputation as Arab
nationalists and proud warriors, the Druze leaders refused to be beaten into
submission by Damascus or cowed by threats. When a local paper in 1945 reported
that President Quwwatli (1943-1949) had called the Druzes a "dangerous
minority," Sultan Pasha al-Atrash flew into a rage and demanded a public
retraction. If it were not forthcoming, he announced, the Druzes would indeed
become "dangerous," and a force of 4,000 Druze warriors would
"occupy the city of Damascus."[11]
Quwwatli could not dismiss Sultan Pasha's threat. The military balance of power
in Syria was tilted in favor of the Druzes, at least until the military build
up during the 1948 War in Palestine. One advisor to the Syrian Defense
Department warned in 1946 that the Syrian army was "useless," and
that the Druzes could "take Damascus and capture the present leaders in a
breeze."[12]
 |
Sultan Pasha al-Atrash: (1891-1982) Born in al-Qurayya village near Swaida. He partcipated in battles against the Ottoman Turks during the Arab Revolt. He raised the Arab flag over Damascus upon its conquest by Emir Faysal's troops on September 29, 1918. He led the Syrian Revolt against the French in 1925. After several early victories, the Revolt was suppressed in 1927 by the French mandatory troops, causing Sultan Pasha to flee Syria for exile, first in Transjordan (now Jordan) and then in the Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. He returned to Syria on being pardoned by the French in May 1937. He died in 1982. |
President
Quwwatli retracted his inflammatory statement about the Druzes being a
"dangerous minority," but the bitter recriminations and distrust
which marked the earliest relations between the independent Syrian government
and the Druze authorities only grew worse with time. Nothing was more symbolic
of the differences dividing the two parties than Sultan Pasha's refusal to
participate in the great Evacuation Day celebrations of April 17, 1946, the day
when the Syrian people were to celebrate their independence and unity. Though
Quwwatli offered the Druze leader a house in Damascus and 20,000 lira to attend
the parade, Sultan Pasha refused to take part in the festivities unless
President Quwwatli agreed to recognize him as the most prominent Syrian
nationalist in gratitude for the leading role the Druze community had played in
the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925-1927, and to attend a separate independence
parade to be held in the Jabal Druze.[13]
In setting these conditions for his participation in the Evacuation Day
ceremonies, Sultan Pasha put Quwwatli on notice that the Druze leadership
expected to be treated with deference by the Syrian government, and that the
Jabal Druze be accorded a privileged position within the Syrian state.
President Quwwatli could not bow to Druze demands. He had planned the three
days of nationalist festivities to exalt his own za`ama, or leadership, and to promote the authority of the central
state, and he was not about to dilute either by sharing center stage with the
likes of his old competitor Sultan Pasha or by travelling out to the Jabal
Druze to participate in a rival ceremony. Rather than develop a relationship of
tolerance and compromise, the authorities in Damascus and the Jabal Druze
increasingly resorted to a policy of ultimatum and force, one that ended with
Shishakli's bombardment of the Jabal Druze in 1954.
Druze
Demands of the Central Government
What
did the Atrashes want from the government in Damascus in exchange for Druze cooperation
and loyalty in independent Syria? The answer to this question was most clearly
articulated in 1946 in negotiations between the Syrian Minister of the Interior
and Amir Hasan al-Atrash, who was both the official Muhafiz (Governor) and unofficial ruler of the Jabal at the time.
His demands were two-fold: economic and political. Amir Hasan insisted that an
important share of the national budget be spent on agriculture infra-structure,
and education in the Jabal. The rudimentary system of primary schools
established in the region under the Mandate had been allowed to languish in the
late 1930s, both because the French had become distracted by the growing
conflict in Europe, and because they had discovered that education did little
to endear the Druzes to French rule. On the contrary, it was creating what
local officials called a "dangerous class of unemployed
intellectuals;" thus, they sought to restrict the number of educated
Druzes to the number of jobs the government could make available.[14]
Amir Hasan wanted to expand the educational system in the Jabal, and insisted
that the Syrian government pay for it. He also asked for the expansion of the
irrigation and water purification systems. Few towns in the Jabal had running
water, and the wells on which many depended either turned brackish during the
summer months or dried up altogether. Amir Hasan also wanted the rudimentary
road system extended to link all the major towns of the Jabal to Suwayda', the
capital of the muhafaza, and for an
expansion of electrical and phone lines. Agriculture too had to be expanded if
the Jabal's terrible unemployment and poverty were to be alleviated.[15]
The
political leaders of the Druzes were not content to demand only economic
benefits from the government in Damascus in exchange for Druze cooperation,
they also insisted that the Jabal be permitted most of the political privileges
and autonomy it had enjoyed under the French. The Atrashes did not want the
government to supplant them or undermine their authority in the name of Arab
nationalism, republicanism, or Syrian independence. They had not fought for
Syrian independence in order to exchange French meddling in their local affairs
for that of the Government in Damascus. The leading families of the Jabal saw
themselves as guardians of the Druze way of life and communal traditions which
was anchored in the quasi-feudal and tribal institutions, or mashyakha system, of the Jabal.[16]
To ensure the continuation of Atrash leadership and the mashyakha system on which it was founded, Amir Hasan demanded that
a separate Druze Ministry of Defense be established with a minister chosen from
the Jabal Druze.
To
President Quwwatli and Prime Minister Jamil Mardam, this proposal symbolized
everything that was wrong with the Druzes. Not only were they arrogant, but
they neither appreciated the need for political centralization nor the true
meaning of Syria's nationalist struggle. The French had tried to divide Syrians
by offering regional autonomy and political privileges to Syria's minorities.
The principal demand of the nationalist movement had been for the elimination
of such privileges and the absolute administrative and political unification of
Syria. The last thing the Syrian government was prepared to offer the Druzes at
independence was a political arrangement which smacked of the old system of
local autonomy. In particular, it found the notion of a separate Druze Ministry
of Defense abhorrent. To make matters worse, Amir Hasan repeatedly threatened
that if his demands for economic and political privileges were not met, the
Jabal would secede from Syria and attach itself to Jordan.[17]
The acrimonious negotiations between Amir Hasan and the Syrian Interior
Minister during the first months of independence made it only too clear to the
Syrian government that the full integration of the Jabal Druze would be a long
and arduous process. There could be little doubt that a showdown between the
principles of Druze particularism and Syrian centralization was not far off.
 |
Quwwatli, Shukri al- (1892-1967, also spelled Quwatli and Kuwatli), Syrian statesman and first President of independent Syria. He was born in Damascus, schooled in Istanbul, and joined an Arab nationalist secret society during WWI. During the Syrian Revolt of 1925-1927, he raised money in Egypt and emerged as an opponent of the revolt leaders Sultan Pasha al-Atrash and Abd al-Rahman al-Shahbandar because of their pro-Hashemite politics. He was a founding member of the National Bloc, which emerged after the collapse of the revolt as the main party opposing the French occupation while Atrash and Shahbandar languished in exile. He became the leader of the National Bloc in 1940, following the assassination of Shahbandar, who was making a come back in Syria politics once pardoned by the French in 1937. Several top leaders of the Bloc were implicated in his assassination and fled to Iraq, leaving Quwwatli in charge. He was elected President in 1943 and worked to liberate Syria from the French, who evacuated Syria in April 1946. In 1949, he was overthrown by a military coup led by Husni al-Zaim, who had Quwwatli imprisoned for a short period before he was allowed to go into exile in Egypt. After a series of military coups, free elections were once again held in Syria, and Quwwatli was elected President again in 1955. In February 1958, he signed the Union Pact with Egypt to establish the United Arab Republic with Gamal Abdel Nasser as president. He died in Beirut, Lebanon on June 30, 1967. |
The
Druzes during the First Four Years of Independence
During
the four years of his presidency, Quwwatli remained locked in a destructive and
inconclusive struggle with the Druze chieftains over administrative control of
the Jabal, for he did not have the military means to destroy the Atrashes. At
the outset of independence the Jabal was, as one observer put it, "ruled
absolutely by the Atrash family, whose members, or their nominees, fill all the
important posts."[18]
Atrashes staffed the top twenty positions in the local administration,
including the head of the 350 Druze gendarmes and the Druze police force; the qa'immaqams (county commissioners) and
lessor district administrators were clan leaders appointed by Amir Hasan.[19]
Moreover the 850 strong Groupement Druze
stationed in the Jabal had been renamed the Druze Cavalry Battalion by the Amir
following its expulsion of the French in 1945.[20]
Major Hamid al-Atrash was appointed its commander.
When
Hasan al-Atrash was asked to abandon his feudal authority and the monopoly over
office-holding in the Jabal enjoyed by his family, he flew into a rage.
"The Atrash family by right of conquest and tradition are the natural and
historical leaders" of the Druzes, he proclaimed.[21]
He ridiculed the notion that anyone but an Atrash could rule the Jabal, and
insisted that only the community's traditional rulers could safeguard the
interests of the Druzes. The mistrust separating the two sides was profound and
precluded either from negotiating seriously over power-sharing arrangements.
The
result of these disagreements was that political concerns outweighed all others
in matters relating to the Jabal Druze. The President devoted all the
government's energy and money spent in the Jabal on activities designed to
destroy the power of the Atrashes, rather than to develop the economy and raise
the standard of living, which might have alleviated some of the sources of
Druze discontent. When national elections held in July 1947 resulted in a
stunning victory for the five Atrash candidates in the Jabal districts, the
government announced that the voting process in the Jabal had been fraudulent,
despite claims to the contrary by its own election supervisor in the region.
President Quwwatli insisted that new elections would have to be held for the
five Jabal seats.[22]
New elections were never held and the Druze seats in the Syrian Parliament
remained vacant until the end of Quwwatli's presidency in 1949.
Quwwatli's
meddling in Jabal politics and determination to crush the power of Atrashes
provoked a civil war among the Druzes. To undermine Atrash authority and push
for a "victory over treason and plots in the Jabal," the government
armed and funded a collection of secondary clan leaders from the northern Jabal
who called themselves the Jabha
al-Sha`biyya (Peoples' Front) or more simply the Sha`biyyun, or Populars.[23]
The Populars had long resented what they described as the "despotism"
and "corruption" of the Atrashes. They wanted to end the Atrash
monopoly over the political system in the Jabal, and sought to exploit the
growing battle between the government and the leading tribes of the Jabal in
order to catapult themselves into the first rank of Druze society and politics.
They festooned their headquarters with Syrian flags and accused the Atrashes of
being traitors who were conspiring with the Jordanians to invade Syria and
establish a throne for King `Abdallah in Damascus. To demonstrate how in tune
they were with the new spirit of independence, they characterized their
struggle as being "the inevitable clash between the feudal and democratic
systems."[24]
The
conflict between the Populars and Atrashes led to a number of full pitched
battles during the Fall of 1947 which served only to harden the animosities
dividing, on the one hand, the leading Druze families from the secondary
shaykhs, and on the other, the Druze community as a whole from the government.
The government-backed Populars enjoyed a number of initial successes. In July a
Popular militia overran the town of Salkhad, shooting 20 Atrash supporters and expelling
all its Atrash administrators.[25]
In November they shot an additional 20 Atrash troops in an attack on Qraya,
Sultan Pasha's village. This time, however, the Atrashes were fully prepared
for their enemies. Sultan Pasha and Amir Hasan led their troops in a victorious
counter-attack, completely routing the Populars, killing many of their men and
capturing their four principal leaders, who were held hostage during the
ensuing peace negotiations.[26]
The forces of the Popular Front were unable to rally from this defeat and the
Atrashes shut the Jabal off from the rest of Syria by cutting the phone lines,
roads, and railway connections to the rest of the country, in order to prevent
the Syrian army from intervening on the side of the Populars. At the height of
the fighting in the Jabal, the French Minister to Syria exclaimed: "We
tried to split the Jabal for 25 years. Is the Syrian Government going to
succeed in 18 months?"[27]
He need not have worried. The broader Druze community's faith in and support
for its traditional leaders was not to be undermined so easily by the Syrian
government.
The
Atrashes were able to beat back President Quwwatli's and the Popular Front's
challenge to their leadership in the Jabal, but at the cost of becoming ever
more isolated in their Jabal stronghold. The growing parliamentary opposition
to President Quwwatli was unable to help the Atrashes despite valiant attempts
to do so. Quwwatli's opponents in Parliament had insisted that the government's
policy in the Jabal was unconstitutional and unjust. They demanded a full
investigation into the "illegal," secret accounts the President and
Prime Minister had established to fund their war in the Jabal, but the Syrian
leaders turned them a deaf ear and scuttled all efforts by Parliament to set up
a special investigative committee.[28]
The British, historic allies of the Druzes, refused to aid the Atrashes,
despite entreaties that they do so. Much more damaging to the Druze position,
however, was King `Abdallah's refusal to come to their aid. The Jordanian
monarch had promised repeatedly to send the Arab Legion into the Jabal and
annex it to Jordan if the Druzes so requested.[29]
Atrash defiance of the Syrian government depended on the credibility of
`Abdallah's threat to move into the Jabal with his army. However, when the
Atrashes called on `Abdallah to annex the Jabal during the summer of 1947, the
King refused. Preoccupied with the growing conflict in Palestine and warned
against exacerbating inter-Arab conflict by the British and Saudis, `Abdallah
put off his ambitions in Syria. As a result the Druzes discovered they were
alone in their battle with the Syrian government. Their only consistent ally
was Kamal Junblat, the leader of the Lebanese Druzes, but he could offer only
mediation and a voice of reason, not armed assistance.
The
Atrashes had no choice but to patch up relations with the secondary clans of
the Jabal and, at least temporarily, with Damascus. This task was made easier
by their military success against the Populars in the closing months of 1947,
and perhaps more importantly, by President Quwwatli's disastrous mishandling of
the 1948 War in Palestine. With his presidency in shambles by the end of 1948
and his self-confidence broken, Quwwatli ordered a quick resolution to the turmoil
in the Jabal. Assistance to the Populars was terminated and government money
was again made available to the Atrashes. Gone were Quwwatli's ambitions to
destroy the power of the Druze chieftains and to find an alternative leadership
for the Jabal. During the last months of his rule President Quwwatli was
consumed by the need to end widespread anti-government demonstrations in
Syria's major cities and growing insubordination in the ranks of the military.
A
final truce between the Populars and Atrashes was signed in December 1948 with
considerable fanfare. The press depicted it as a triumph for Sultan Pasha's
leadership and wisdom. Opposition members of the Syrian Parliament flocked to
the Jabal to be photographed with the great Syrian nationalist, Sultan Pasha.
Leaders of the Popular Front, seated next to Amir Hasan, spoke of how the only
defense of the Druze community against its enemies lay in its unshakable unity.
Even the government-appointed Muhafiz, `Arif al-Nakadi, who had negotiated the
truce in the Jabal, saw fit to denounce the government. "False promises
and misdirected appropriations," on the part of Jamil Mardam, the Prime
Minister, Nakadi announced, had caused long and frustrating delays in resolving
the Jabal dispute. Nakadi finished his speech by tendering his resignation.[30]
Overall, it was not a proud day for the Syrian government, none of whose
members saw fit to attend the ceremonies.
Though
Atrash leaders made gestures of good will toward the government as befitted the
moment, all was not well between the Jabal Druze and Damascus. A pall of ill
will hung over the ceremonies promising future battles between the old world
Jabal chieftains still clinging to their independence, communal privileges, and
multiple loyalties, and the new national government, propelled by the modern
logic of centralization and state-building. Perhaps the words of Sultan Pasha's
earlier speeches still echoed in Syrian ears. He was a master at claiming the
moral high-ground of Arab nationalism as Druze turf, of turning government
accusations of Druze treason back on their source, and likening the new rulers
in Damascus to the French colonizers they had so recently replaced. In one such
speech about an earlier incident in which the government had unsuccessfully tried
to stir up confessional animosities, Sultan Pasha warned:
Undoubtedly the...
incident stirred our feeling, yet it did not change our principles and shall
not obliterate any page of our national struggle and jihad against the cruel
colonizer.
We did not make the
struggle for the sake of persons, neither did we fight in order that X or Y
becomes President of the Republic or a Minister, but we did our fighting for
the sake of a true Arab principle and on a steady belief which drove us to act
for the expulsion of the foreigner and for obtaining freedom and
independence....
We want to know
the attitude of the Arab League Governments toward the suspicious attitude
which the Government of Damascus has taken regarding this Jabal and its
interests....
Some persons have
infiltrated into our sacred revolution and have disfigured it and plotted
against it. We have serious documents that we will publish when we find it in
the public interest, and then the Arab world will judge who is sincere for the
Arab cause, the Jabal or the men in power....
In
the meantime, we continue to hold to our independence and freedom....[31]
Sultan
Pasha, like Hasan al-Atrash, always maintained that he in particular, and the
Druze community in general, epitomized the true Arab principles of freedom and
independence, the essential values of the nation. Having led the Great Syrian
Revolt of 1925-27 along with the Damascene leader, `Abd al-Rahman
al-Shahbandar, he believed that Shukri al-Quwwatli and the other leaders of the
National Bloc, which was formed after the suppression of the revolt in an
effort to rest control of the nationalist movement from Shahbandar and Sultan
Pasha, had perverted the national cause and plotted against it.[32]
This version of nationalist history gained considerable credibility after
Shahbandar was assassinated in 1940, apparently on the orders of the National
Bloc leaders who feared he would recapture the leadership of Syria's
nationalist movement from them. Sultan Pasha remained true to the original Hashimite
legacy of Syrian nationalism and to the policies of his murdered colleague by
continuing to support King `Abdallah of Jordan as the rightful leader of Syria
after independence and by promoting his plan to unify Greater Syria.[33]
Shishakli
and the Druzes
Independence
and freedom were the two things `Adib Shishakli could not and would not permit
the Druzes. Though the Atrashes were upstanding Arab nationalists, they refused
to abandon their particularism, seeing no contradiction between the two.
Shishakli, however, saw minority demands for special privileges as tantamount
to treason. His increasingly chauvinistic notions of Arab nationalism were
predicated on the denial that "minorities" existed in Syria. He
demanded complete conformity from the Druzes, and outlawed any institutional or
cultural display of confessionalism in Syria. More important than his use of
Arab nationalism in his crackdown on the Druzes, however, were his ambitions
for Syria. Shishakli's over-arching goals were to consolidate the authority of
his regime and to make Syria the Prussia of the Arab world. Neither could be
achieved without eliminating the centrifugal forces in Syrian society which
were the source of its weakness, forces which had caused the overthrow of past
regimes and left Syria prey to the interference and unity schemes of its
neighbors. Shishakli sought to make an example of the Druze community in his
campaign to crack down on insubordination, illegal activities, and external
influence in Syria.
There
were numerous reasons for Shishakli to place the Druzes at the head of his
serpentine opposition. Druze officers were legendary for their willingness to
plot coups, having played crucial roles in overthrowing both Quwwatli and
Za`im. Amir Hasan and Sultan Pasha al-Atrash were equally renowned for their
querulousness and stubborn refusal to do Damascus' bidding. They led the
procession of Syrian dignitaries who raced to the capital to congratulate
Colonel Husni al-Za`im on his successful coup in March 1949, and then just as quickly
turned on Za`im when he sent strong forces to garrison the Jabal in an open
attempt to threaten the Atrash.[34]
When Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi overthrew Za`im in August 1949, Amir Hasan
al-Atrash and a number of Druze officers were his staunchest supporters.
Hinnawi called for the return to power of Syria's traditional politicians, and
for the quick unification of Syria and Iraq, both policies the Druzes
supported. The Druze leaders had never tried to conceal their disdain for
Syria's republican form of government nor their admiration for the old world
set-up of the Hashimite monarchies of Jordan and Iraq. Syria came very close to
unifying with Iraq during the brief tenure of Hinnawi's regime and the Druze
remained among union's most vociferous advocates.
This
made them the natural enemies of Colonel Shishakli's who took power in December
1949 in the name of all Syrians who wanted the unity talks stopped. They saw
the combination of Syria and Iraq not as the fulfillment of the Arab
nationalist dream, but as a nightmare scenario in which Syria, a young and
unformed planet in the new Arab firmament would be sucked into the superior
gravitational field of Iraq. It would lose its independence, gain a Hashimite
monarch, and find itself locked into Iraq's pro-British and western orbit. To
the northern Syrian notables of Aleppo and Homs, as well as the eastern tribal
leaders of the Jazira and Jabal Druze who had been excluded from power under
Quwwatli and Za`im, such a prospect seemed inviting if it would bring them to power.
How else could they end the Damascene hegemony over Syria if not by using the
powerful counterbalance of Baghdad? To the elites of Syria's two great southern
cities, Hama and Damascus, who had always used their alliance with Egypt and
Saudi Arabia to undergird their commanding role in Syria politics, the Iraqi
option could only spell disaster. The radical nationalists of the growing Ba`th
Party headquartered in Damascus and Hawrani's Socialist Party centered in Hama
equally looked to Egypt for support. For the Syrian left it was the
conservatism of the Hashimite monarchy, which was anathema. Thus, a shaky
strategic alliance emerged in Syria dividing the country along regional rather
than socio-economic lines, with the south dominated by Damascus and supported
by Egypt, and the north and peripheries dominated by Aleppo and supported by
Iraq. Syria's zigzagging foreign policy of the 1950s, in which the county
lurched between the gravitational pulls of Iraq and Egypt only to end up
careening into the latter's imperial embrace at decade's end to form the United
Arab Republic, has been well told.[35]
The
importance of these dividing lines in Syrian politics for the Jabal is that it
placed the Druzes on the wrong side of Shishakli's politics in three important
ways. First, the Druze desire to maintain the autonomy of the Jabal flew in the
face of Shishakli's need to shore up state authority. Second, Shishakli's
alliance with the Syrian left led him to attack the Druze community as a
bastion of confessionalism, feudalism, and tribalism, the three marks of social
backwardness the left was determined to stamp out. Third, the Atrashes were
determined to pursue their own pro-Iraqi foreign policy and acted as a
bridgehead for Hashimite influence in Syria.
If
Shishakli thought the Druzes would give him time to consolidate his new
government, he was sorely disappointed. Within two weeks of his takeover,
intelligence reports confirmed that Sultan Pasha, in cahoots with the governor
and chief of the gendarmerie in the Jabal, had accepted Iraqi arms and
financial aid and was preparing his followers to take part in a fourth coup --
one that was designed to return Aleppo's pro-Iraqi politicians to power and
complete the union process with Iraq which Shishakli had interrupted.[36]
The
Financial Integration of the Jabal
Shishakli
brought Syrian law and administration to the Jabal Druze with a ferocity and
speed which President Quwwatli could only have dreamed of. Before the military
build-up spurred by the 1948 War in Palestine, radical political change in
Syria had always originated with the tribal levies of the hinterland: such was
the case with the Arab Revolt of 1917, the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925, and the
mutiny against the French in 1945. During the 1948 War, the military equation
in Syria changed for good; no longer could the cavalry forces at the disposal
of traditional chieftains, such as the Atrashes, alter the course of Syrian
politics or intimidate the central government. The Syrian Army grew
exponentially during these years. In mid-1947 the army numbered no more than
7,000 active troops; by the end 1948 it grew to 18,000. Husni Za`im built it up
to 31,700 men in 1949, and by the end of 1951 Shishakli had increased its size
to 43,000.[37] The
military's strength put an end to any possibility of successful civilian
resistance to the central state.
Bringing
the finances of the Jabal Druze under the control of the government
administration was one of the first tasks of the Shishakli regime.[38]
Under President Quwwatli, the economy and finances of the Jabal had remained
the preserve of its Atrash governors. For much of that time they were in chaos
because of the expulsion of the French who had administered Jabal finances
under the Mandate, and later because of the civil strife which tore apart the
Jabal in 1947 and 1948. The annual economic subsidy of some one million pounds
which maintained the Jabal administration under the Mandate was withheld by
Quwwatli and a "special fund" was established by the President to
finance his anti-Atrash activities.[39]
When locusts and drought ravaged the Jabal's crops in 1946 and 1947, only the
distribution of wheat by MIRA, the agency established by the British to control
the supply of grain, saved the Druzes from starvation.
"Subsidy,
smuggling, and hashish," as one diplomat stated, were the sources of
Atrash finances.[40] Shishakli
did his best to root out all three. Subsidies from Jordan ceased following the
death of King `Abdallah in 1951. Smuggling of arms and contraband slowed as
Shishakli expanded the number of boarder police stationed along Syria's
southern and eastern frontiers. Hashish production in the Jabal, which
constituted the most important source of Atrash revenues, was also reduced. The
Atrashes largely controlled the farming of hashish in the Jabal, and Amir Hasan
was among its principal cultivators. Though the exact size of the Hashish crop
in the Jabal was always in dispute, the Commandant of the Syrian Gendarmerie
estimate that some 500 hectares were devoted to it in 1947. Given hashish
prices of the time, such a crop was worth 2,500,000 Syrian pounds (roughly
$1,000,000), a sizable amount considering the poverty of the Jabal. Under
Quwwatli the Syrian government passed legislation prohibiting the planting of
hashish, but officials readily admitted they could do nothing to eradicate
hashish in the Jabal until the Druzes were "forcibly administered by a
non-Druze authority."[41]
This
is precisely what Shishakli did. According to U.S. reports, the ban against the
cultivation of hashish was "in the main consistently enforced" in the
Jabal Druze, and its smuggling to Jordan was "sharply curtailed."[42]
According to a Lebanese Druze journalist, `Adib al-Shishakli appointed his
brother, Salah, Director of Border Control, a position he exploited to
centralize the smuggling of drugs in Syria under his personal command. Border
guards and official vehicles were used to transport Turkish opium and Lebanese
hashish to Jordan where it was then shipped to Egypt for consumption. According
to this account, which seems reliable, Salah al-Shishakli pushed the Druzes out
of the drug trade, slashing Atrash finances and harming the Druze community as
a whole.[43]
The
Declining Importance of the Jabal in Syria's Economy
Much
more important to the declining fortunes of the Druze community, however, was
the general stagnation of the Jabal economy at a time when Syria was undergoing
its most dramatic economic boom. Not a single major development project was
carried out in the Jabal during the Shishakli period. Development of Syria's
water supply such as the Homs-Hama, Khabur, Sinn, al-Mudiq, and Muzayrib
irrigation projects, and the draining of the Ghab and Rawj swamps exhausted the
government's development budget and did nothing for the Jabal Druze. By irrigating
an additional 195,446 acres they increased Syria's agricultural production and
drove down local grain prices, the mainstay of the Druze economy.[44]
This process was repeated on an even grander scale with the spread of
engine-powered irrigation pumps. Indeed, the Shishakli years witnessed, what
one observer called, "the great pump expansion" in Syria.[45]
In 1951 alone the number of water pumps in use in Syria doubled from the
previous year to a total of 5,068. They opened up a further 837,000 acres of
land for irrigation, more than half of which was in the Euphrates and Jazira
regions of the Syrian Northeast, followed by Aleppo, Damascus and Hama.
According to Syrian Ministry of Agriculture figures, none of these pumps was
registered in the Hawran or Jabal Druze area. Of the 1343 agricultural tractors
and 694 combine harvesters registered in Syria in 1951, 75 percent were in the
Jazira and few if any in the Jabal Druze.[46]
All the available statistics for Syrian agriculture lead to the conclusion that
Shishakli's booming economy bypassed the Jabal economy.
By
1953 the Jabal economy was not only in relative decline compared to the rest of
Syria, but was declining absolutely. Druze officials in 1953 stated "that
wheat and barley originally supplied to Damascus and other cities in southern
Syria largely from the Hawran and the Jabal Druze are now being grown more
economically in such newly developed areas as the Jazira."[47]
This was true enough. Wheat production in Syria was 357,770 metric tons in
1942, 567,875 metric tons in 1946, 750,000 metric tons in 1950, and 800,000
metric tons in 1953.[48]
It had doubled in a decade, and most of the increase was due to the
capitalist-entrepreneurs responsible for opening up the Jazira. Druze farmers
could not compete with the large mechanized farms of the North which were
driving down agricultural prices. "This does not mean that the Druzes are
starving," said the Druze officials, "but they no longer have that
market for their surplus grain that formerly existed."[49]
The
nationalist and pro-industrial policies of the Shishakli government further
squeezed the profits of Druze farmers. Heavy export taxes on grains kept local
wheat prices artificially low while import taxes on farm equipment, industrial
products, and imports such as textiles and canned goods kept farming costs
high. The consumers and industrialists of the cities benefited at the expense
of rural farmers. Much of the government's foreign exchange was earned from the
tax on grain exports, which only encouraged it to raise rates. A further 20
percent of total government revenues was derived from direct agricultural taxes
while only a fraction of that was exacted from the industrial sector. Because
taxes on income and property were only beginning to take hold in Syria and the
government could not count on them for a significant share of its revenues, it
had little choice but to rely on the countryside for revenue.[50]
Despite constant pleas for tax reform from Syria's agriculturalists, Shishakli
had little alternative but to squeeze farmers in order to fill state coffers.
Many Druze farmers, unable to compete in such hostile circumstances, were
forced off the land and into Syria's urban centers, speeding the process of
geographic integration and the creation of a national economy.
Why
did Shishakli not earmark any major development projects for the Jabal? Many
Druzes believed that he neglected the Jabal out of spite, because, like Shukri
al-Quwwatli before him, he believed the Druze community was a "dangerous
minority," one that had to be punished, not rewarded.[51]
Syrian officials gave other reasons to explain why the Jabal received less
development money than any other muhafaza.
They claimed that the economic crisis in the Jabal was due not to government
neglect but to "overpopulation." Many concluded that the only
long-term solution was to resettle as many Druzes as possible in the rich
Jazira.[52]
This was a far-fetched plan, but one nevertheless regularly considered by
government and Druze officials alike. A few Druzes, such as Amir Hasan, did
acquire land in the Jazira, but this was a solution that only the richest could
afford.[53]
Perhaps the reason that the relocation scheme continued to resurface was that
no obvious solution to the Jabal's poverty existed. The hardscrabble and arid
hills of the Jabal had few streams, which were suitable for irrigation or the
generation of power, and its rocky terraces were ill suited for tractors.
Moreover, landownership in the Jabal was more fragmented than in any other
region of Syria save the neighboring muhafaza
of Hawran. Already in 1944, 33 percent of the Jabal's land was held in plots of
10 hectares or less, and a further 53 percent in plots less than 100 hectares.
Poverty in the Jabal was not caused by an unequal distribution of land as in some
regions of Syria and could not be solved by land redistribution.[54]
The
Administrative Integration of the Jabal Druze
Whether
Shishakli's neglect of the Jabal Druze economy was purposeful or benign, there
was no doubt about his intention to limit the political authority of the Druzes
and to make the community an integral part of the population. The one
development project which did attract attention was the construction of an
excellent asphalt road running from Suwayda' due north almost as far as Shahba,
the second most important town in the Jabal situated in the heart of Atrash
territory. The purpose of this road, however, was so that "troops could be
moved its entire distance in half an hour if necessary."[55]
As in other aspects of his rule, General Shishakli relied on the Syrian Army to
ensure the passivity of the Jabal and its continuing integration into Syrian
society. As the U.S. Ambassador wrote:
Though
charged with watching Syria's frontiers with Jordan and Israel, the troops
stationed in south Syria are disposed in a manner designed to discourage
internal unrest. A brigade has its headquarters in Ezra on the edge of the
Jebel Druze and one of its three battalions... is stationed in Swayda itself,
with a transport company in support a short distance to the west of Ezra on the
Swayda-Damascus road.[56]
Far
from being content to watch the Druze economy decline and to station troops
where they could easily quell social discontent in the Jabal, Shishakli sought
to bring every facet of Druze life into conformity with state law and central
authority. It was only the year before Shishakli took power that Damascus
papers had the occasion to trumpet "the introduction of normal Syrian
legal processes into the Jabal as a long step forward."[57]
The occasion was the sentencing and conviction for the first time in Jabal
history of an individual accused of murder according to Syrian civil law rather
than Druze tribal law. The full imposition of civil law in the Jabal, however,
was only completed under General Shishakli.[58]
Moreover,
Shishakli did not hesitate to use his control of the courts to intimidate the
Druze population. In one incident in 1951 he had 35 Druze officers and soldiers
arrested "for alleged contacts with smuggling and espionage activity for
Israel." Several days later the Syrian army surrounded the Druze town of
Majdal Shams in the Hawran to search for spies, causing 50 of its inhabitants
to flee to Israel. Druze notables travelled to Damascus to protest these
actions, but to little avail; several of the officers were executed.[59]
In 1953 the Procureur-Général of the Syrian Supreme Court confessed "that
no Christian and few Moslems had since 1948 been convicted of espionage, the
great bulk of the guilty ones having been Druzes."[60]
No
change limited the political power of the Druzes in Syria or integrated the
Jabal into the civil administration of the country more than Shishakli's
careful attempt to limit the number of Druzes holding key positions in the
Jabal. President Quwwatli earned the distinction of breaking the Atrash
political monopoly over the Jabal when he managed to appoint a Lebanese Druze
as governor in 1948. Shishakli broke with Quwwatli's more cautious policy of
using only Lebanese Druzes as government emissaries to the Jabal; he routinely
appointed non-Druze governors of the Jabal. Following his second coup in 1951,
Shishakli further demonstrated his destain for Druze sensibilities by appointed
to the post a succession of unknown officials whose only qualifications were
their membership in Shishakli's new Arab Liberation Movement and their complete
loyalty to the President. Officials subordinate to the Muhafiz were likewise
replaced with non-Druzes picked for their loyalty to the Syrian government. In
Shahba, where the `Amr clan, the second family of the Jabal and close ally of
the Atrashes, had traditionally provided most of the local officials, outsiders
were given full control.[61]
At almost every level of the Jabal's administration the authority of the great
Druze families was eliminated.
Shishakli
made no effort to placate Druze opposition to his regime or to recruit members
of the community into his Arab Liberation Movement. Amir Hasan insisted that no
self-respecting Druze would sign up for the state-sponsored party and that very
few members of leading Jabal families had joined. None held high position in
the ALM. During the carefully choreographed elections of July 1953, the
government showed its disdain for the Druze community by making no effort to
force Druzes to vote. Following the elections it announced that 65 percent of
the eligible voters in the Jabal had participated, a figure that was 20 percent
below the announced national average of 85 percent. The actual participation
rate among the Druzes, however, was estimated to be less than 5 percent. The
publication of a lower voting figure for the muhafaza indicated how little disturbed Syrian authorities were by
Druze apathy towards the central government. The U.S. Ambassador concluded
that,
there
has been a marked decline recently in the political importance of Syria's Druze
community. The government in Damascus is, as a result, under increasingly less
compulsion to consider the reaction of the Druze community, as distinct from
that of Syrians generally, in shaping its policies. In the recent presidential
election, the traditional unwillingness of the Druzes to support the central
government was again demonstrated, but the government appears unconcerned with
the degree of passive opposition which seems now the limit of Druze
capabilities. There is no present prospect that this proud but impoverished
community will again be in a position to threaten the security of the Syrian
State without large-scale outside assistance.[62]
Even
in small matters, Shishakli tried to wipe away symbols of Druze tradition in
the hope of "Syrianizing" the Jabal community. Street names were
altered to glorify General Shishakli and martyrs who died fighting the French.
The Greek amphitheater in Shahba was renamed for General Silu, the nominal head
of state in 1952. Members of the Atrash family for whom the French had built
houses were forced to vacate them without compensation.[63]
Not
only did Shishakli undertake to reduce the role of Druzes in the administration
of the Jabal, but also he similarly reduced or circumscribed their
participation in the government institutions of the central state. The U.S.
Ambassador explained: "Recognizing the clannishness of the Druze
community, its secret religion, and social differentiation from the rest of
Syria, General Shishakli has appeared to follow a policy of limiting the number
of Druzes holding key positions." In the ranks of the Foreign Service, for
example, the only Druze to hold an important post was the Ambassador to
Washington, Farid Zayn al-Din, and he was a Lebanese Druze who had officially
converted to Sunni Islam. Druze members of the Syrian diplomatic corps
complained bitterly that they had abandoned all hope of career advancement
because the "authorities would not permit two Druzes to serve at the same Foreign
Service post," presumably because of their traditional unreliability.[64]
Shishakli
weeded Druzes out of the military with even greater care than he did from other
branches of the government.[65]
By 1953 all Syrian Druze officers with the rank of full Colonel had been retired
from the service save one, Colonel Amin Abu `Asaf, who was transferred to a
remote posting in Dayr al-Zur where Shishakli believed he would be unable to
cause trouble. Two Atrashes, Colonel Hamad and Sultan Pasha's brother, Colonel
Zayd, were retired in 1952.[66]
Shishakli
Attacks the Druzes
By
the summer of 1953 Shishakli's dictatorial rule had caused widespread
discontent in Syria. Believing that he could win back public approval by
legalizing political parties and calling for parliamentary elections, Shishakli
announced the re-institution of democratic forms of political life. The result
of this abrupt reversal of policy was to give legal expression to the universal
opposition to his rule and not to win back public support. Syria's political
class exploited their renewed freedom to form the National Front in a rare
demonstration of unanimity. It called for an end to Shishakli's "absolute
dictatorial administration," and the restoration of constitutional rule.
No community in Syria was more outspoken in its opposition to Shishakli than
the Druzes. Resentful of the central government for eliminating their special
privileges, frustrated by government neglect of the Jabal economy, and
convinced that they had been singled out for persecution under Shishakli, the
Druzes guided by the Atrash family took the lead in opposing the government at
every turn.
Public
expression of Druze opposition to Shishakli's regime began following the arrest
of two of Sultan Pasha's sons, Mansur and Captain Nasir al-Atrash in May 1953.
Both were members of the Ba`th Party and had been involved in a series of small
bombings in Damascus. Their arrest spurred Sultan Pasha to join over one
hundred Syrian politicians in signing a petition opposing dictatorial rule in
Syria. The signers of this petition also secretly pledged to unseat the
dictator and "agreed that each province of Syria should prepare for its
own liberation, but that the signal for revolt throughout the country would be
a rising in the Jabal Druze."[67]
Despite an attempt by Shishakli to appease Sultan Pasha by releasing Mansur,
the Druze chieftain refused to announce his support for Shishakli as the
President had anticipated; rather, he proclaimed: "I did not ask Shishakli
for the freedom of my son; I asked him for the freedom of the country."[68]
Real
trouble came to the Jabal in January when Mansur was again arrested, this time
for handing out Ba`thist tracts in the Jabal condemning Shishakli. Believing
that a coordinated attack on his regime had begun, Shishakli moved quickly to
nip it in the bud. He arrested Amir Hasan al-Atrash and a delegation of Druze
notables then in Damascus. Protests broke out in the Jabal which quickly got
out of control when the Syrian army tried to put them down. When a small column
of gendarmes was cut down outside of Qraya, the home of Sultan Pasha, where
they had been sent to arrest the Druze leader, Shishakli dispatched 10,000
regular troops to occupy the Jabal. Several towns were bombarded with heavy
weapons, killing scores of civilians and destroying many houses. According to
Druze accounts, Shishakli encouraged neighboring bedouin tribes to plunder the
defenseless population and allowed his own troops to run amok.
Moreover,
Shishakli launched a brutal campaign to defame the Druzes for their religion
and politics. He accused the entire community of treason, at times claiming
they were agents of the British and Hashimites, at others that they were
fighting for Israel against the Arabs. He even produced a cache of Israeli
weapons allegedly discover in the Jabal. Even more painful for the Druze
community was his publication of "falsified Druze religious texts"
and false testimonials ascribed to leading Druze shaykhs designed to stir up
sectarian hatred.[69]
Egypt, fearful that the British and Hashimites might be behind the unrest in
Syria, lent the prestige of their Sawt
al-Arab broadcasts to Shishakli's propaganda campaign. A typical Egyptian
announcement read:
The
Druzes are a sect. They are not Arab; they are not Arab in any way. The Druzes
hate the Arabs. The Druzes have their own beliefs. They are servants of the
British and Jews in Israel. The Druzes are traitors, enemies of Islam, friends
of Israel.[70]
In
crushing the Druzes, Shishakli demonstrated the overwhelming power of the
central state. The Jabal was pacified in only a few days and its leaders, with
the exception of Sultan Pasha who managed to escape to Jordan, were arrested.
Demonstrations which spread throughout Syria during and following the fighting
in the Jabal were likewise suppressed, and many politicians thrown into prison.
The U.S. Ambassador wrote:
Though certainly not cowed, the
Druze are believed to be in no position to undertake further serious trouble at
present.... Control of the Army and police has enabled (and still enables)
[Shishakli] to maintain his authority. It seems evident that he will continue
his control over the domestic situation only as long as he controls the
security forces.[71]
The
Druze Role in the Military Revolt against Shishakli's Regime
In
the early morning of 25 February 1954 the Syrian army battalions stationed in
the north of the country rose in revolt against Shishakli's regime. By the end
of the day Shishakli had fled the country and Syria's traditional politicians
were returned to power. Though the colonels who revolted against Shishakli
represented every major political movement in Syria, the first plans for the
coup were hatched in Dayr al-Zur by disaffected Druze officers who were angered
by Shishakli's treatment of them, and of the Druze community at large. Based on
statements made by a number of army officers, including Captain Muhammad
al-Atrash, the U.S. Ambassador filed the following report.
Available information
indicates that the plans for the revolt were originally concocted in Deir-ez-Zor
rather than Aleppo. Because of its isolated position, Deir-ez-Zor had become
something of a place of exile for Army officers, including a disproportionate
number of Druzes.... At the time of the revolt, more than half the officers of
the Deir-ez-Zor garrison, including the commanding officer, Colonel Amin Abu
Asaf, were Druzes. Perhaps General Shishakli enhanced the reliability of other
units of his Army by this separation of the Druze element, but by allowing a
frustrated minority to concentrate in one place, he created a hothouse for the
cultivation of rebellious plans.
The
original plot was probably conceived... as early as the summer of 1953, by
Colonel Asaf and Captain Mohammed al-Atrash.... Both of these men opposed the
Shishakli regime because of its treatment of the Druze minority; in addition,
Colonel Asaf has the reputation of being a troublemaker... Captain al-Atrash
was a follower of [the Ba`th Party].... Furthermore, he is a nephew of Sultan
Pasha al-Atrash and a first cousin of Mansur al-Atrash.[72]
The
Ambassador continues in his report to detail how and when each of the colonels
commanding garrisons in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Latakia were induced to join
the revolt. Evidently Muhammad al-Atrash was instrumental in convincing many of
the colonels to join, not only because of his connections to the Ba`th Party,
which had failed in previous attempts to overthrow Shishakli, but more
importantly, because he was a scion of the powerful Atrash family. His family
connections, not his party affiliation, won him the trust of the more
conservative officers, such as Colonel Faysal al-Atasi who emerged as the
titular leader of the "five colonels." Muhammad al-Atrash's influence
with Colonel Atasi was based on his relationship to Sultan Pasha, just as the
army officers' decision to name Colonel Atasi leader of the coup was based on
the fact that he was the nephew of Hashim al-Atasi, the leader of the National
Front and agreed upon next President of Syria.[73]
Once the civilian uprising had been suppressed, Sultan Pasha driven into exile,
and Hashim al-Atasi placed under arrest, the two nephews undoubtedly shared the
conviction that it was up to them to depose Shishakli.
Conclusion
The
army had become the ultimate arbiter in Syrian politics. No observer could help
but draw this primary lesson from the success of the military revolt which
overthrew `Adib al-Shishakli in February 1954. Shishakli made a serious attempt
to balance the centrifugal forces which made Syria so difficult to govern. The
four years of relative prosperity and stability he brought Syria stood as a
small island of calm in the turbulent three decades of coups and revolving
governments which marked Syria from 1940 to 1970. Moreover, his rule establish
numerous precedents for state-building in Syria. The swift suppression of the
civilian uprising, which began in the Jabal Druze only a month prior to the
military revolt which brought him down, confirmed the extent to which army
officers had wrested political power from the hands of the traditional civilian
elite and demonstrated how impotent they had become in the face of Syria's
rapidly centralizing state. So long as the army remained united behind the
President, no amount of popular pressure could remove him.
The
success of the military putsch, however, revealed that the Syrian army was
anything but united. Rent by sectarian, regional, and political factionalism,
the officer corps was as deeply divided as the society from which it was
recruited. Shishakli's attempt to weed out disloyal officer groups, most
notably the Druze officers, and replace them with Sunnis from his hometown of
Hama did not go far enough. Though his government had become known as a "Hamawi regime" because he had
surrounded himself with fellow Hama officers, his effort to create a
homogeneous power elite was a failure -- a fact attested to by the success of
colonels from other parts of Syria in unseating him.[74]
Shishakli's
attempt to consolidate his rule and bring political stability to Syria by
eliminating competing political and sectarian factions from the top ranks of
the army established a principle of government that out lasted his regime. All
successors to Shishakli followed this sound precept, though only Hafiz al-Asad
has perfected it, making him the longest Damascus-based ruler of Syria since
Mu`awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty.[75]
The
Druzes learned at considerable cost that they could no longer challenge the
authority of Damascus openly. Shishakli revolutionized the way in which the
central state dealt with the Druzes. He dismantled their autonomous legal,
economic, and administrative institutions so jealously defended throughout
their history. Rather than be drawn into local Druze affairs by playing one
faction off against another as his successors had, Shishakli struck at the
community as a whole. He replaced the Atrash and `Amr officials who had
monopolized the administrative posts in the Jabal with minor state
functionaries who were neither Druze nor knowledgeable about Druze affairs. He stationed
large numbers of troops in the Jabal, removed Druze officers from the upper
echelons of the army, and brought the full force of Syrian law to bear on the
Jabal population.
Shishakli
made no effort to develop the Jabal economy. The single infrastructural
improvement there, financed by the central state, was the paving of the
Suwayda'- Shahba road, a project which won little good will for Shishakli as it
was designed for military purposes. Private investment, responsible for the
lion's share of Syria's impressive economic growth during the early 1950s, was
also sadly lacking in the Jabal. The mountainous terrain and small size of
farms in the region impeded the use of tractors and water pumps, the two
technological advances which spurred agricultural expansion in most other
provinces of Syria. Prosperity was further damaged by Shishakli's crackdown on
the illicit income many Druzes derived from the cultivation of hashish and
smuggling arms and other contraband across the border with Jordan.
As
Druze agriculture lost its competitive edge, the financial and political
influence of the community also diminished. The marginalization of their
economy forced enterprising Druzes to seek employment outside the Jabal, but
even this movement toward social integration was seriously hampered by
Shishakli's discriminatory policies. He limited Druze employment in the various
branches of the state bureaucracy and army. Consequently Druzes found most
avenues of economic and political advancement closed to them under Shishakli.
By
the end of 1953, hostility to Shishakli had grown among the Druzes such that
they were involved in every effort to bring down his regime. This growing cycle
of repression and resistance reached its climax in January 1954 when
anti-government demonstrations in the Jabal turned violent. Shishakli's
response was swift and brutal. The military and propaganda campaign he waged
against the Druzes raised the level of violence used in Syrian politics to a
new and shocking high. Though it is difficult to assess the damage done to
inter-communal relations in Syria by Shishakli's treatment of the Druzes, there
is little doubt that its repercussions were enduring and undercut government
efforts to promote national integration. Some have suggested that the violence
used by Shishakli's Hamawi officers
in crushing the Druzes was directly responsible for the equally violent
suppression of a popular uprising in Hama by Ba`thist Druze officers in 1964.
Nikolaos Van Dam writes: "The harsh suppression of the insurrection in
Hama was attributed by some to a sectarian blood revenge (tha'r) by the prominent Druze Ba`thist Colonel Hamad `Ubayd,"
who sought to repay the "Sunni Hama officers" for their behavior a
decade earlier in the Jabal Druze.[76]
Whether
the violence of later Syrian regimes should be blamed on Shishakli or on the
natural strategies of state-building in Syria is open to debate. All the same,
his highhanded treatment of the Druzes caused many to doubt whether they would
ever see a successful integration of their community into Syria. Their
paramount tribal leader, Amir Hasan al-Atrash, confessed the doubts his
community had on this score to the British Ambassador in Damascus only weeks
after the bombing of the Jabal. He said:
The Druzes, as a
religious minority, are doomed to constant persecution in Muslim lands where no
foreign power exists to protect them.... Under the spur of Muslim hostility,
the clans of the Jabal [are] now united and the young men [are] demanding
revenge by force of arms.... The Druze elders would like to emigrate to some
land where they would not be subject to religious persecution.[77]
The
extent and duration of the damage Shishakli did to the traditional
administration of the Jabal can easily be exaggerated. Once Shishakli was deposed,
all of the old leaders regained their commanding positions in local politics.
Most enjoyed a significant boost to their reputations. When Sultan Pasha
returned to Syria from Jordan, where he had taken refuge from Shishakli's fury,
the country’s new leaders feted him as a national hero; every political party
petitioned him to join its ranks. His stature as a fearless defender of Syrian
freedom and the nation grew to mythic proportions.[78]
Syria’s political parties also wooed Amir Hasan al-Atrash.[79]
Moreover, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture by the new government in
recognition of the leading role the Druzes had played in fighting Shishakli's
tyranny. Not since Quwwatli became President of Syria in 1943 had Amir Hasan,
or any other Druze, been appointed to a cabinet position.[80]
In the parliamentary elections held in October 1954, Amir Hasan, Mansur
al-Atrash, Sultan Pasha's son, and Sayyah `Amr, the chieftain of Shahba and
ally of the Atrashes, all won overwhelming victories. Even if the traditional
leaders of the Jabal were no longer the unique mediators between their
community and the Damascus government, they continued to represent the Jabal in
the central government and play a dominant role in its politics. The Druzes
clung to their traditions where they could, and far from abandoning their pride
in and loyalty to their community, they discovered a renewed sense of unity in
their common struggle against Shishakli.
Though
Druze separatism was a thing of the past by 1954, ethnopolitics in Syria were
very much alive. Druzes politicians and military officers continued to fight
for the interests of their community within the institutions of the state.
Shishakli's ham-fisted and often brutal attempts to outlaw communal
consciousness and to Syrianize the Jabal failed to convince the Druzes that
they could place their faith in the state.
The
civil war President Quwwatli provoked in the Jabal Druze, the negotiations
carried on between the Druzes and King `Abdallah concerning the transfer of the
Jabal to Jordanian suzerainty, and the bombardment of Druze towns ordered by
Shishakli belie the commonly repeated notion that the Jabal Druze was
incorporated into the Syrian state "quite smoothly." But more than
just making us question the timing of when the Druzes became
"nationalists" or when they committed themselves to a
"successful assimilation" into a larger Syrian-Arab community, the
halting and often violent incorporation of the Jabal into Syria should make us
revise the central metaphor used by Philip Khoury and others for understanding
the spread of nationalism in Syria.
He
depicts "modern secular nationalism" to have spread like an acid over
Syria dissolving primordial identities and "corrod[ing] loyalties to
family, tribe, ethnicity and confessional group." The absence of any clear
definition of Syrian nationalism or respect for the constitution at
independence did little to provide Syrians with a national identity strong
enough to replace the time-honored and proven virtues of sectarian, tribal, and
regional loyalties. The idea of the nation in Syria following independence did
not act as a powerful acid, as many hoped it would, corroding sub-national
loyalties such that they retained only a folkloric afterglow in Syrian
political life. Instead, nationalism existed as an ideal, but in actuality each
community envisioned it in a different way by investing it with their own
religious and social values. The long political struggle for power between
Syria's sub-national communities was accompanied by an equally hard-fought
cultural struggle to construct Syria's national identity such that it resembled
their own as closely as possible.
The creation of an independent Syrian state, far from sounding the death knell for traditional loyalties to family, tribe, region, and sect, merely cordoned off a new political arena in which Syria's traditional communities had to contend for national prominence. The battle to elaborate a common national identity, as often as not, infused new cultural and political meaning into the old loyalties and sacred values, which had long defined each Syrian group's sense of who they were and how they should behave with each other.