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The Social Origins of Popular Nationalism in Syria: Evidence for a New Framework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

James L. Gelvin
James L. Gelvin
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor with the History Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Building E-51, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
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Extract

In his Interpreting the French Revolution, François Furet defines political sociability as the “specific mode of organizing the relations between citizens (or subjects) and power, as well as among citizens (or subjects) themselves in relation to power.” According to Furet, shifts from one form of political sociability to another can and do take place, particularly during periods of comprehensive economic, political, and social change. One such period preceded the events of 1789 when, as an unintended consequence of state building and economic development under the ancien régime, a democratic/horizontal political sociability increasingly replaced the hierarchic/ vertical political sociability that had previously ordered French society.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , November 1994 , pp. 645 - 661
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

NOTES

1 Furet, François, Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge, 1981), 37–38Google Scholar.

2 In the present context and throughout the article, unless otherwise indicated the name Syria refers to the area that includes contemporary Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and western Iraq.

3 Hourani, Albert, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,” in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Polk, William R. and Chambers, Richard L. (Chicago, 1968), 41–68Google Scholar.

4 See inter alia, Khoury, Philip S., Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860–1920 (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Owen, Roger, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800–1914 (London, 1981), 153–79, 244–72Google Scholar; Schilcher, Linda Schatkowski, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the 18th and 19th Century (Stuttgart, 1985), 60–86Google Scholar.

5 See for example, Stewart, Angus, “The Social Roots,” in Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteristics, ed. Ionescu, Ghita and Gellner, Ernest (London, 1969), 187Google Scholar.

6 For a detailed description of the activities of the Arab government, see Russell, Malcolm, The First Modern Arab State: Syria under Faysal, 1918–1920 (Minneapolis, Minn., 1985)Google Scholar.

7 Archives diplomatiques, Nantes (hereafter AD) 2326/Dossier du Hedjaz. “Extraits de la letter 94M…,” 16 04 1919Google Scholar; India Office, London (hereafter IO) Curzon Papers Fl 12/265. 27(?) 11 1918; AD 2368/Dossier 10Google Scholar. Cousse to Haut Commissionaire, 9 01 1919Google Scholar; Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris (hereafter MAE) L:SL/Vol. 15/324. Picot to Pichon, 18 07 1919Google Scholar; IO L/PS/ 10/801 P5464/10333. Political Officer, Baghdad to 10, 3 09 1919Google Scholar; AD 2358/ Dossier Emir Fayçal. “Mystification cherifienne,” 13 09 1919Google Scholar; MAE L:AH/Vol. 7/1429–30. Picot to MAE, 29 10 1919Google Scholar; IO L/PS/10/802. Gertrude Bell, “Syria in October 1919,” 15 11 1919Google Scholar; Ministère de la Défense, Vincennes (hereafter MD) 4H114/Dossier 2/132. Cousse to Gouraud, 19 02 1920Google Scholar; Foreign Office, London (hereafter FO) 371/5129/E5005. “Précis of an Interview…,” 10 03 1920Google Scholar.

8 FO 371/3412/177154/3222. Clayton to FO, 22 10 1918Google Scholar; MAE L:SL/Vol. 78/1586. Paul Cambon, 28 11 1918Google Scholar; al-ʿĀṣima, 26 04 1919Google Scholar, 7–8; FO 371/4228/111406. Balfour to Curzon, 21 07 1919Google Scholar; FO 371/4228/156929/501. Meinertzhagen to FO, 25 11 1919Google Scholar; MD 4H114/Dossier 2/261. Cousse to Gouraud, 3 04 1920Google Scholar; MD 4H112/Dossier 2B/25. “Renseignements du 24 au 30 Avril (1920)”; MD 4H58/Dossier 1. “Rapport Hebdomadaire 11–18 Déicembre (1919)” War Office, London (hereafter WO) 106/196/663G. GHQ (Egypt) to WO, 7 06 1920Google Scholar.

9 ūriyya al-jadīda, 27 11 1919Google Scholar, 2; AD 2375/Chemise Division de Syrie, 1919–20/349/2. Lamothe to GCC, 6 01 1920Google Scholar; AD 2375/Chemise Division de Syrie, 1919–20/355/2. Arlabosse to GCC, 9 01 1920Google Scholar; al-Difāʿ, 13 01 1920, 2Google Scholar; WO 106/195/1845S. GHQ (Egypt) to DMI, 9 03 1920Google Scholar; AD 2374/1032. “Rapport,” 18 05 1920Google Scholar; AD 2358/444. Cousse to Haut Commissionaire, 24 05 1920Google Scholar; MD 4H58/Dossier 1. “Rapport Hebdomadaire: 1 au 7 juin (1920).”

10 See Russell, First Modern Arab State, 93–131Google Scholar.

11 Originally proposed by Woodrow Wilson, the King–Crane Commission was sent to Syria in the summer of 1919 to “elucidate the state of opinion” of Syrians with regard to Syria's future. Its findings were ignored by the French and British, and its final report was not published until 1922Google Scholar. Howard, See Harry N., The King-Crane Commission: An American Inquiry in the Middle East (Beirut, 1963)Google Scholar.

12 Mosse, George L., The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (New York, 1975), 2Google Scholar.

13 AlʿĀṣima, 15 09 1919, 4Google Scholar. See also al-ʿĀṣima, 4 11 1919, 3Google Scholar; al-ʿĀṣima, 15 11 1919, p. 4Google Scholar; al-Ḥakīm, Yūsuf, Dhikrāyat, vol. 3: Sūriyya wa-al-ʿahd al-Fayṣalī (Beirut, 1966), 123Google Scholar; AD 2344/C1/August-December 1919/305–6. Cousse, to Picot, , 31 10 1919; AD 2344/C1/August-December 1919/310Google Scholar. Cousse to Picot, 3 11 1919Google Scholar; AD 2344/Dossier E/l Service Militaire/50/ S.R. TEO Zone Ouest, 9 11 1919Google Scholar; United States National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter USNA) Aleppo Consulate RG84/Vol. 121/800. Jackson, to Bristol, , 9 02 1920Google Scholar.

14 Saʿīd, Amīn, al-Thawra al-ʿArabiyya al-kubrā (Cairo, 1934), 2:101–3Google Scholar; Salafiyya Library (hereafter SL); al-ʿĀṣima, 4 11 1919, p. 5Google Scholar. For a similar phenomenon in Hama, see al-ʿĀṣima, 13 11 1919, p. 6Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, all documents pertaining to the organization and activities of the Higher National Committee and the committees of national defense can be found in the Salafiyya Library in files marked “al-Lajna al-waṭaniyya” and “Lajna al-difāʿ.”

15 SL “Niẓām al-lajna al-waṭaniyya al-ʿulyā fī al-ʿāṣima al-Sūriyya,” 17 11 1919Google Scholar; “Niẓām al-lijān al-waṭaniyya al-farʿiyya fī bilād al-Sūriyya,” 17 11 1919Google Scholar.

16 Although records indicate that elections for local representatives were held in cities outside Damascus, such as Ajlun and Amman, it appears that no elections were held in the territories administered by the French or British, that is, in present-day Lebanon or Palestine. Al-ʿĀṣima, 18 11 1919, 3–4Google Scholar; Sūriyya al-jadīda, 27 11 1919, 1Google Scholar.

17 This particular affidavit was signed by over one hundred electors.

18 According to the newspaper al-Kawkab, “The [Higher National] Committee takes the place of the Syrian Congress in its services, nay, we can say that its services are more comprehensive because of the existence of permanent branches throughout all parts of Syria, from Aleppo to Kerak” al-Kawkab, 6 01 1920, p. 10Google Scholar.

19 SL “Niẓām al-lajna al-waṭaniyya al-ʿulyā fī al-ʿāṣima al-Sūriyya,” 17 11 1919Google Scholar.

20 See al-Kawkab, 6 01 1920, 10Google Scholar.

21 SL “Niẓām al-lijān al-waṭaniyya al-farʿiyya fī bilād al-Sūriyya,” 17 11 1919Google Scholar.

22 Darwaza, Muḥammad ʿIzzat, Mudhakkirāt wa-tasjīlāt (Damascus, 1984), 2:154Google Scholar.

23 Unpublished autobiographical manuscript found in Markaz al-wathāʿiq al-tārīkhiyya (Damascus) and the Salafiyya Library, 47–48Google Scholar.

24 See al-Ḥāfiẓ, Muḥammad Muṭīʿ and Abāẓa, Nizār, Tārīkh ʿulamāʾ: Dimashq fī al-qarn al-rābiʿʿcashar al-hijri (Damascus, 1986), 535Google Scholar.

25 This is, admittedly, a broad category that includes wealthy grain factors such as ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Sukkar and Asʿad al-Muhayini from the Maydan quarter as well as neighborhood retailers. As Philip S. Khoury has noted, one characteristic that united the wealthy “Muslim commercial bourgeoisie” with merchants further down the social ladder was the experience of a “traditional,” quarter-based education (as opposed to advanced training in Western or Ottoman professional schools). Khoury, notes that these classes actively participated in, but did not lead, the 1925 Great RevoltGoogle Scholar. Khoury, Philip S., Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945 (Princeton, 1987), 209Google Scholar.

26 It is interesting to compare these figures with those presented by C. Ernest Dawn for the participants in the prewar Arabist movement. According to Dawn, 67 percent of the members of Arabist groups whose backgrounds can be traced received “advanced” education, while 17 percent received “Western” education; 5 percent were scholars, 11 percent journalists, 22 percent professionals and 30 percent military officers. Dawn, C. Ernest, From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab Nationalism (Urbana, III., 1973), 177–78Google Scholar.

27 For more details on the qabaḍāyāt, see al-ʿAllāf, Aḥmad Ḥilmī, Dimashq fī maṭlaʿal-qarn alʿashrīn (Damascus, 1976), 244–45Google Scholar; Khoury, , Syria and the French Mandate, 302–3, 316–17Google Scholar. Three members of the administrative committee of the Higher National Committee, including its frequent president, Kamil al-Qassab, had relatives among the qabaḍāyāt in the quarters of ʿUqayba and the Maydan. See Gelvin, James L., “Popular Mobilization and the Foundations of Mass Politics in Syria, 1918–1920” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1992), 105, 128, 130Google Scholar.

28 Adhamal-Jundī, , Tārīkh al-thawrāt al-Sūriyya fī ʿahd al-intidāb al-faransī (Damascus, 1960), 160Google Scholar. Among the ulama and merchant ulama who organized military units, preached jihad against the French, assisted in organizing populist demonstrations, and/or fought at the Battle of Maysalun were Muhammad al-Ashmar, Saʿid al-Barhani, ʿAli Daqqar, Tawfiq al-Darra, Muhammad al-Fahl, Hamdi al-Juwajani, ʿAbd al-Hamid Karim, ʿAbd al-Qadir Kiwan, Yasin Kiwan, Muhammad al-Sharif al-Yaʿqubi, and Kamal al-Khatib. See al-Safarjalānī, Muḥyī al-Dīn, Fājʿat Maysalūn wa-al-baṭal al-ʿaẓīm Yūṣuf al-ʿAẓma (Damascus, 1937), 340Google Scholar; al-Ḥāfiẓ and Abāẓa, Tārīkh ʿulamāʾ Dimashq, 409, 420, 535, 540–42, 579–85, 588, 794–802, 878–91, 917, 963Google Scholar; al-Jundī, Tārīkh al-thawrāt, 170Google Scholar.

29 See Russell, , First Modern Arab State, 117–23Google Scholar.

30 Saʿīd, al-Thawra al-ʿArabiyya, 2:101–3Google Scholar; Wajīh al-Ḥaffār, “al-Ḥukamāt allatī taʿāqabat ʿalā al-ḥikm fi Sūriyya,” al-Shurṭa wa-al-amn al-ʿāmm 11:10Google Scholar; Farzat, Muḥammad Ḥarb, al-Ḥayāh al-ḥizbiyya fī Sūriyya (Damascus, 1955), 73–74Google Scholar.

31 SL MD 4H114/Dossier 4/493. Cousse to Haut Commissionaire, 4 June 1920; al-Kināna, 26 06 1920, 2Google Scholar.

32 SL Counselor to the Interior Ministry to al-Qassab, 18 04 1920Google Scholar.

33 AlʿĀṣima, 18 12 1919, 3–4Google Scholar; MD 4H112/Dossier 2B/2. “Rapport politique: Periode du 16 au 30 avril 1920” MD 4H112/Dossier 2B”51. “Renseignements,” 25 05 1920Google Scholar; MD 4H114/Dossier 4/483. Cousse to Gouraud, 3 06 1920Google Scholar; MAE L:SL/Vol. 33/125. Gouraud, 22 09 1920Google Scholar; al-Jundī, Tārīkh al-thawrāt, 76, 80Google Scholar.

34 Al Kawkab, 16 12 1919, 10Google Scholar; SL: head of Volunteer Unit of Machinegunners to presidency of the Higher National Committee, 20 12 1919Google Scholar; SL: al-Ayyubi to the Higher National Committee, 3 11 1919Google Scholar. Dāghir, Asʿad, Mudhakkirātī ʿalā hāmish al-qaḍiyya al-ʿArabiyya (Cairo, 1956), 118–20Google Scholar.

35 Al Jundī, , Tārīkh al-thawrāt, 74–76Google Scholar; Hindī, Iḥsān, Kifāḥ al-shaʿb al-ʿArabī al-Sūrī, 1908–1948 (Damascus, 1962), 70Google Scholar.

36 Al Jundī, , Tārīkh al-thawrāt, 62–63, 74–79Google Scholar; Bāshā, Jamīl Ibrāhīm, Niḍāl al-aḥrārfi sabīl al-istiqlāl (Aleppo, 1959), 6, 70Google Scholar.

37 Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (New York, 1987), 920–94Google Scholar.

38 MacRae, Donald, “Populism as an Ideology,” and Peter Wiles, “A Syndrome, Not a Doctrine: Some Elementary Theses on Populism,” in Ionescu and Gellner, Populism, 153–65, 166–79Google Scholar; Calhoun, Craig Jackson, –The Radicalism of Tradition: Community Strength or Venerable Disguise and Borrowed Language?,” American Journal of Sociology 88 (March 1983): 895CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See for example, the “Damascus Protocol” of May 1915 in Antonius, George, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (Beirut, 1938), 234Google Scholar.

40 As defined in countless speeches, newspaper columns, broadsheets, and leaflets, the “natural boundaries” of Syria enclosed the territory between the Taurus Mountains in the north; the Khabur and Euphrates Rivers in the east; the Arabian Desert, Meda-ʾin Salih, the Red Sea, the Aqaba–Rafah line in the south; and the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

41 Al Difāʿ, 13 01 1920, 1Google Scholar.

42 AlʿĀṣima, 23 09 1919, 1–2Google Scholar.

43 See for example, SL: “Niẓām al-lijān al-waṭaniyya al-farʿiyya fī bilād al-Sūriyya,” 17 11 1919Google Scholar.

44 Although commonly translated as classes, in this context the word more closely approximates estates.

45 Al ʿĀṣima, 17 11 1919, 1–2Google Scholar.

46 Al Kināna, 2 06 1920, 1–2Google Scholar.

47 The ideology of the Hijazis who had initiated the Arab Revolt was considerably different from that of Arab nationalists in Syria and was soon abandoned by the Arab government in Damascus. See Dawn, , From Ottomanism to Arabism, 69–86Google Scholar.

48 These counterpositions are particularly evident in issues of the official gazette of the Arab government, al-ʿĀṣima, and in the newspaper al-Kawkab, published before the populist groups emerged as a major force in Syrian politics. See al-ʿĀṣima: 7 May 1919, 1–2, 5–6; 16 June 1919, 3; 28 August 1919, 5–6; 16 October 1919, 1; 7 November 1919, 5; al-Kawkab: 5 August 1919, 6–7; 30 September 1919, 7–8; 21 October 1919, 7–8; 28 10 1919, 7–8Google Scholar.

49 For a statistical breakdown of slogans used in leaflets, see Gelvin, , “Popular Mobilization,” 459Google Scholar.

50 Tilly, Charles, The Contentious French (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tilly, Charles et al., The Rebellious Century: 1830–1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), 253–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Tilly, Charles, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, Mass., 1978), 170Google Scholar.

52 Hobsbawm, E. J., Pritimitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York, 1959), 1–12, 110Google Scholar.

53 Tilly, et al., Rebellious Century, 49–54, 253–54Google Scholar.

54 AD 2430. Cousse to Haut Commissionaire, 21 02 1919; al-ʿĀṣima, 7 May 1919, 5–6; 11 September 1919, 4–6Google Scholar.

55 Al-ʿĀṣima, 7 05 1919, 1–2Google Scholar.

56 Al-Kawkab, 27 01 1920, 5Google Scholar.

57 AD 2347/Dossier 12. Extraits du Bulletin quotidien du 12 avril 1920Google Scholar; MD 4H112/Dossier 2B/;215. Translation from al-Rāya, 14 04 1920Google Scholar; IO L/PS/10/802/P4953. Renseignements: semaine du 18 au 24 mai 1920; AD 2346. Extraits des renseignements du 19 mai 1920Google Scholar.

58 AD 2346/Dossier ClA. “Remembrance of the Syrian Independence Day: A Collection of Speeches and Poems Delivered on Independence Day,” published by the Arab Club of Aleppo (in Arabic).

59 For example, according to both Arab and British sources, over 100,000 people took part in a demonstration held on 17 01 1920Google Scholar; al-Kawkab, 27 01 1920, 5Google Scholar; FO 371/5144/E360; “Letter of Proceedings #59,” Egypt and Red Sea Command, 30 01 1920Google Scholar.

60 See AD 2372: Propagande anti-française, 17 01 1920Google Scholar.

61 AD 2430/325–6. Cousse to Haut Commissionaire, 10 11 1919Google Scholar; FO 371/4185/152060/1.707S. GHQ (Egypt) to DMI, 11 11 1919Google Scholar; FO 371/4238/160100. Admiralty Report, 14 11 1919Google Scholar.

62 MD 4H114/Dossier 2/37. Cousse to Gouraud, 17 01 1920Google Scholar.

63 Khoury, Urban Notables, 67–68Google Scholar; see also Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism; Dawn, C. Ernest, “The Origins of Arab Nationalism,” and Rashid Khalidi, “Ottomanism and Arabism in Syria Before 1914: A Reassessment,” in The Origins of Arab Nationalism, ed. Khalidi, Rashid et al. (New York, 1991), 3–30, 50–72Google Scholar; Hourani, Albert, “The Arab Awakening Forty Years Later,” in The Emergence of the Modern Middle East, ed. Hourani, A. (Berkeley, 1981), 201–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Haim, Sylvia G., Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley, 1962), ixGoogle Scholar.