Lack of Solidarity under A Threatened Minority Ruling Elite: The Case of the Hama Massacre

Syria is no stranger to brutal civil conflict. The

recent civil war is strangely reminiscent of the massacre,

which took place in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982. In

response to anti-government protests in the city, then-

President Hafiz al-Assad and his brother launched an assault

on and siege of Hama, killing thousands.1 Approximately

100,000 more people fled. Taking the Hama massacre as a case

study, this paper aims to investigate how the ruling elite

such as that of Syria can attack its own citizens with such

force and violence in order to quell dissent. The theory

this case study aims to test is one that postulates that

when a minority elite rules, its legitimacy is compromised,

since there is a lack of solidarity between the ruling elite

and those it rules over. This ruling elite2 has monopoly

over the means of violence and thus feels at liberty to use

1 Estimates run anywhere between 15,000 to 39,000 victims, about a tenthof the city’s population (Hama ’82, 2013). 2 Robert Dahl (1958) defines ruling elite as a controlling group that isless than a majority in size and is “not a pure artifact of democratic rules. It is a minority of individuals whose preferences regularly prevail in cases of differences in preference on key political issues” (464).

whatever means necessary to survive when threatened, even if

this means leveling a city.

A brief examination of modern Syrian history reveals

that this story is quite complex. Syria is a country that

has seen frequent government upheavals, with more coups and

countercoups than any other Middle Eastern country in a

short period of time (Le Gac 1991; Leverett 2005).3 Most of

the literature examined looks at these political upheavals

as the result of sectarian differences, but historically

speaking, there is an important class-based element to this

narrative as well. This paper will briefly touch on the idea

that political instability in Syria may be a sectarian

struggle, though the objective is to test the theory about

minority rule and the elite’s use of violence to remain in

power.

Under what circumstances then does the ruling elite

give itself the right to use brutality to quash rebellion?

Those in power can deal with rebellions in various ways:

they can negotiate with the opposition or even imprison 3 There were six coups and countercoups in just over twenty years: in 1949, 1954, 1961, 1963, 1966 and 1970.

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them, if they prove too hostile. Instead, this regime chose

to level the city, attacking and killing civilians and

militants therein indiscriminately. What is the causal

mechanism behind such use of force? Through a historical

examination of the events leading up to the 1982 massacre,

this paper will explain the actions of the detached ruling

elite as a consequence of the rising tensions between the

ruling elite and those it ruled over. Ultimately, when

opposition threatens a regime of a minority ruling elite,

the regime will respond with brutality to make sure it stays

in power and its opposition is squashed (Dahi and Munif

2011).

Social Cleavages in Syria

Syria is characterized by deep sectarian and ethnic

cleavages and great inequality. In the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries, an elite of wealthy land-owning

Arab, Sunni Muslims formed as a result of changes in

property rights under the Ottoman Empire and under French

rule (Balanche 2006; King 2009, 35). When Syria gained its

independence from the French in 1946, several ideological

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and political parties formed to rival, and eventually

supplant, the parties of this traditional land-owning elite.

Some of these parties, like the Baath, were secular. Others,

like the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, emerged to counter

these secular forces (Hasanayn 2007; King 2009).

Ethnically, Syria was also very diverse: approximately

ninety percent of the population was Arab, nine percent was

Kurdish, and the rest of the people were Armenians,

Circassians, and Turkomans.4 But the Arab majority was

further divided along sectarian lines: Sunni Muslims made up

about sixty-five percent of the population, different

offshoots of Shia Islam (Alawis, Druze and Ismailis)5 made

up about sixteen percent, and Christians and Jews made up

about ten percent of the population. These ethnic and

sectarian cleavages ran deep and continued to deepen, so

much so that “it was virtually impossible for the entity

that emerged as the modern nation-state of Syria in 1946 to 4 CIA Syria expert Martha Kessler called it a “fragile mosaic” in her 1987 report on the country (Qtd. in Leverett 2005, 215). Moshe Ma’oz (1988) and Patrick Seale (1989) also talk about the marginalization of the Alawi sect, which many Muslims in Syria saw as heterodox. 5 The Alawi community is the largest non-Sunni community in Syria, making up 11 to 12 percent of the overall population (Leverett 2005, 2).For more details about the Alawi sect, see Van Dam (2011).

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integrate its society successfully or forge a cohesive

political community” (Leverett 2005, 2). There was thus

little, if any, social solidarity.

Theoretical Discussion

The dominant discourse surrounding the 1982 massacre

and mass uprisings against the Syrian ruling elite in the

latter half of the twentieth century is largely sectarian-

based. The legitimacy of the perceived minority ruling elite

was questionable. With its control over the state and its

monopoly over the use of violence, the elite reacted in a

way to ensure its survival: in this case, it punished

dissidents and the civilians around them indiscriminately.

But how can we explain the brutality with which the regime

crushed its opposition? All governments, regardless of

regime type, try to prevent the occurrence of armed

resistance, but the degree of coerciveness they use to

achieve this varies. Elites try to remain dominant, but when

faced with insurrection, there are some who choose to

respond to mass uprisings through mass killings while others

avoid this. How do we explain this discrepancy?

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The level of violence in a conflict, Lindsay Heger and

Idean Salehyan (2007) argue, is not an unfortunate by-

product of war, but “a strategic choice made by elites” (emphasis in

original, 386). They argue that as the size of the ruling

elite decreases, the severity of the civil conflict will

increase since “government leaders are less constrained in

their ability to use force and members of the ruling cohort

are more likely to go along with campaigns of repression”

(Heger and Salehyan 2007, 386). If support for the regime

comes from a small segment of society, the private benefits

each supporter receives will probably be bigger, meaning

more is at stake if the ruling elite is overthrown. Thus

that small segment of supporters will do whatever is

necessary to keep the elite in power, including using

unconstrained violence to crush a rebellion (Buhaug,

Cederman, and Rød 2008; Cederman and Girardin 2007; Heger

and Salehyan 2007).

Conceptual Clarification

There are a few concepts that are important to

conceptualize for this study. The lack of solidarity between

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the ruling elite in Syria and its people is of utmost

importance for this research. Juliet Hooker (2009) defines

solidarity as “the reciprocal relations of trust and

obligation established between members of a political

community that are necessary in order for long-term

egalitarian political projects to flourish” (4). Although

Hooker uses this definition mostly for democratic

countries,6 she notes that even non-democratic states may be

able to achieve solidarity, in which citizens recognize that

they have to live with others and treat them with fairness,

reciprocity and mutual respect. Factors such as racial,

ethnic, sectarian and cultural diversity can make solidarity

difficult to achieve as will be seen in the Hama case.

Because of the lack of solidarity due to social cleavages

and the rule of a minority, the majority was largely

politically excluded, and this led to political unrest that

resulted in civil conflict.

6 For her book, Hooker refers specifically to racial solidarity and how the lack of such solidarity poses a challenge to social and racial justice.

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To understand the lack of solidarity between the

disparate groups in Syria, I will utilize Rogers Brubaker’s

(2004) definition of “groupness”. Brubaker criticizes

scholars’ almost automatic use of groups (ethnic, cultural,

racial, etc.) as truths, as unquestionable units of

analysis. We need to break away, he writes, from the banal

explanation that ethnic conflict involves conflict between

ethnic groups. Even if participants regularly do represent

ethnic conflict in such terms, analysts should not do so as

well. We need to approach these terms with a critical eye;

we need to realize that there is a group, “ethnopolitical

entrepreneurs”, who is in the business of reifying groups.

These reified groups then may or may not come to life. We

should be careful to scrutinize these categories and not

necessarily reinforce them. He instead proposes that we do

not analyze “groups” but “groupness”, which would help us

account for “phases of extraordinary cohesion and moments of

intensely felt collective solidarity, without implicitly

treating high levels of groupness as constant, enduring, or

definitionally present” (Brubaker 2004, 12). Groupness is

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thus an event that happens. This is of dire importance for

this paper since oftentimes, the line between class and

sectarian groups in Syria is blurred.7

Much of the literature examined here thus tends to

conflate ethno-cultural, ethno-national and sectarian

conflicts, which makes for a confusing analysis. Conflicts

generally occur for various reasons, but mainly the “source

of dispute arises from at least one object of contention

among two or more groups” (Conteh-Morgan 2004, 193). This

object of contention can be political, economic or social

discrimination against one group, competition over limited

resources or a mixture of both. Central to conflict are

issues of identity. Primordialists emphasize culture,

biological drives and ties, or reverence to ancestors. Their

approach to identity focuses on the psychological

motivations of ethnic identity. Instrumentalists, on the

other hand, contend that ethnic identities are formed and

re-formed on a regular basis. Ethnic elites are the ones who

7 For example, Alawis did not always support the (mostly Alawi) ruling elite, and some Sunni Muslims (especially farmers) supported the Alawi regime (Leverett 2005).

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influence the nature of ethnic identities. In pursuit of

their goals, elites may redefine non-ethnic issues in ethnic

terms to mobilize and garner support (Conteh-Morgan 2004,

197-8). Brubaker falls into the instrumentalist camp with

his concept of “groupness”. His analysis as well as that of

instrumentalists heavily influence this paper, which will

ultimately show that the delineation of such groups (ethno-

cultural, ethno-national and sectarian) is rather difficult

to achieve in the case of Syria. Allegiances are not

centered only around ethnic, religious or primordial

identities, but on many other factors like economic, class,

tribal and ideological ties.

Legitimacy is yet another important concept to this

paper. The term is undoubtedly one that is difficult to

define. Lynn White (2005) writes that one standard

definition of legitimacy is “the belief in the rightness of

the state… so that commands are obeyed not simply out of

fear or self-interest [but] because subjects believe that

they ought to obey” (1). There is, therefore, a sense of

willingness to obey on the part of the people. They do not

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obey out of fear of repercussion for disobedience but

because they believe in the wisdom of their leaders or the

fairness of their policies. Elites, too, perform with more

confidence when they feel they are legitimate rulers (White

2008). The Syrian ruling elite’s legitimacy was called into

question with the Hama Massacre. Its use of violence to

repress those who rebelled was indicative of how

illegitimate the people of Hama saw the regime.

In their study of civil political conflict,8 Halvard

Buhaug, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Jan Ketil Rød (2009), argue

that political exclusion of a powerful ethnic group will

most likely give rise to political dissidence. In its

efforts to curb the power of such threatening contenders,

the ruling elite will use repression. The ultimate problem

those in power face in such a situation is lack of

legitimacy. If there is no “ethnic representativity” and the

government suppresses the majority, “mass mobilization

leading to a dramatic shift in the ethnic balance of power

may provoke conflict” (Buhaug, Cederman, and Rød 2009, 502).

8 Their research is specifically about ethno-nationalist civil war.

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The more excluded the dominant demographic ethnic groups are

from state power, the more likely there will be violent

attempts to overcome these imbalances. When these imbalances

are present, there will be grievances along ethnic lines,

which may in turn lead to the eruption of political violence

(Cederman and Girardin 2007). Likewise, any majority that is

excluded and disenfranchised will likely use violent means

to usurp the minority ruling over them.

This paper ultimately aims to find the causal

mechanisms behind the brutality of the Assad regime in

dealing with the insurrectionists in Hama. To prove the

hypothesis then, I will need to show that there was a lack

of solidarity between the people and the minority ruling

elite.9 Because of this gap, several political opposition

groups began to emerge to protest and challenge the

government and its ideologies. One of these groups was the

9 One possible challenge will be the conflation of the terms ruling elite (a group) and regime (a state actor). Essentially, the paper raises questions about lack of solidarity between the minority ruling elite and the majority it rules over. But using those two terms interchangeably might appear to the reader as if I am analyzing two different units of analysis, when in fact, the two overlap greatly and are inseparable. This is where Brubaker’s (2004) concept of “groupness” will be most instructional.

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Muslim Brotherhood, who did not approve of the government’s

secular and disenfranchising politics. In its bid to crush

their rebellion in Hama, the Assad regime besieged and

attacked the entire city.

Historical Background

In Syria, widening social disparities and widespread

poverty made way for several successful conservative coups

and military dictatorships between 1949 and 1954 (Leverett

2005). The various ruling elites attempted to create

national solidarity among the people, but their attempts

ultimately failed (Ma’oz 1999, 61). With independence came

the appearance of ideological political parties to rival,

and eventually supplant, the parties of the traditional

Sunni elite. Some, like the Baath Party, were secular. It

was also around this time that the Islamic organization, the

Muslim Brotherhood,10 emerged, in alliance with city Sunni

elites, to counter these secular forces (King 2009).

Baath Support Base

10 The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was politically active, taking part in most elections from 1945 to 1963 (Weismann 2010).

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The Baath tried to widen its support base by appealing

to people of various backgrounds. It tried to align itself

with the peasants who were disenfranchised by the landed

elites and with other minority groups in Syria who were

hungry for Arab independence and social revolution. Alwais’

standard of living improved under Baathist rule in

comparison with when the Sunni aristocrats were in power

(King 2009).

Simultaneously, since the traditional elite generally

avoided military service, which they saw as a duty for their

social inferiors to fulfill, the army became noticeably

Alawi.11 This, King (2009) argues, proved to be a “fatal

mistake” for the landed Sunni elite’s rule (40). The Baath

ultimately became the hegemonic power in Syria. In 1963 when

the Baathists took over the military and state apparatus,

they outlawed all other political parties (King 2009, 39).

The ruling coalition thus included a notable top stratum of

11 When Syria was still a French mandate, France encouraged Alawis to join the Troupes Spéciales as part of its effort to favor religious and ethnic minorities over the Sunni majority. Alawis consequently made up 25 percent of all soldiers in the Troupe (Ma’oz 1988, 29). Several scholars argue that France augmented the sectarian differences in Syria in a tacit divide-and-conquer policy (Ma’oz 1988; Van Dam 2011, 4).

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senior Alawi military and other Alawis in state management

positions, and had the support of various strata of the

society (King 2009).

One way single-party authoritarian regimes threatened

by organized opposition ensure durability of their rule is

by building party institutions that are so effective as to

mobilize their constituencies. Few regimes on earth, writes

King (2009), “faced more powerful organized opposition than

the Syrian Ba’thists of the 1960s” (59). In order to prevent

any further incursions from oppositional forces, the

Baathists made sure their party was strong regionally as it

was nationally. The regime also made sure to reach out to

and collaborate with labor unions and peasants. The party

included privileges for women and even had a compulsory wing

for schoolchildren aged six through eleven to join. Hafiz

al-Assad was, by this time, in charge of also making the

military a Baath monopoly, one based on Baathist ideology,

in order to avoid factionalism and instability in the

important institution (King 2009; Dahi and Munif 2012). In a

bid to weaken their landed aristocrat opponents, the

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Baathists enacted land reforms that gave peasants more land,

offsetting the power of the Sunni landowners and urban elite

(King 2009).

Hafiz al-Assad’s Reforms

Flynt Leverett (2005) argues that it was only with

Hafiz al-Assad’s12 ascension to power in 1970 that Syria

became politically stable, and he attributes this to al-

Assad’s “successful consolidation and exercise of control

over key levels of power” and his construction of a solid

base sufficiently broad enough to help him maintain his

control (Leverett 2005, 23). Al-Assad used the secular Baath

Party for popular incorporation, while also appealing to

other mass organizations like labor and peasant unions, and

youth organizations, among others. He also made sure to

create an “army-party symbiosis,” ensuring the military’s

support for his regime. Much like his predecessors, al-Assad

did not take kindly to political opposition and made sure to

set up a coercive police state apparatus to put down any

threat to the regime (Leverett 2005). He initially sought to

12 Hafiz al-Assad is from the minority Alawi community in Syria.

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reform the country’s political institutions, policies and

ruling coalitions, and, in that way, broke away from the

system of his predecessors who were devoted to a purely

socialist revolution, populist policies and ending the

landed elite’s monopoly over political and economic power.

In efforts to widen his base of support, al-Assad tried to

bring the elite and bourgeoisie back in through establishing

alliances with them and brought popular organizations such

as trade and peasant unions under state control. He even

allowed the elites to run for positions in parliament as

independent candidates (King 2009, 84- 85).

He thus tried to mend the Baath’s damaged relations

with the Islamic forces in the country. He needed the Sunni

coalition to be on his side, just as he needed Alawi

supporters. His attempts ultimately failed, and militant

offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood mounted a violent

struggle against his regime, attempting to topple him and

establish an Islamic state. From 1976 to 1982, these

Islamist groups waged a militant campaign against his regime

(Zisser 2005). Al-Assad thus began to repress the

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oppositional groups that formed in response to his regime’s

secular rhetoric and ideology (Haugbolle 2008).

The Baath’s secularism did, however, attract many Alawi

politicians. Le Gac (1991) portrays Hafiz as a rational

actor, one who was not necessarily interested in favoring

the Alawis who affiliated with his party, but one who knew

that they would serve him better than other Syrians. In this

regard, contrary to what people think, the Alawi community

paid a hefty price to the regime, like all other communities

in the country.13 The Alawis were in no way a homogenous

group. They were, in fact, rural tribes and clans, some of

whom disapproved of al-Assad’s politics (Le Gac 1991, 22).

Fabrice Balanche (2006) demonstrates that al-Assad’s own

Alawi community did not always stand by him and his regime.

There were long-standing political cleavages and clan

affiliations within the sect. When the Muslim Brotherhood

revolted from 1979 to 1982, the Alawi community supported

al-Assad, not because of feelings of solidarity but because

13 Alawi favoritism was not absolute, but one could argue that “the domination of the commanding heights by an ‘Alawi clique has soured group relations in the country and detracted from the development of a secular and integrated society” (Syria Unmasked 1991, 94).

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they felt that they were in danger. Al-Assad would often

remind the Alawis what they would lose if he were no longer

in power (Balanche 2006).

Whether this fear was justified or not, it was what

gave Alawis a fleeting sense of groupness (Balanche 2006).

The argument Balanche makes is that al-Assad used this sense

of solidarity, of community, to mobilize the Alawis when he

needed their support. In return for their loyalty, al-Assad

gave his Alawi “clients” economic benefits and even jobs in

the government sector (Balanche 2006; Burgat 2013; Heger and

Salehyan 2007). But al-Assad could not depend solely on an

Alawi base. His closest political associates—his prime

minister, defense minister, foreign minister, personal

bodyguard, etc.—were all non-Alawi. He did, however, rely on

the Alawi community “for security of tenure and ultimate

survival” (Seale 1989, 177).

Raymond Hinnebusch and Volker Perthes suggest that

Baathist policies were, in fact, for the benefit of certain

classes and favored the rural over the urban masses. Al-

Assad and the Baath, they argued, did not necessarily rule

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along sectarian lines (King 2009, 64). Al-Assad’s social

base did not consist of only Alawis, but of Sunni farmers

who benefited from land reform policies his government

passed, and people from the religious minorities who found

the secularist orientation of the party appealing. The main

opposition came from the Sunni establishment, namely the

landed aristocratic elite and ulama (religious scholars),

who eventually allied themselves with the Muslim Brotherhood

(Friedman 1999, 78; Leverett 2005). Hanna Batatu also

confirms the rural and Alawi identity of the Syrian ruling

elite, but downplays the extent to which sectarian

differences motivated the regime (King 2009, 64). In the

same vein, the Sunni middle class did not always side with

the Islamist opposition to the Assad regime. Some were

liberal-minded and did not subscribe to the Islamic ideology

of the Muslim Brotherhood (Hinnebusch 2002, 93).

Origins of Political Instability

Since the regime outmaneuvered the landed Sunni

aristocracy, there was a clear class dimension to the

struggle between the regime and its political opponents.

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Sunni Muslim dissatisfaction with the alienation they

experienced at the hand of the Baathists coupled with the

regime’s bid to secularize the country ultimately led to a

lack of solidarity and thus political strife. Even secular

groups such as labor unions, professional associations and

intellectuals protested the government’s repressive methods

and urged the regime to implement democratic reforms that

would prevent sectarian clashes and the “Lebanonization” of

Syria (Haugbolle 2008).

King (2009) argues that the level of coerciveness

authoritarian regimes use to deal with their opposition

offers insight into their legitimacy. Since the Baath Party

resorted to coercion on numerous occasions, its legitimacy,

by this token, was questionable. The Muslim Brotherhood was

one of the main oppositional groups that the Baathists had

to contend with. The organization mainly opposed the Baath’s

secularism and pan-Arab rather than Pan-Islamic orientation.

Confrontations between the two political opponents began as

early as 1964, starting in Hama, a conservative city

dominated by the landed elites. In the spring of 1964,

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nationwide uprisings against the Baath’s secular policies

took place. In Hama, the government summoned the National

Guard to “battle the city’s Muslim Brothers who were

barricaded with arm supplies” in a mosque. The regime

subsequently shelled the mosque and killed some seventy

Muslim Brothers. But these events led the ruling elite to

realize that there were some underground Islamist movements

that aimed to topple the regime (King 2009, 65- 66; Seale

1989, 94). A branch of these movements became militant

(named itself al-Tali`a),14 attacking Baath Party members and

officials in the street, even assassinating some. The MB

subsequently denounced the militia’s actions and denied any

affiliation to the group (Hama ’82, 2013).

Hasan Hasanayn (2007) argues that sectarian conflicts

did not take place in Syria before al-Assad came to power.

Prior to his rule, the differences between the Baathists and

the Islamists were purely ideological. By the time al-Assad

14 Raphael Lefevre (2013) is one of the few scholars who makes a distinction between the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and its militant offshoot, al-Tali`a (the Fighting Vanguard), which was committing most of the assassinations and used violence against state officials. See also Hama ’82 (2013).

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became president, however, Alawis, Hasanayn claims, ruled

the country and stripped the majority Sunni population of

many of their rights. The Sunni population started to resist

the regime’s oppressive rule, and it was then that the

regime claimed that Sunni Muslims were trying to instigate

sectarian strife against the Alawi regime. Often, al-Assad’s

regime would claim that the violent repression of such

uprisings was an attempt to rid the country of terrorist

elements.15 Hasanayn (2007) argues that the repression

affected not only the Sunni population but also Druze,

Kurds, Christians, among other minorities (Hasanayn 2007,

62). The Baath Party had a strong rural bias and socialist

policies that, by the 1970s, alienated large parts of the

Syrian population (Lefevre 2013, 84).

Thus tension rose between the secular elite and the

Islamists in the late 1970s and early 1980s,16 when Islamist

15 After the attempt to assassinate him failed, Hafiz al-Assad wanted toget rid of all Islamist groups, banning their existence completely. In fact, being a member of an Islamist movement was punishable by death (Hasanayn 2007, 53; Hinnebusch 2002, 96; King 2009, 129; Syria Unmasked 1991, 35).16 People in Hama revolted in 1964, as soon as the Baathist Party came to power, and the regime brutally crushed their rebellion (Hama ’82, 2013).

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groups “accelerated assassinations and mounted urban

demonstrations and attacks against Alawis, Ba’thists,

military and police figures, and some civilians” (Hinnebusch

2002; King 2009, 85, Leverett 2005).17 In 1980, an assailant

attempted to kill Hafiz al-Assad, and in retaliation,

Hafiz’s brother Rif`at al-Assad, headed to a prison in

Tadmur (Palmyra) and killed four to six hundred Muslim

Brothers in their prison cells. Two years later, the

government laid siege to the conservative city of Hama for

three weeks, killing thousands and completely isolating the

city from the rest of the country, the media and thus the

rest of the world (Friedman 1990; Hama ’82, 2013; Haugbolle

2008). The brutal suppression of the uprising was “the

defining moment for the domestic standing of Hafiz al-Asad’s

presidency” (Leverett 2005, 35). Some scholars (Quilliam

17 The US Defense Intelligence Agency (1982) reported that the Muslim Brotherhood, encouraged by Islamic uprisings in Iran in 1979, decided totopple the Syrian government in the same vein. For two years, the MuslimBrotherhood engaged in fighting with the government, but by the summer of 1980, al-Assad managed to break “the back of the Muslim Brotherhood challenge” (vii). By 1981, members of the Muslim Brotherhood managed, inexile, to plan countryside rebellions to overthrow the government. The Assad government caught wind of this and began to become more repressiveagainst dissidents. That is what led up to the insurrection in 1982 and the subsequent military attack on the entire city of Hama (US DIA 1982).

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1999) argue that this coercion was the only way that al-

Assad could reclaim Hama from the Muslim Brotherhood and put

an end to their resistance, which had lasted for almost two

decades.18

What happened in Hama in February 1982 symbolized the

deep divisions within Syria, the lack of solidarity and the

detachment and illegitimacy of the ruling elite. Thomas

Friedman (1999) writes that Hama “has always been a Sunni

town known for its piety” (77). It is also known for being a

“hothouse” for conservative Muslim fundamentalist

organizations whose members opposed the secular Syrian

government. They posed an obvious threat to Hafiz al-Assad,

and he decided to get rid of them once and for all. On

February 2, 1982, soldiers from the Syrian army started

moving into the city with a list of names of Muslim Brothers

they were to assassinate or capture. Members of the Muslim

Brotherhood were expecting the soldiers and began to shoot

them down on sight. A series of skirmishes between the two

18 Seale (1989) wrote that Hafiz al-Assad’s brother, Rif`at al-Assad, had told him that he was ready to fight “a hundred wars, demolish a million strongholds, and sacrifice a million martyrs” in order to defeatthe Muslim Brotherhood (327).

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forces broke out in the middle of the night, and Muslim

Brothers were called to drive the “unbelievers” out of Hama.

More soldiers came into the city to crush the rebellion

(Friedman 1999; Hama, Ma’satul-Asr 1984; Seale 1989; Syria

Unmasked 1991). They cut off communications within the city

to prevent the Muslim Brothers from reaching one another.

According to accounts by the Muslim Brothers, the tanks

began rolling into the city, as the soldiers started firing

indiscriminately at homes and random buildings (Hama,

Ma’satul-Asr 1984).

Why did al-Assad not try to negotiate with the

insurrectionists rather than kill civilians in Hama

indiscriminately? Friedman (1999) describes three factors

that explain why the regime could not afford to negotiate:

the Alawi community’s tribalism, al-Assad’s authoritarianism

and the regime’s modernization policies. The first speaks to

the issue of lack of solidarity. Alawis had strong tribal

ties and rural roots. Al-Assad and the minority ruling elite

felt that if Sunni Muslims in Hama were able to take over

the city, this would set a dangerous precedent for other

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Syrian cities where Sunnis were dominant and would endanger

the lives of Alawis in those cities. Al-Assad meant for Hama

to serve as an example for anyone who ever dared oppose him

in a similar manner. On some level, Friedman (1999) writes,

“Assad did not see the Sunni Muslim residents of Hama as

part of his nation, or as fellow citizens. He saw them as

members of an alien tribe” (91). Al-Assad’s

authoritarianism, his ability to rule single-handedly

without accountability, delegitimized his rule. The only way

he was able to control those he ruled over was by using

force and intelligence agencies (Friedman 1999, 96).

Friedman’s final factor relates legitimacy to al-Assad’s

secular modernization policies. Al-Assad’s projects were

meant to garner popular support. But when the Islamists

opposed him for his secularization policies, they

essentially undermined his efforts to gain legitimacy and

support (Friedman 1999). Al-Assad annihilated a group he

felt no affinity to, one that undermined him and ultimately

posed a threat to the ruling elite.

Analysis

Amin 27

Nicholas Van Dam views the period of turmoil in Syria,

from the 1970s to the 1980s, in the framework of sectarian

conflict between the Sunni-Alawi elites and the urban-rural

conflicts of interest. Al-Assad’s secular rhetoric ignited

the sectarian flames. But, ultimately, the conflict had an

important social dimension (Haugbolle 2008). When the Baath

came to power in 1963, it essentially challenged the

dominant elite, the Sunni landowners and bourgeois families.

Then when al-Assad became president in 1970, he pushed for

the secularization of the country. In 1973, he passed a

constitution, which got rid of Syria’s Islamic identity,

angering many (Haugbolle 2008; US DIA 1982). Religious

Sunnis around the country, but especially in the

conservative city of Hama, started protesting, many times

with the help and support of the ulama. The Muslim

Brotherhood and other Islamist groups became “focal points

for Sunni dissatisfaction with Asad’s Alawi-led rule”

(Haugbolle 2008, 266). They, along with the urban poor and

Sunni middle class who were either alienated or economically

hurt by the regime’s secularization, Westernization and

Amin 28

modernization policies, began to oppose the Assad regime and

all it stood for. Friedman (1999) writes that in 1979 and

1980, barely a week passed without a bomb going off in a

Syrian government office or Soviet Aeroflot office. Assad

responded in kind, detaining and killing prominent mosque

preachers and subduing political dissidents (Friedman 1999,

78).

But trade unionists, leftist party members, lawyers,

artists and intellectuals soon joined the protests. They

pushed for democratic reform, hoping to avoid civil war and

the further fragmentation of Syria. What happened in those

fateful years between 1970 and 1989 can be seen as the

failure of democratic resistance against al-Assad’s

authoritarian rule but also the crisis brought about by his

secularization policies. But neither the Islamist nor the

democratic agendas succeeded. Instead, the army shelled the

entire city of Hama and thousands of political opposition

members subsequently ended up in prison or in exile

(Haugbolle 2008).

Conclusion

Amin 29

It becomes apparent from the brief look at Syria’s

contemporary history that the country has always been deeply

divided. During French colonialism and after independence,

people in Syria were still divided across ethnic, sectarian

and class lines. While Syria was a French mandate, the

politically and financially influential Sunni elite was

dominant and, according to some scholars, marginalized the

minorities in the region. After independence, Syria

underwent a series of political upheavals. During that time,

however, the secularist Baath Party was making strides,

forming alliances, and gaining followers, but also making

enemies. By the time al-Assad came to power in 1970, the

military and the security apparatus were under the Baath’s

control.19 Slowly but surely, the influence of the landed

Sunni elite began to wane as the Baathists solidified their

control over the government and its institutions. One ruling

elite, the secular Baathists, replaced another, the Sunni

19 Al-Assad made sure to include low-class Sunni Muslims in the army to win their allegiance. He often marginalized higher-ranking Sunni officers, however, for fear of an internal coup. Under his reign, Alawismade up about 60 percent of the entire officer corps (Ma’oz 1988, 62-65).

Amin 30

aristocracy. Hinnebusch (2002) thus argues that the tensions

were a hybrid of class, group and urban-rural issues: “a mix

of attempted revenge by old class enemies of the Plebian-

dominated Ba`thist state, disaffection by newly marginalized

groups, and a sectarian war stimulated by unequal access to

the public font of rent and patronage” (94).

It is tempting to portray this story as one of tension

between religious sects. But in this case, it is, in fact,

difficult to delineate the religious and class conflict

theories. They are essentially intertwined. The Baath Party

was not strictly Alawi, and Sunni farmers, laborers, women

and other sectors of society who gained from the Baath

joined its ranks. Even Hafiz al-Assad’s closest officials

were non-Alawi. Additionally, not all Alawis sided with al-

Assad. Here, Brubaker’s concept of groupness is

instructional. Although sectarian differences were quite

visible in the country and there was no solidarity, there

were fleeting “extraordinary cohesion and moments of

intensely felt collective solidarity” between these

disparate groups. Likewise, Lefevre (2013) points out that

Amin 31

the Islamists who opposed the state tried to portray their

opposition in sectarian terms in order to garner the support

of most or all Sunni Muslims. In this case, we can also say

that these Islamists played the role of Brubaker’s

“ethnopolitical entrepreneurs”, reifying groupness in a way

that was not necessarily accurate but a way of creating a

moment of solidarity. Hasanayn (2007) also makes the claim

that the Baath had portrayed the regime’s struggle against

the Muslim Brotherhood as a sectarian one in order to garner

support from various groups within the country.

Ultimately, the case of Hama demonstrates that when a

minority ruling elite with limited legitimacy feels

threatened, it will use whatever means necessary to stay in

power. Because the minority ruling elite does not see the

majority it rules as a part of it or as its citizens, it

will not hesitate to use violence like leveling a complete

city to get rid of its opposition. Hama was a particularly

conservative city in which Islamists continually expressed

their disenchantment with the secular Assad regime. But what

al-Assad did to the city was meant to serve as a warning to

Amin 32

anyone who thought to oppose the elite in such a way,

Islamist or otherwise.

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